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).