Japanese (or 日本語, pronounced [ni’hõŋɡo]) is an East Asian language, member of the Japonic (or Japanese-Ryukyuan) language family. The modern Japanese writing system uses a combination of Kanji (adopted Chinese characters) and Kana (two syllabic scripts named hiragana and katakana). Several thousand Kanji characters are in regular use, while each character has an intrinsic meaning (or range of meanings), and most have more than one pronunciation, the choice of which depends on context. The characters are traditionally written in columns going from top to bottom, with columns ordered from right to left. Writing system: Chinese characters, Kana Official language in: Japan