Japanese is the principal language of Japan and is commonly called Nihongo by its speakers. It is used throughout national government, education, broadcasting, and most public communication.
Japanese writing combines kanji, characters historically adopted from Chinese, with the phonographic syllabaries hiragana and katakana. Hiragana is widely used for grammatical endings and native words, while katakana is often used for loanwords, emphasis, and certain names.
The language has several major regional varieties, including Kansai and Tōhoku speech. The standard variety is based mainly on the dialect historically associated with Tokyo. Japanese also has honorific systems that express social relationships and levels of formality.
A common misconception is that Japanese is simply a dialect of Chinese because it uses kanji. Japanese and Chinese are different languages with different grammar and pronunciation. Japanese also has a complex historical relationship with the Ryukyuan languages and with the endangered Ainu language.