門別 もんべつ Monbetsu
Monbetsu, Hidaka town, Hidaka region, Hokkaidō
Ainu spellings: Mo-pet
One of the most frequent river names in Hokkaidō, usually written with an n in the records that the reading itself does not carry.
Location
42.4796, 142.0727 · Coordinates: OpenStreetMap Nominatim, 2026-09-10, on 門別. Open in OpenStreetMap
Readings in the place-name tables: モペッ Mo-pet
Referents
- settlement Monbetsu, formerly Monbetsu town of Saru county, where the Hidaka town office now stands. The station and interchange are called Hidaka-Monbetsu to keep it apart from the other Monbetsu
- river The Hidaka-Monbetsu River
Analyses
mo-pet
モベツ ‘quiet river’ received readingProponent: 定説
Names of this shape are numerous in Hokkaidō, more than ten of them still in use: Monbetsu in Saru county and in Shin-Hidaka and Samani, Monbetsu city, Monbetsu in Chitose, Date, Oshamanbe and Hiroo, Mobetsu in Monbetsu city and in Mukawa, and Mobetsu in Hokuto, known as Hokuto-Mohechi. The author notes that a great many of them are recorded with an n and asks whether the closing of the lips before p made it easy to hear one there, adding that the Ainu n is weak and appears and disappears.
Both parts are dictionary words in the senses used and the reading is repeated across many places. The article reports the reading and gives no test of it against this river.
Mo-pet
‘Slow river’ proposedProponent: John Batchelor
The entry does not say which Mombetsu it describes.
Variants
- Mopet kotan ‘village by the quiet river’ — Given in the grammar, chapter V, Names of Places.
Batchelor's reading and gloss as printed in 1905; the segmentation is his, and several of its elements answer to no dictionary headword.