Sino-Japanese vocabulary

Sino-Japanese vocabulary, Chinese-based Japanese words, or kango (kanji: 漢語, hiragana: かんご), are Chinese loanwords in the Japanese language. The two languages are unrelated to each other, since Chinese is a Sino-Tibetan language while Japanese is a language isolate (meaning that no known languages are related to it). However, Chinese has had a major influence on Japanese and has affected many parts of it, including its phonology (how it organizes sounds) and its vocabulary. Including Chinese words into Japanese lead to allowing words to have closed syllables (syllables ending in a consonant), like the words san (kanji: 三, hiragana: さん, meaning: three) and udon (kanji:饂飩, hiragana: うどん) and for words to have long vowels and long consonants, like nō (kanji:能, hiragana: のう) and gakkō (kanji: 学校, hiragana: がっこう). Before Chinese words came into the Japanese language syllables in Japanese words only had open syllables (words that end in a vowel) like katana (kanji:刀, hiragana: かたな) and shinobi (kanji and hiragana: 忍び, hiragana only: しのび).

It is one of the three main sources of Japanese words, along with yamato kotoba (kanji: 大和言葉, hiragana: やまとことば), also known as wago (kanji: 和語, hiragana: わご), or native Japanese words, and gairaigo (kanji: 外来語, hiragana: がいらいご), or loanwords borrowed from languages other than Chinese (especially English since the post-WWII era).