Ainu Morpheme Explorer
← Place names

Kyōwa, Shiribeshi region, Hokkaidō

イクシユンケイワヲヘツ

いくしゆんけいわをへつ I-kosunke-iwaw-nay

Matsuura notes on this journey that the unjōya and the Ainu alike seemed to be keeping something back; the Iwanai Ainu had a fishing ground up this way that the manager had forbidden them, and they asked him to say nothing of it.

Ainu spellings: I-kosunke-iwaw-nay

Analyses

i-kosunke-iwaw-nay

イコシュンケイワゥナイ

proposed

the Iwanai River that lies to me

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

The guide's explanation gives the sense directly: these streams all come down from Mt. Iwao, one of them is the main Iwaonai, and one cannot tell which, so the name says the river lies about it again and again. The author reads the name against the Bira group of tributaries, where the parallel courses make the main channel hard to pick out. He takes the name as evidence that the upper Horikappu was called Iwaonai by the Ainu themselves, against the identification of Iwanai with the Unjōya River at the harbour.

Evidence

  • topography

    The Bira, Kami-Bira, Naka-Bira and Shimo-Bira run nearly parallel, and no one of them stands out as the main stream.

zenibako_trek2023 「嘘をつくイワヲナイ」田村1996 kosunke コスンケ【他動】[ko-sunke …に・うそをつく] …にうそをつく、…をだますBatchelor1905 Iwau, 硫黄. n. Sulphur.
Analysis details
Confidence: low

kosunke and nay are dictionary words in the proposed senses, iwaw is Batchelor's Iwau, and the sense of the whole is given by the guide in the record itself. The i- is the indefinite-object prefix, as the author's parenthesis reads it.

Attestations

  • イクシユンケイワヲヘツ document Edo period 志利辺津日誌
    イクシユンケイワヲヘツ と云よし。其故は此辺の川々皆イワヲ岳より落来るが、其中にイワヲナイの本河と云もの有れども、何れが本川か不分明なるが故に、幾度も嘘のイワヲナイと云義理のよし也。

    The guide's own explanation of the name, recorded by Matsuura on the spot.

Related names

Sources