Wago, Kango and Gairaigo – Origin of Japanese words

The Japanese words can have their origins divided into 3 called wago, kango, and gairaigo. With wago being the native words of Japan, kango the native words from China, and gairaigo the words of foreign origin. In this article, we will talk a little about these words.

More than half of the Japanese language is composed of foreign words, with about 49% from China, 18% from other countries, and only 33% from ancient Japan. Even as the language distanced itself from Chinese, many things were adapted, transforming Japanese into what it is today.

The native language of Japan is called Yamato Kotoba because of the period in which it was developed. It was during the long Yamato Period (250-710) that the Japanese language developed with influence from China and Korea.

WAGO [和語] – Words of Japanese origin

Wago are words of Japanese origin, that is, the yamato kotoba [大和言葉]. They are generally words that have the KUN reading of a kanji. Apart from words created especially for Japanese, most of the time, without similarities to other languages.

The words wago generally have 3 or more syllables, compose the majority of verbs not suru [する] and adjectives ending in i [い]. The words Yamato Kotoba or wago are usually written with a mixture of hiragana and kanji.

When a word composed of 2 kanji has an ON (Chinese) reading and a KUN (Japanese) reading, that word can be considered a wago.

KANGO [漢語] – Words of Chinese origin

The Chinese language is very present in the Japanese language with its ideograms called kanji [漢字] which literally means Chinese characters. The kango [漢語] are words of Chinese origin used in Japanese. Kango can also be called Sino-Japanese words.

A kango word does not always correspond to a Chinese word; they were just adapted or originated from China. These words invented in Japanese are called wasei-kango and can have different meanings or be false cognates.

The words kango are generally read with the Chinese reading (on yomi). Verbs in the suru [する] form tend to be of Chinese origin, adjectives of the na [な] type, and words that are generally short, without the presence of hiragana, tend to be kango.

The numbers in the Japanese language are usually pronounced with the ON reading being a kango [ichi, ni, san], only in some cases is the wago used for counting [hitotsu, futatsu, mitsu].

GAIRAIGO [外来語] – Words of foreign origin

These are all the words used in Japan of foreign origin written in katakana. They can originate from English, Portuguese, French, and other languages. Each passing day, Japan acquires more words of foreign origin in its vocabulary, making the average of 18% in reality higher.

Gairaigo literally means borrowed words, and unlike Chinese, it did not influence ancient Japanese and its development. These words ended up in Japanese because of new things that appeared during the westernization of the country.

In Portuguese, there are also thousands of foreign words like hotdog, hamburger, milkshake, fitness, outdoor, internet, notebook, download, and things like that. In Japanese, this is at an even higher level.

There are even verbs that have been derived from gairaigo, both in the suru form [する] and in the normal form.

I hope this article has helped you understand a little about wago, kango, and gairaigo. If you liked it, share and leave your comments.