ABSTRACT
Japanese words can be classified into three types according to their origin: those of native origin (wago), Chinese origin (kango), and Western and other origin (gairaigo).
Wago: ie ‘house,’ te ‘hand,’ kumo ‘cloud,’ kami ‘god’ Kango: gakkoo ‘school,’ kikai ‘machine,’ kee-ee ‘management,’ chuushoo ‘abstract’ Gairaigo: booru ‘ball’ (English), noruma ‘norma’ (Russian), kimuchi ‘kimchi’
(Korean), janbo ‘big’ (Swahili meaning ‘hello’) Wago (Japanese native words) largely consist of basic words relating to nature, body parts, daily routines, and traditional foods, art crafts, events, and ways of thinking. Most of them have simple sounds composed of consonant+vowel (or just vowel) sequences. As in other languages, words that are important to the speakers often have fine distinctions; e.g. ine ‘rice (plant),’ kome ‘rice (grain),’ meshi ‘(cooked) rice, meal.’ Kango (Sino-Japanese words) are words from Chinese, especially those imported before the fourteenth century. They occupy more than half the modern Japanese vocabulary. Many express abstract, scholarly and complicated concepts (e.g. genshiryoku ‘nuclear power,’ hukuzatsu ‘complicated’), as well as those relating to one’s daily life (e.g. uma ‘horse,’ isu ‘chair’) Many words come in wago and kango pairs; e.g. owaru vs. shuuryoo suru ‘to end,’ muzukashii vs. konnan na ‘difficult.’ In such cases, the kango represents concepts and matters of more formal nature.
