The original language of Japan, or at least the original language of a certain population that was ancestral to a significant portion of the historical and present Japanese nation, was the so-called "yamato kotoba" ( or infrequently , i.e. "Yamato words"), which in scholarly contexts is sometimes referred to as "wago" ( or rarely , i.e. the "Wa language"). In addition to words from this original language, present-day Japanese includes a number of words that were either borrowed from Chinese or constructed from Chinese roots following Chinese patterns. These words, known as "kango" (), entered the language from the 5th century onwards via contact with Chinese culture. According to the Japanese dictionary, "kango" comprise 49.1% of the total vocabulary, "wago" make up 33.8%, other foreign words or "gairaigo" () account for 8.8%, and the remaining 8.3% constitute hybridized words or "konshugo" () that draw elements from more than one language.