Japanese：The World’s Most Polite (and Complicated) Language

Hey guys, Zoe here. Welcome back to the channel. Japanese is one of those languages that feels familiar and alien at the same time. We all consume it every day through the anime, manga, sushi menus, or those matcha lattes on Instagram. Japanese culture is everywhere. But the language itself, that's where things get really interesting. The writing system is unique. Chinese characters plus two alphabets with some truly fascinating stories behind it. And the politeness system. Imagine having to say the same thing in five different ways depending on who you are talking to. Your boss, your grandma, your friend. So today we will dive into all these fascinating aspects. Whether you are a Japanese learner or just someone who loves Japanese culture or some random fun knowledge, I think you will find some insight here. Let's get started. This video is proudly sponsored by italki. Here a special thanks to teacher Yuka for sharing her knowledge and explaining things in today's video. So where did Japanese actually come from? Well, if you ask 10 linguists, you will get at least 11 different answers. The big question is what language family does Japanese belong to? Officially, it's a language isolated. Basically, that one kid at a family reunion who shows up alone and says, nope, I don't have any cousins. Theory number one, maybe it's part of the Japonic family along with Okinawan and Ryukyu islands. Theory number two, maybe it's related to Korean, the old Alatai hypothesis. But honestly, this theory is quite shaky. Linguists joke that Japanese actually belongs to the publish-a-new-paper family because every few years someone drops a brand new theory and the only thing scholars agreed on is that they don't agree. What we do know is for thousands of years, people in the Japanese islands spoke Japanese but had no writing system. They could talk, they could sing, they could pass down myths, but nothing was written. Then around the 4th and 5th century, a culture tidal wave hit. From the Korean peninsula came Buddhists, monks, scholars, and envoys carrying books and sutras and knowledge, and a lot of it was written in Chinese characters. Imagine the shock. Suddenly, Japan had access to philosophy, law, medicine, astronomy, but only if they could read Chinese. And so for a while, the first Japanese texts were literally written in Chinese. But why use Chinese characters? Because in the East Asian world order, Chinese was the passport. The writing system was literally the entry ticket to civilization at the time. Japan's first official history, the Nihon Shoki, was written in pure classical Chinese, so pure that some Japanese scholars couldn't even read it without help. But wait, did Japanese actually switch to speaking Chinese? No, they did something much more. They invented a double reading system for Chinese characters. We call Hanzi in Chinese, Kanji in Japanese. If you are studying both Chinese and Japanese, this is the part that can either save your life or drive you crazy. Onyomi, the Chinese style reading. Onyomi came from imitating how Chinese words sounded when Kanji first arrived. In Chinese, Xue. In Japanese, Gaku, from Middle Chinese, Ga. In Chinese, Fo. In Japanese, Butsu, from Middle Chinese, Bu. In Chinese, Guo. In Japanese, Koku, from Middle Chinese, Kok. Onyomi shows up mostly in compound words. In Chinese, Da Xue. In Japanese, Daigaku, University. In Chinese, Fojiao. In Japanese, Bukkyo, Buddhism. In Chinese, Guojia. In Japanese, Nation. You can tell, in other words, Onyomi was Japan's official passport into the Tang Song culture club. Writing laws, reading sutras, doing science, you had to use it. Konyomi, the Japanese style reading. Here's the twist. Japan already had perfectly good words before Kanji showed up. So instead of replacing them, they said, we will use your characters but keep our own words. For instance, in Chinese, Shan. In Japanese, Yama, Mountain. In Chinese, Chuan. In Japanese, Kawa, River. In Chinese, Shi. In Japanese, Taberu, Eat. In Chinese, Jian. In Japanese, Miru, See. Example with Shan on its own, Yama as in Yama ni noboru. In compound, Same character, two completely different readings. Context decides everything. This double reading system says a lot about Japan itself. On the one hand, connecting to a powerful civilization, on the other hand, preserving local identity. Konyomi was powerful. But it had one problem, Japanese grammar. Particles, verb endings, tense markers, they just didn't fit naturally into Chinese characters. So the Japanese put up one of history's greatest language hacks. They simplified Chinese characters into phonetic symbols and boom, kana was born. From fast cursive Chinese handwriting came the soft rounded shapes of hiragana. For example, the character An scribbled in cursive eventually turned into the A. From little fragments of kanji radicals came the sharp angular katakana. For example, take the left half of Jia and you get Ka. So kana was technically just a byproduct of kanji, but it solved a huge problem. For the first time, Japanese had a dedicated phonetic system for grammar. In this hybrid system, kanji handled content like mountain, river, emperor. Kana handled grammar, particles, verb endings, and tense. Fun fact, in the Heian period, men stuck with Chinese. They used it for laws, official records, and even poetry contests. It was the language of power and prestige. Women, meanwhile, embraced the new kana script for love letters and diaries. From that, private writing came masterpieces like the Pillow Book and the Tale of Genji. Now, about vocabulary. By dictionary count, roughly half of Japanese words ultimately come from Chinese. The history of Japanese loanwords is also fascinating. Wave number one, Chinese between 4th to 9th century. Religion, politics, and scholarship all came through hanzi. Wave number two, Portuguese and Dutch between 16th to 17th century. The age of trained and missionaries brought everyday items such as pan, tabaco, karasu, biru. Wave number three, French, 19th century during the Meiji era. France was the height of prestige and fashion, so Japan borrowed fancy words such as enquete, survey, salonne from French salon, modèle from French word modèle. Wave number four, English, 20th century onward. Modern tech, pop culture, and global brands floating, such as computer, smartphone, and a fun bonus, arubaito from German arbeit, work. In German, it's just work, but in Japanese, it's frank into part-time job. A perfect example of what you might call loanword 2.0, borrowed, remixed, and given a whole new life. Alright, if you want to learn Japanese or level up your speaking skills, I highly recommend today's sponsor, italki. On italki, you can connect with native Japanese teachers for one-on-one lessons with flexible schedules and fully customizable classes. Whether you want to practice pronunciation, conversation, grammar, or writing, italki's got you covered with real-time feedback and guidance. I found teacher Yuka on italki. She speaks both Chinese and Japanese and has been a huge help in my own learning. School in Chinese, you say xue xiao, but in Japanese, we say gakkou. And it's not just Japanese, italki offers over 150 languages from English and French to Arabic and Spanish. You only pay per lesson and trial lessons start as low as $5. And it's flexible learning anytime, anywhere. If you are interested, check the link below and use my code ZOE9. New users get $5 free when they spend $10. So why is Japanese considered so complicated? Let's start with the obvious, the writing system. We have mentioned before, Japanese use three alphabet systems. You often see all three mixed in the same sentence. For example, So reading Japanese is like watching a Netflix series with three sets of subtitles running at once. And yes, Japanese school kids spend years memorizing thousands of characters just to keep up. But the complexity doesn't stop here. The grammar plays its own tricks. Unlike English, So you don't find out the action until the very end. For English speakers, that feels like watching a suspense movie where the punch line only comes in the last phrase. Watched! Another confusing thing is that Japanese often jobs the subject. Words like I or you just vanish in everyday conversation. You might say that's not unique. Languages like Italian, Spanish, or Arabic also like to job the subject. But here's the difference. In those languages, the verb ending tells you who's doing the action because of the conjugation. Take eat. He or she eats. Even without the subject, you know who's eating. But Japanese? Just means eat rice. Who's eating? Me? You? Him? Then? Totally unclear. When addressing someone, Japanese also avoids you and just use its name. I kinda like it. All my Japanese friends call me Zoe-chan. I find it super cute. This reflects Japan's high-context culture, meaning isn't spelled out directly but depends on relations and context. So why is Japanese known as the world's most polite language? The short answer, because Japanese society has always been obsessed with hierarchy and harmony, and the language had to evolve to match that. Historically, in the Heian and Edo period, society was strictly stratified. Emperors, nobles, samurais, commoners. You couldn't speak to your lord the same way you spoke to your friend. Language became a tool to show respect, avoid conflict, and keep everyone in their place. The honorific system. In Japanese, politeness isn't just one thing. Linguists used to Here's the quick tour. Let's say the action is to eat. Depending on who you are talking to, the form changes. Yes, this is the same. Itadakimasu said before meal. Beautifying language, gohan, instead of just meshi, adding the prefix go makes it beautiful. So instead of saying meshi taberu, you might say gohan wo itadakimasu. So the same basic act, eating rice, can be expressed five different ways depending on who's speaking, who's listening, and what level of politeness the situation demands. Here's the converting part. In daily life, most people really just juggle three levels, plain, polite, and honorific. This creates an interesting social signal. If someone switches from honorifics to plain speech, it means they are treating you as a friend. If they never drop honorifics, even after years, it means the relationship is distant. Japanese people rarely reject others directly. They almost never just say no. Instead, they wrap it in layers of other words. Say you invite a European friend out for the weekend. They might say sorry, I already have plans, can't make it, straightforward, clear, no confusion. Now, invite a Japanese friend. Instead of saying no, you might hear something like This already means no. This is called indirect expression. It might sound funny, but it reflects something deep in Japanese culture. Avoid direct conflict, maintain social harmony. Back in the samurai era, bluntly saying you are wrong to the wrong person could So people learned to leave wiggle room in their words. It's not lying. It's not even evading. It's a cultural strategy to keep things smooth. Another interesting thing. Unlike French or Italian, Japanese has no grammatical gender. There are no masculine or feminine nouns. But here's the twist. The language still encoded gender roles. For example, pronouns I, men might use ore or boku. Women might use atashi or watashi. Even sentence endings change. Men sound more direct. Da, zo, sa. Women sound softer. For example, if I want to say that's right, male style. Female style. This reflects Japan's long history of gendered expectations. Men's speech coded as more assertive. Women's as more gentle. Of course, today many young people mix and match. But in traditional contexts, you can still hear gender in the grammar. Japanese borrows endlessly from other cultures, but always twists them into something uniquely Japanese. It's a language that's indirect, yet incredibly precise. It's creative and expressive, but also full of rigid rules. It avoids confrontation, yet encoded strict hierarchies in every sentence. Japanese isn't just a language. It's a mirror of Japan's history and culture. Respectful, indirect, inventive, and under constant pressure to balance opposite. So let me throw some questions to you. Do you think all this complexity makes Japanese more beautiful or just more frustrating? Does politeness in language create respect or social pressure to hide what you really think? Drop your thoughts in the comments. I will be reading them and I would love to see what you think. And if this video gave you a new insight into Japanese, don't forget to like, subscribe, and check out today's sponsor italki. So, which languages should I cover in the next video?