I once heard that the Japanese like to use words like 「トイレ」 and 「お手洗い」 to
refer to the water closet/bathroom because they are neutral and don't have
dirty connotations, especially the English loanword, because it comes from a
foreign language. That made me wonder, are Chinese loanwords still considered
"foreign" and therefore more impartial or less emotional?

For example, would something analogous to Churchill's "We Shall Fight on the
Beaches" (which used only English words of Germanic origin) line have any
effect?
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culture
Do Chinese loanwords have special connotations as foreign words?
Chinese words are technically considered loan words, but they're so far back
historically and so connected to Japanese that they are left in their own
classification as 漢語{かんご} while your more typical examples of loan words from
English or Portuguese or wherever, particularly of Western origin, are what
people generally refer to when they say 外来語.

See this [dictionary
entry](http://www.weblio.jp/content/%E5%A4%96%E6%9D%A5%E8%AA%9E) for
clarification:

> (1)他の言語より借り入れられ、日本語と同様に日常的に使われるようになった語。「ガラス」「ノート」「パン」の類。広くは漢語も外来語であるが、
> **普通は漢語以外の主として西欧語からはいってきた語をいう** 。現在では一般に片仮名で書かれる。伝来語。

I bolded the relevant part, which says basically what I said above if you are
unable to read it.

And I'm sorry that I somehow seemed to miss the part about emotionalness
before even though it's the root of your question. But the distinction between
"foreign" words and "Chinese" words even within Japanese should give you an
idea of just how integral Chinese words are to Japanese language. Generally
when you see something written only with 和語, with Japanese words, it gives it
much more of a "Japanese" kind of feeling, of course, but I don't think you
can really consider Chinese words more impartial or less emotional. I think
the actual usage distinction is similar to the way Latin words crept into
English, through academia. I'd say that in this way it has more of an educated
feel and therefore less subject to the baseness of the commoner, like Old
English words, but that's not in the same way as using a word like トイレ because
it doesn't have dirty connotations.

I think a lot of the question hinges on the fact that you're asking about
partiality or emotion with regard to the origin of the word, which I don't
think has an effect. There _is_ , however, a big difference in tone and in the
feelings and images evoked with word choice, just as you can evoke different
images and associations in English by using words of a certain type, for
example saying pork versus pig.

This is just my speculation, but I would imagine that there's a rather large
difference between "We Shall Fight on the Beaches" using only words of
English/Germanic origin and a speech in Japanese using only words of Japanese
origin because Chinese words are such a huge part of Japanese, and a lot of
them are used basically in place of whatever would be a Japanese equivalent.
Therefore it might sound a little bit odd to write something purely in 和語
without it sounding like poetry or something really old, whereas in English a
lot of older words are still very much in common use and can be used without
being too conspicuous. Like you could give a speech entirely with words rooted
in Germanic/Old English and most people probably wouldn't say "hey this is
only using English words!" whereas this would be quite apparent in Japanese.

This isn't to say that it's impossible for a Chinese word to be less emotional
than a Japanese word, but rather that certain words already have certain
cultural connotations, and using one in place of the other is deliberate, so
you can make what you're writing sound smart by using a lot of Chinese words,
make it sound folksy by using a lot of Japanese words, or make it sound weird
by using one where the other is expected.
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日本 (にっぽん) is the ultimate expression of nationalism, yet a Chinese loanword. I
don't think there is any bias toward native Japanese words in the sense that
Churchill used Germanic words in the quotation you gave. (If I understand him
correctly.)

Rather than being a matter of more or less emotional, the standard, more
"educated" choice seems to be the Chinese reading. Native Japanese readings
have a slightly poetic flavour, but may also be used to be better understood
(e.g. by children), as most homophones in Japanese are Chinese loanwords.
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