What is Sino-Japanese vocabulary?
Q: What is Sino-Japanese vocabulary?
A: Sino-Japanese vocabulary refers to Chinese loanwords in the Japanese language.
Q: How are Chinese and Japanese related?
A: Chinese is a Sino-Tibetan language while Japanese is a language isolate, meaning that no known languages are related to it.
Q: What influence did Chinese have on Japanese?
A: Chinese had a major influence on Japanese and effected many parts of it, including its phonology (how it organizes sounds) and its vocabulary.
Q: How did the introduction of Chinese words into Japanese affect syllables?
A: The introduction of Chinese words into Japanese allowed for words to have closed syllables (syllables ending in a consonant), long vowels and long consonants. Before this, syllables in Japanese words only had open syllables (words that end in a vowel).
Q: What are the three main sources of Japanese words?
A: The three main sources of Japanese words are Sino-Japanese vocabulary, yamato kotoba (also known as wago), or native Japanese words, and gairaigo, or loanwords borrowed from languages other than Chinese (especially English since the post-WWII era).
Q: What does "wago" mean?
A: Wago is another term for yamato kotoba which refers to native japanese words.
