The Evolution

of
Japanese
Language
日本語の進化
Nihongo no shinka
• The first japanese Emperor ruled in 660 BC.

• In 604, Prince Shoutoku brought Budhism from mainland

Asia and instituted it, which added outside influences to the
land.

• In around 711 the natives of the land declared themselves to

be called japanese officially. Then they used the chinese
alphabet (later known as kanji), and wrote a book named
kojiki in their own official japanese language.
History of Japanese Language
There are many theories about the origin of the Japanese language. A number of
scholars believe that syntactically it is close to such Altaic languages as Turkish and
Mongolian, and its syntactic similarity to Korean is widely acknowledged.
Morphology and vocabulary were influenced
prehistorically by the MalayoPolynesian languages to the
south. The Japanese writing system comes from Chinese,
although the languages spoken by the Japanese and Chinese are completely different.
The Japanese Language Consists of Three Kinds of Characters
Kanji
• One can represent one or more
different meanings.
• There are over 50,000 different
Kanji.
• The average person only knows
about 1700 Kanji.
• Originally came from China.
• Hiragana and Katakana are
descended from Kanji
 Hiragana
• Was a simplified version of
Chinese cursive script.
• Wasnt accepted by men but
found favor among women.
• Each symbol is either a vowel
or a consonant followed by a
vowel.
• Used for words that do not
have Kanji.
 Katakana
• In modern Japanese Katakana is
used for the transcription of foreign
words.
• Also used for onomatopoeias.
• Was originally developed as a short
hand to Manyogana.
• Manyogana uses Chinese characters
tophonetically represent the
Japanese language.
 Notes
The evolution of japanese
language bubbled its growth from
old to modern. Its continuous
development was formulated and
spread through the advancement of
technology as Japan is commonly
famous of.