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The original language of Japan, or at least the original language of a certain population that was ancestral to a significant portion of the historical and present Japanese nation, was the so-called yamato kotoba (大和言葉 or infrequently 大和詞, i.e. "Yamato words"), which in scholarly contexts is sometimes referred to as wago (和語 ...
Japanese is the de facto national language of Japan, where it is spoken by about 126 million people. The oldest attestation is Old Japanese, which was recorded using Chinese characters in the 7th and 8th centuries. [13] It differed from Modern Japanese in having a simple (C)V syllable structure and avoiding vowel sequences. [14]
Japan has the highest ratio of public debt to GDP among advanced economies, [173] with a national debt estimated at 248% relative to GDP as of 2022. [174] The Japanese yen is the world's third-largest reserve currency after the US dollar and the euro. [175] Japan was the world's fifth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer in 2022.
Old Japanese (上代日本語, Jōdai Nihon-go) is the oldest attested stage of the Japanese language, recorded in documents from the Nara period (8th century). It became Early Middle Japanese in the succeeding Heian period , but the precise delimitation of the stages is controversial.
There is also a notable history of use of Kanbun (Classical Chinese) as a language of literature and diplomacy in Japan, similar to the status of the Latin language in medieval Europe, which has left an indelible mark on the vocabulary of the Japanese language. Kanbun is a mandatory subject in the curricula of most Japanese secondary schools.
Nationalist politics in Japan sometimes exacerbated these tensions, such as denial of the Nanjing Massacre and other war crimes, [290] revisionist history textbooks, and visits by some Japanese politicians to Yasukuni Shrine, which commemorates Japanese soldiers who died in wars from 1868 to 1954, but also has included convicted war criminals ...
The significant use of Chinese characters in Japan first began to take hold around the 5th century AD and has since had a profound influence in shaping Japanese culture, language, literature, history, and records. [6] Inkstone artifacts at archaeological sites dating back to the earlier Yayoi period were also found to contain Chinese characters ...
This is a timeline of Japanese history, comprising important legal, territorial and cultural changes and political events in Japan and its predecessor states. To read about the background to these events, see History of Japan .