Ainu Morpheme Explorer
← Place names

Northern Kuril Islands

捨子古丹島

しゃすこたんとう Shiashkotan

Torii's list of places on this island (pp. 54–56) came from ラウレンチ, younger brother of chief ヤコーフ (p. 40).

Ainu spellings: Shiáshi kotan, Tūki-moshiri

Analyses

Tūki-moshiri

トゥキモシリ

proposed

cup island

Proponent: 鳥居龍藏 (Torii Ryūzō)

Torii's gloss of the second name, with the shipwreck tale as its motivation.

鳥居1903 p. 43田村1996 túki トゥキ【名】[< 日本語] 酒杯鳥居1903 第六章 千島地名普通單語集 (pp. 156–172), Moshiri
Analysis details
Confidence: medium

túki 'sake cup' is a common word, a Japanese loan by Tamura's account, and the tale of the ship's sake is of a piece with it; no other source in this database records the name.

Шиушкотан

シウシコタン

proposed

the southern island settlement

Proponent: Чикова, Т. В. (T. V. Chikova)

Chikova's reading, which corrects the name's form to Шиушкотан to fit her elements уш 'island' and мошири 'island'; the book also reports Batchelor's ши 'great' + аш 'blow (of wind)' + kotan 'the place where the wind blows hard' through Браславец 1983, and Akulov 2005's 'sea-lion island'.

Бражник2024 p. 337, quoting Чикова 1992, с. 75–80
Analysis details
Confidence: low

The reading changes the recorded form; Torii's Shiáshi kotan and the 1725 Снискутан both keep the a.

Attestations

  • Shiáshi kotan oral record 1903 鳥居龍藏『千島アイヌ』第二章「千島地名解」
    一名 Tūki-moshiri 酒器島と云ふ、昔日本の船この島に流れ來れり、船中酒を多く登載しき、土人はこれを飮みたり、故に斯く名づく

    Torii gives the second name Tūki-moshiri 'cup island' with its tale: a Japanese ship drifted to the island with a cargo of sake, which the natives drank. Shiáshi kotan itself is not explained.

  • Сняскутане / Сияскутан document 1755 Крашенинников, Описание земли Камчатки, ч. I, гл. 9 «О Курильских островах»
    …На осьмом острову Сняскутане, которой от прежнего такой же величины проливом отделяется, живут немногие люди, которые еще не объясачены.

    From Müller's list; the same page also spells the island Сияскутан.

    Krasheninnikov1755 1949 ed., p. 169
  • Shiashkotan document 1897 Snow, Notes on the Kuril Islands
    Shiashkotan is nearly 13 miles in length…

    Once Shiaskotan earlier on the same page, in the note on the Mushir rocks.

    Snow1897 p. 71
  • Шияшкотан document 1947 Проект Картографической комиссии РГО им. Ю. М. Шокальского «Названия географических объектов Курильских островов», 1947
    «Старое айнское название».

    The commission restored the name, in the spelling Шияшкотан; the 1946 order of the Far Eastern military district had Шинкотан.

  • Снискутан / Сияскутан document 1725–1755 Козыревский 1725–1730; Миллер 1737; Крашенинников 1755 (as listed in Бражник–Пономарёв 2024)

    Козыревский has Снискутан осьмой (1725), Сияскута and Сияскутан (1726), Сияскутан, пятой (1730); Миллер Сияскутан, Сиаскутан восьмой (1737); Стеллер's chart Syaskutan (1774).

Sources