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 effected 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).