What is the Japanese language made up of?

1. Kanji: Kanji are Chinese characters that have been adapted for use in Japanese. They each represent a word or morpheme and are typically used to write nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. Kanji characters can have multiple pronunciations, depending on the context in which they are used.

2. Hiragana: Hiragana is a phonetic syllabary, meaning that each character represents a sound. Hiragana characters are used to write words that do not have a corresponding kanji character, as well as grammatical particles, suffixes, and other words that are difficult to write with kanji. Hiragana characters are also often used to spell out the pronunciation of kanji characters when they are first introduced in a text.

3. Katakana: Katakana is another phonetic syllabary, similar to hiragana. However, katakana characters are typically used to write foreign words, loanwords, and onomatopoeia. They can also be used for emphasis or to create a sense of foreignness.

In addition to these three writing systems, the Japanese language also makes use of a number of other symbols and characters, including punctuation marks, numbers, and symbols for currency, measurement, and other units.