Japanese is a language spoken by over 127 million people, mainly in Japan, but also by Japanese communities around the world. The Japanese vocabulary has been heavily influenced by loans from other languages. A vast number of words were borrowed from Chinese over a period of at least 1,500 years. Since the late 19th century, Japanese has borrowed a considerable number of words from Western languages, primarily English. Unlike most western languages, Japanese has an extensive grammatical system to express politeness and formality. |
