Japanese is the official language in Japan and is spoken in 3 other countries as monther tongue by a part of the population. The Japanese language (native name: 日本語 (にほんご)) has its roots in the Japonic language family.
With 124.00 million native speakers, Japanese has the highest prevalence in Japan. A total of about 125.1 million people worldwide speak Japanese as their mother tongue.
| Country | Region | Official language | Distribution | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Japan | East Asia | yes | 99.1 % | 123,999,000 |
| United States of America | North America | no | 0.2 % | 667,000 |
| Brazil | South America | no | 0.2 % | 431,000 |
| Guam | Micronesia | no | 2.0 % | 3,000 |
Unless otherwise described in the text, this page is about native speakers — not the total number of speakers. How many people understand or speak Japanese as a subsequently learned language is not the subject of this page. Countries where native speakers make up only a few thousand, or even a few hundred people, or countries with a percentage well below 1% are unlikely to be listed here.
