Japanese language

Japanese
日本語
Language family	Japonic
Official status
Official language in	Japan
Recognised minority language in	Tauland Tussenland

Japanese (日本語, nihongo) is the majority and official language of Japan. It is also spoken by significant diaspora populations in Tauland and Westerzee province. The language is the dominant member of the Japonic language family, which includes the neighboring Loetsjoe dialects spoken in eastern Tauland. Japanese's standard variety is based on the dialect of the Kinai region, where the capital Osaka and the imperial capital of Meaco are located.

For centuries, three scripts (Chinese characters called kanzi as well the native kana syllabaries hiragana and katakana) have been used to write the Japanese language, with the use of Roman script being introduced by the Portuguese in the 16th century and consolidated by the Netherlands' establishment of a colony in Tauland in the next.

Phonology

Consonants

	Bilabial	Alveolar	Dorsal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m	n	ŋ
Plosive	p b	t d	k g
Affricate		t͡s
Fricative		s z			h
Liquid		r
Semivowel			j	w

The letter ñ (ん/ン) is considered an independent nasal syllable (撥音 haçuon). It may be phonetically realized in several ways; [m] before /p, b, m/, [n] before coronals, and [ŋ] before /k, ɡ/.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e		o
Open		a

To distinguish phonemic vowel length, the grapheme is either doubled as in Dutch (to [to] vs. too [toː]) or a macron is added (tō).

Romanization

ア a	イ i	ウ u	エ e	オ o
カ ka	キ ki	ク ku	ケ ke	コ ko
ガ ga	ギ gi	グ gu	ゲ ge	ゴ go
サ sa	シ xi	ス su	セ xe	ソ so
ザ za	ジ zi	ズ zu	ゼ ze	ゾ zo
タ ta	チ ci	ツ çu	テ te	ト to
ダ da	ヂ zi	ヅ zu	デ de	ド do
ナ na	ニ ni	ヌ nu	ネ ne	ノ no
ハ ha	ヒ hi	フ fu	ヘ he	ホ ho
バ ba	ビ bi	ブ bu	ベ be	ボ bo
パ pa	ピ pi	プ pu	ペ pe	ポ po
マ ma	ミ mi	ム mu	メ me	モ mo
ヤ ja		ユ ju		ヨ jo
ラ ra	リ ri	ル ru	レ re	ロ ro
ワ wa	ヰ wi		ヱ je	ヲ wo
ン ñ

The Laats system of romanization, developed by Taulander scholar of linguistics T.W Laats in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, was officially adopted by the Japanese government in 1938. It sought to address the issues of the common Dutch-based Roman script. The most noticeable and effectual change is the abandonment of digraphs and trigraphs and their replacement with single letters.

Displayed in light gold are affricated and palatalized syllables. X, ç, and u are reintroduced letters found in Portuguese-based Japanese Roman script. The use of c for /t͡ʃ/ originates in Latin, while the change from dsj to z reflects the standard dialect's merger of ジ zi and ヂ zi in the 17th century.

The Japanese government has permitted the use of Pre-Laats forms in diplomatic and international settings, as the reformed orthography may be unfamiliar or even confusing to countries who possess and predominately use a Dutch-derived orthography such as Tauland.

IPA	ʃ	t͡ʃ	(d)ʒ	t͡s	u
Pre-Laats	sj	tsj	dsj	ts	oe
Laats	x	c	z	ç	u