「日本語」（にほんご）[ni-hon-go] (roughly "knee-hoh'n-go") is how to say "Japanese" in Japanese. 「日本」（にほん）[ni-hon] "Japan" is represented by the beautiful characters Sun + Origin (being that the sun rises in the East, when compared with mainland Asia this means Japan) 「語」（ご） [go] is a suffix meaning "language," as in the word for English 英語 (えいご）[ei-go] (sounds like "ay-go").