Ainu Morpheme Explorer
← Place names

Erimo, Hidaka region, Hokkaidō

幌泉

ほろいずみ Horoizumi

The two readings differ over one consonant and over which landform the name names, the cape 20 km away or the bluff above the town.

Ainu spellings: Poro-entum

Analyses

poro-enrum

ポロエンルム

received reading

big cape

Proponent: 定説

The cape is taken to be Cape Erimo.

Objections

  • Horoizumi lies far from Cape Erimo and no account tells of Ainu being moved there from Erimo. A change from Horoenrum to Horoizumi is forced. — zenibako_trek zenibako_trek2025
zenibako_trek2025 「幌泉（ほろいずみ）」
Analysis details
Confidence: low

Both parts are dictionary words; the objection is to the distance between the name and the cape and to the sound change required.

poro-entum

ポロエントゥム

proposed

big cliff face

Proponent: zenibako_trek（小樽銭函地名歴史研究会） (zenibako_trek (Otaru Zenibako Place-Name and History Society))

tom or tum is said to name the middle of a face such as a cliff wall, a surface one can meet or run into head on. On that reading en-tum is a protruding cliff face and Horoizumi is the big one, the bluff that rises behind Erimo harbour. The author holds that the change to Horoizumi is then unforced. He reads Shiroizumi east of Urakawa the same way, sir-o-entum 'cliff face on the mountain'.

Evidence

  • parallel place names

    Names in enrum and in entomo occur across Hokkaidō, and the article separates them by landform: an enrum juts out conspicuously, an entomo hardly reads as a cape on a map. Etomo at Muroran belongs to the second group, and the author rejects reading it enrum.

zenibako_trek2025 「幌泉（ほろいずみ）」
Analysis details
Confidence: low

poro and tum are dictionary items, tum as a locative noun for the middle of something, and the bluff behind the harbour is there. The sense of tum the reading needs, a cliff face met head on, is quoted in the article without a source, and the element en is the author's.

Sources