沙流 さる Saru
Hidaka town and Biratori, Hidaka region, Hokkaidō
Ainu spellings: Sar, Sisirmuka
The river carries two names, one for the plain it crosses and one for its mouth.
Location
42.7687, 142.3827 · Coordinates: OpenStreetMap Nominatim, 2026-09-10, on 沙流川. Open in OpenStreetMap
Referents
- river The Saru River, running through Hidaka town and Biratori, also called Shishirmuka. With the Mukawa beside it, it was a centre of Ainu settlement in the early modern period
- settlement The reed plain about Tomikawa in Hidaka town. Sarubuto, sar-putu 'the mouth of the Saru River', was the name in early Meiji; Saruba, sar-pa 'the upper part of the reed plain', survives in Biratori
Analyses
sar
サラ ‘reed plain’ received reading- sar ‘reed plain’
Proponent: 定説
The author supports the reading and takes the named ground to be the grassland about Tomikawa in Hidaka town. Sarubuto and Saruba are built on the same word.
sar 'reed plain' is a dictionary word in the sense used, the named ground is identified, and two neighbouring names, sar-putu and sar-pa, are built on the same element. No source in the article contests the reading.
si-sir-mukka
シシリムカ ‘place where the ground closes over’ received reading- si ‘true, main’
- sir ‘land, ground’
- mukka ‘be blocked, closed off’
Proponent: 定説
The other name of the Saru River. The author refers it to the river mouth, which becomes a dune and closes from time to time, as in the Mukawa mukka-p 'place that closes'. He sets beside it Shirifuka, the old name of the Horokappu River in Kyōwa, sir-pukka 'place where the ground swells up'.
sir and mukka are dictionary items in the senses used and the closing mouth is a recurring feature of such names; the article gives no dictionary for the initial si.
Sara-moshiri
‘The country open to the skies’ proposed- Sara ‘open’
- moshiri ‘country’
Proponent: John Batchelor
See Asari.
Batchelor's reading and gloss as printed in 1905; the segmentation is his, and several of its elements answer to no dictionary headword.