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Language

Japanese is the only official language in Japan, which is separated into several dialects with the Tokyo dialect considered standard Japanese. It is spoken by 125 million people in Japan. This makes it the ninth most spoken language by native speakers. The Ryukyuan languages in Okinawa and the Ainu language in Hokkaido are considered separate languages.

The Japanese writing system consists of three different character sets: kanji (Chinese characters), hiragana, and katakana (46 characters each). Japanese texts can be written in two ways: In Western style, i.e. in horizontal rows, or in traditional Japanese style, i.e. in vertical columns from the right to the left side. Both writing styles exist today.

Japanese has many loanwords (gairaigo). In ancient times, a vast portion of its vocabulary was borrowed from Chinese. After the arrival of Europeans in the Middle Ages, the Japanese adopted a number of foreign words. In the beginning Portuguese, then later replaced by Dutch. In Modern Japanese, English vocabulary is widely adopted especially in mass media, the internet, and the commercial industry.

Brand Fonts

Learn more about the Japanese writing, diacritic and punctuation use, and our Brand and Pla​yground fonts.

Playground Fonts