Yamato kotoba

Yamato kotoba (kanji: 大和言葉, hiragana: やまとことば) are words that are native to the Japanese language. The word itself is also a native Japanese word, interestingly enough. Yamato kotoba can also be called by its Chinese based name, wago (kanji: 和語, hiragana: わご). It is one of the three main sources of Japanese words, along with kango (kanji: 漢語, hiragana: かんご), or Chinese loanwords, 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).

Yamato kotoba in Japanese has much in common with native English words in that most of the everyday vocabulary comes from yamato kotoba, while Chinese loanwords words (much like Latin and French loanwords in English) are used for more formal situations (usually writing) and for specialized terms.