People and Language of Japan

Origins of Japanese Ethnic Groups

Japanese people, the ethnic group native of the country, covers 98,5% of the whole population (of a total of 129 million). Historians believe that Japanese people originated from the Jōmon people, hunter-gatherers with a primitive form of agriculture. Around 300 BC, the Yayoi people intermingled with the inhabitants of Japan, bringing along advanced technology. 

Religion

The native religion of Japan is Shinto, which has always been characterized by a persistent syncretism with the other main Japanese religion, Zen Buddhism. A polytheistic religion with no scriptures, Shinto was the basisto the throne of the Imperial family. Buddhism, on the other side, originated in India and reached Japan around the 6th century.

Nowadays, the vast majority of Japanese people profess a religion that is a mixture of both Shinto and Buddhism and it is mostly seen as the basis of Japanese mythology and folklore.

Traditional Arts

The earliest example of Japanese art was heavily influenced by Chinese Confucianism and Buddhism. Calligraphy, sculpture, and painting all flourished, especially during the Nara period (8th century).

With time, Japanese art emancipated itself from Chinese influence.For example, during the Muromachi period (14th century), Zen Buddhism played an important role in the development of ink wash painting. Woodblock painting and pottery were further developed, and the noh and kabuki theatre became more and more important.

After the Meiji restoration, western art has been adopted and modified by Japan, giving it a "Japanese" feeling, thus creating a wide range of art that spans from traditional Japanese forms to more westernized works of art.

Pronunciation

Learning Japanese pronunciation is not difficult.Vowels are always pure (no diphthongs), and accents, even if present, are not a big problem to leaners, as they can be in Chinese. However, a problem can come from the many homonyms, words that sound the same but have different meanings.

Levels of Speech

Politeness and formality are extremely important in the Japanese language. In everyday life, differences in social position come from age, job, experience, etc. The person in the lower position will use the polite form of speech, while the other one will use the plain form. If you don't know someone, you will speak to him/her a in a polite way.

We can distinguish three levels: teineigo (polite language), sonkeigo (respectful language), and kenjogo (humble language). Kenjogo is used mostly to talk about oneself, while teineigo is used when talking about the interlocutor. Generally speaking, teineigo is used in formal occasions, and sonkeigo when talking to someone in a higher position.

Politeness is used to indicate a lack of familiarity.The more you get to know someone, the less you will use polite forms, no matter what your age, social status or job is.

To make a noun polite, it is usually enough to ad o- or go- as a prefix. In some cases, these prefixes are now part of the word (ex: gohan "cooked rice"), to indicate deference towards the object indicated by the noun.

Kanji

Japanese uses three scripts: kanji, hiragana, and katakana. Kanji is the older one, and the two other derived from this one. Kanji (from hanzi, "Chinese characters") are Chinese ideograms, and they were adopted in Japan around the 5th century. 2136 kanjihave been declared essential for everyday use. Each ideogram has its own meaning, so it is possible to create new words by simply putting together two kanji.

The Japanese language took the Chinese characters and changed their pronunciation, adapting it to Japanese phonology. So, many kanji can be pronounced in two ways: the Chinese way (called yomi), and the Japanese way (kunyomi).

Many kanji still retain the original Chinese meaning (and sometimes also their pronunciation is similar to that in Classical Chinese). Nevertheless, there are hundreds of kanji with a different meaning from the original Chinese characters. This happened because Japanese created its own characters or, with time, just changed the original meaning.

Hiragana and Katakana

In the beginning, Japanese wrote in Classical Chinese. With time, Chinese characters were introduced in Japan, but in a simplified version that became two different scripts: hiragana and katakana. While every kanji has its own meaning, these two scripts are syllabaries.

Hiragana is used for words that are not represented by kanji, and it can also follow kanji to show conjugations. Kanji, by themselves, would not be able to fully convey tense and mood. When hiragana is used as a suffix of kanji and has a grammatical value, it is called okurigana.

The last script, katakana, is used for foreign words brought into Japanese, and so it can be seen mainly as a transliteration tool.