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Historically,
Japanese has a large number of words that are borrowed from Chinese.
See further discussion below in the section on the Japanese writing
system. Japan borrowed many words from European languages starting
in the 19th century, including Portuguese, German, French, and most
recently English. In the past few decades, waseieigo (made-in-Japan
English) has become a prominent phenomenon, particularly in the
speech of the young and trendy. Words such as wanpatan (one-pattern)
and sukinshippu (skinship), although coined from English, are nonsensical
in a non-Japanese context.
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