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Northern Kuril Islands

阿頼度島

あらいどとう Alaid

The island's present name in OpenStreetMap is Атласова. The flying-island tale appears again in Torii's gloss of Yāwen at Kuril Lake (p. 61).

Ainu spellings: Oyakobakka, Chacha kotan, Уякужачь

Analyses

Chacha kotan

チャチャコタン

proposed

the old island

  • chacha old (Torii); Torii's Kuril word list has Chacha 'high mountain', Saru cáca 'old man'
  • kotan place, village

Proponent: 鳥居龍藏 (Torii Ryūzō)

Torii's reading, motivated by the mountain's height and shape.

Evidence

  • documents

    Torii's own Kuril word list gives Chacha for 'high mountain', which would read the name as 'high-mountain island' and fits the peak's shape more directly than 'old'.

  • documents

    Golovnin's Kuril word list of 1811 gives kotan (котанъ) for 'island' in the northern Kuril speech and musir (мусиръ), the modern mosir, in the southern.

鳥居1903 p. 42鳥居1903 第六章 千島地名普通單語集 (pp. 156–172), Chacha「高い山」鳥居1903 第六章 千島地名普通單語集 (pp. 156–172), Kotan田村1996 cáca チャチャ【名】(お)じいさん、年配の男性服部1964 259 おじい(爺)さん: 千島 achaboGolovnin1816 Kuril word list recorded in 1811, item 26 'островъ', cited from a transcription; the page in the 1816 printing is unverified
Analysis details
Confidence: low

Torii's 'old' rests on Hokkaidō cáca 'old man' (Tamura 1996), while the Kuril word for 'old man' in Hattori's 1964 comparison is achabo and Torii's own Kuril list has Chacha 'high mountain'; the sense 'old' is the weaker of the two readings his material allows.

Уякужачь

proposed

high rock

  • uyakuzhach (Krasheninnikov, from his Kuril informants: 'high rock')

Proponent: Крашенинников, С. П. (Stepan Krasheninnikov)

The gloss Krasheninnikov's Kuril informants gave for the island's name in the 1730s.

Krasheninnikov1755 1949 ed., p. 167
Analysis details
Confidence: low

The form is not segmented and no dictionary word is identified for it here; the sense 'high' recurs in Torii's Kuril word Chacha 'high mountain' cited for Chacha kotan.

Oyakobakka

オヤコバッカ

proposed

(name tied to the Kamchadal)

  • oyakobakka (Torii: related to Oyutaru 'Kamchadal')

Proponent: 鳥居龍藏 (Torii Ryūzō)

Torii only suggests a link with Oyutaru, the Kuril Ainu word for the Kamchadal (also Oyatāru, p. 38).

鳥居1903 p. 42
Analysis details
Confidence: low

A resemblance of the first syllables and nothing more; the rest of the word is unexplained.

Oyake pake

オヤケパケ

proposed

the head elsewhere

  • oyake elsewhere, outside (Akulov)
  • pake head

Proponent: Акулов, А. Ю. (Alexander Akulov)

Akulov's reading of Torii's Oyakobakka, with the cone as the 'head'; he holds Алаид itself not to be Ainu and of unclear origin.

Бражник2024 p. 307, quoting Акулов 2022, с. 124–125
Analysis details
Confidence: low

Two Hokkaidō words fitted to a Kuril form recorded once; Torii's own link to Oyutaru 'Kamchadal' and Krasheninnikov's gloss 'high rock' stand beside it.

Attestations

  • Alaid oral record 1903 鳥居龍藏『千島アイヌ』第二章「千島地名解」
    アライドとは露人の下せし名稱にして、土人は Oyakobakka 若しくば Chacha kotan と云ふ、前者はカムチヤツカ土人を Oyutaru と云へば、これに關係ある名ならん、後者は阿賴度が海中に富士山形を呈し高く亢立するより、チヤチヤコタン即ち「老ひたる」島と稱するに至りしならん土人の傳ふる所によれば、太古この島は此處に無かりしものにして、元カムチヤツカより飛び來れり、最初アライドはカムチヤツカ半島にありて諸峰中に秀でたり、さればアライドは常に諸峯中妬みを受けたれば、後の恐れもありとて遂に此處に飛び來りしものなり、彼の飛び去りし跡は忽ち湖生じ、今日のクリール湖をなすに至れりと云ふ、この話は又ポロンスキー氏の千島志中にも記載せらる

    Torii says アライド is a Russian name and that the natives say Oyakobakka or Chacha kotan; he ties the first to Oyutaru, their word for the Kamchadal, and reads the second as 'old island', from the peak's Fuji-like height. He then gives the tale that the island flew here from Kamchatka, leaving Kuril Lake in the hollow, and notes the same tale in Polonsky's history of the Kurils.

  • Уякужачь / Алаид document 1755 Крашенинников, Описание земли Камчатки, ч. I, гл. 9 «О Курильских островах»
    В западной стороне от помянутых островов есть пустой остров, которой на карте под именем Анфиногена объявлен, но курилы называют его Уякужачь, то есть высокой камень, а казаки Алаидом.

    Krasheninnikov gives the Kuril name Уякужачь with the gloss 'high rock' and the Cossacks' Alaid. Müller's list has Уяхкупа (p. 169), which the 1949 edition's note 361 (Л. С. Берг) identifies with Уякужачь.

    Krasheninnikov1755 1949 ed., p. 167
  • Alaid document 1897 Snow, Notes on the Kuril Islands
    Alaid, the most northern of the Kurils, is about 26 miles in circumference, and has an area of 48 square miles.
    Snow1897 p. 78
  • Атласова document 1952 Решение № 1175 Сахалинского облисполкома «О переименовании названий физико-географических объектов Курильских островов», 9 декабря 1952 г.
    «Остров, прежнее название Алаид, новое название – Атласова; «в честь В. Атласова»».

    The 1952 decision changed this island's name: Алаид became Атласова, after the Cossack who first saw the Kurils from Kamchatka in 1697; the 1947 project had kept Алаид as the accepted old Russian name.

  • Уяхкупа / Уякужачь document 1725–1755 Козыревский 1725–1730; Миллер 1737; Крашенинников 1755; Стеллер 1745 (as listed in Бражник–Пономарёв 2024)

    The Russian record before Крашенинников has Уяхкупа или третей (Козыревский 1725), Уях купа (карта Львова 1726), Уяхкупа четвертый (Миллер 1737); Стеллер 1745 gives Уякозач or Кютампу beside Алаит, and Полонский 1871 Уякужачъ.

Related names

  • クリール湖 くりーるこ — The lake on the tip of Kamchatka that the tale makes the hollow the island left behind. 鳥居1903

Sources