色丹島
しこたんとう Shikotan Southern Kuril IslandsAinu spellings: Shi-kotan
The island where the northern Kuril Ainu lived from 1884, and where Torii's informants were settled.
Location
43.7954, 146.7079 · Coordinates: OpenStreetMap Nominatim, 2026-09-11, on 色丹島. Open in OpenStreetMap
Referents
- island The island east of Kunashir; Russian Шикотан
Analyses
Shi-kotan
シコタン ‘the great village’ proposed- si ‘great, true’
- kotan ‘village, place’
Proponent: Batchelor, John (John Batchelor)
Batchelor's reading.
Evidence
- documents
The 1985 handbook glosses the name «лучшее место» 'the best place', Браславец 1983 «крупное (большое) селение», and Chamberlain 1887 'the main land', in contrast to the small islets around it (Бражник–Пономарёв 2024, p. 390).
Both parts are ordinary words and the name keeps them unchanged.
Attestations
- 色丹島 oral record 1903 鳥居龍藏『千島アイヌ』第二章「千島地名解」
In 1884 the Japanese government moved the 97 northern Kuril Ainu to 斜古丹 on this island (p. 34); in ヤコーフ's division the island belongs to Yawani (p. 36).
鳥居1903 p. 34 - Shikotan dictionary 1905 An Ainu-English-Japanese Dictionary, 2nd ed.
Shi-kotan. Great, or best, or true village or place.
Batchelor1905 § V "Place Names Considered", s.v. Shikotan - Shikotan document 1897 Snow, Notes on the Kuril Islands
SHIKOTAN, lying to the eastward of the Kunashir, and about 40 miles north-east by east from Cape Noyshaf, has a length of 14 miles and a breadth of about 6, its area being 70 square miles.
Snow1897 p. 55 - Шикотан (Шпанберга) document 1946–1947 Проект Картографической комиссии РГО им. Ю. М. Шокальского «Названия географических объектов Курильских островов», 1947
В 1946 г. по предложению участников Курильской научно-исследовательской экспедиции было восстановлено старое айнское название острова, а имя Шпанберга взято в скобки
The 1985 handbook's account: Шпанберг's expedition of 1739 had named the island Фигурный, Броутон in 1796 named it after Шпанберг, and the 1946 expedition restored the Ainu name with Шпанберга in brackets, which the book's own entry heading keeps; Корсунская 1958, quoted on p. 356, lists Шпанберга among the names from rejected projects that reached some maps.
Бражник2024 pp. 390, 356 - Чикота / Чикотан / Фигурной document 1738–1811 Шпанберг 1738; Антипин и Очередин 1775–1778; Шелехов 1783–1790; Головнин 1811 (as listed in Бражник–Пономарёв 2024)
Шпанберг's charts have Фигурной (1738); Чикота, 21-й with Антипин and Очередин (1775–1778), Чикотан, Чикота, Шигодан with Шелехов, and Чикотан twentieth in the local count with Головнин 1811.
Бражник2024 p. 391