Characteristics of Japanese Words

There are three different categories of words in the Japanese language. The largest category is made up of traditional Japanese words. The next largest group belongs to words borrowed from China through their long mutual history. The smallest group, though the fastest growing and possibly of the greatest concern, are the words borrowed from modern western languages (especially American English). To a much smaller extent, the third group also contains words borrowed from other Asian languages (besides China). Research has shown that each group's appearance depends greatly upon the type of written material. In a magazine for example, Japanese words will comprise more than half of the content, Chinese words will make up about 40%, and the rest are the recently acquired words from western languages. Conversely, in newspapers, the Japanese/ Chinese ratio is reversed with words of Chinese origin outweighing native Japanese words.

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