月寒 つきさむ Tsukisamu
Toyohira-ku, Sapporo, Ishikari region, Hokkaidō
Ainu spellings: Chikisap, Chikisappu, Tukisap
The place is a district, two rivers and a terrace edge at once, and the readings proposed for it divide over which of the three the name first belonged to. The oldest spellings, Chikishafu and Chikishabu, begin with chi; the modern Tsukisamu and the local Tsukisappu begin with tsu. Every reading has to account for that shift in one direction or the other.
Location
43.0306, 141.3983 · Coordinates: OpenStreetMap Nominatim, 2026-09-10, on 月寒. Open in OpenStreetMap
Readings in the place-name tables: チキサプ Ci-kisa-p
Referents
- settlement The Tsukisamu district of Toyohira-ku, Sapporo, along Route 36; an independent village, Tsukisamu-mura, before it was absorbed into Sapporo. The local reading Tsukisappu survives in the former railway station name and in the shrine festival.
- river Tsukisamu River and Motsukisamu River, which enclose the district. Motsukisamu is mo 'small', the smaller of the two; the larger was also called Shii-Tsukisamu, si 'main stream'.
- mountain The bluffs along the Motsukisamu River, including the escarpment below the Kanjōdai in Tsukisamu Park, once used as a shooting range.
Analyses
chi-kisa-p
チキサㇷ゚ ‘the place where fire is drilled’ received readingProponent: 永田方正 (Nagata Hōsei)
Nagata gives Chikisap as 'the place where fire is drilled, where fire was taken by drilling chips of akadamo wood', and the river sign on the Tsukisamu River repeats it. It follows Matsuura Takeshirō, who explains the name by a story of a fire-striker forgotten here and adds that Chikishabu is the word for a fire-striker, whence the elm is called Chikishani. The segmentation chi-kisa-p is the author's. Ainu drilled a yew branch against elm bark to make fire, and the elm is chi-kisa-ni 'the wood we drill'.
Evidence
Objections
- Chiri Mashiho: 'is the object of chi-kisa -p? In other words, is it a place that we rub? Not at all. Rubbing a place to make fire is nonsense. Analysing this name as chi-kisa-p and reading it as "the place where fire is drilled" was unreasonable from the start. Anyone wanting that meaning should have taken chi-e-kisa-p "the place where we drill it and make fire" as the underlying form and written the name as its contraction.' — 知里真志保 zenibako_trek…
- Yamada Hidezō: making fire by rubbing wood chips can be done anywhere, so the reading is odd as a place name. — 山田秀三 zenibako_trek…
- Sarashina Genzō: the reading is hard to accept as a place name. — 更科源蔵 zenibako_trek…
- Sapporo Chimei-kō: the name belonged originally to the Tsukisamu River and later became a district name, so neither this reading nor chi-kes-sap convinces. — 『札幌地名考』さっぽろ文庫 zenibako_trek…
- Fire-drilling was done wherever there was a settlement, which leaves the choice of it as a name unexplained. — zenibako_trek zenibako_trek…
kisa is a dictionary-attested transitive verb, so the parts are real words, and the reading carries the oldest recorded spellings Chikishafu and Chikishabu. The objection that -p cannot be the object of kisa is a grammatical one and no proponent has answered it.
chi-kisa-p
チキサㇷ゚ ‘the thing we drill, that is, the elm’ proposedProponent: 山田秀三 (Yamada Hidezō)
Yamada: 'the final -p has been read as "place", but it may have been chi-kisa-p, we-rub-thing, that is, the akadamo tree, a form with p in place of ni. In that case Tsukisamu would mean the place where akadamo grows.' Sakakibara Masafumi follows the same reading, pointing to an identical name in Kuromatsunai, Shiribeshi, where a mixed wood dense with elm still stands, and reads the name as a river with elm growing along it. The Kuromatsunai name is in fact Chikishanitai, chi-kisa-ni-tay 'elm wood'.
Evidence
- parallel place names
Chikishanitai in Kuromatsunai, chi-kisa-ni-tay 'elm wood', names a stand of elm beyond dispute. Urakawa in Hidaka also has a 月寒, still read Tsukisappu.
Objections
- The Edo-period records of the vegetation around Sapporo name primrose at Tsukisamu and oak and maple at Motsukisamu, and oak, chestnut and hōnoki in the hills at Toyohira; elm is not singled out anywhere, although Tamamushi Sadayū recorded the plants along the Chitose mountain road closely. On the ground, some elm was found along the Rawunenai but none confirmed along the Tsukisamu River. A name meaning 'the elm' would designate a single tree, which suits neither the river nor the district. Deriving Tsukisappu from Chikishanitai would need the same contraction to have happened independently at Urakawa. — zenibako_trek zenibako_trek…
- Yamada's survey reports some elm growing along the Tsukisamu River. Deriving Tsukisappu from Chikishanitai carries some weight, and the author is left with a question mark over it. — zenibako_trek zenibako_trek…
chi-kisa-ni is a dictionary word and the segmentation is grammatical, so the reading is the strongest of the chi-kisa- group. What it needs is a stand of elm at Tsukisamu, and the Edo-period plant lists for the spot record other trees.
tu-kes-sap
トゥケㇱサㇷ゚ ‘the downward slope at the end of the ridge’ proposedProponent: 『北海道駅名の起源』（昭和29年度版）
Yamada Hidezō calls it 'an astonishing device that matched the sound closest to Tsukisappu with the landform of the Tsukisamu terrace' and supposes that Chiri Mashiho devised it. On the same page he adds that 'the sound chikisa handed down among the Ainu is hard to discard'.
Evidence
- topography
The Tsukisamu terrace does fall away at its edge, and the slope on Route 36 where it crosses the Motsukisamu River is steep.
Objections
- Yamada Hidezō: 'the old records give Chikishafu. If the name had been Tsukisap from early on, tu could be taken as the source of the shift, but since the older form is Chikishafu, chi is the natural starting point unless some particular corroboration turns up.' — 山田秀三 zenibako_trek…
- Confusion between u and o, and between i and u, is common in transcriptions of Ainu place names, but word-initial i and u seldom waver. Not one Edo-period record writes the name with tu, so the reading has little room. sap itself carries no sense 'downward slope' in the main dictionaries; it is 'come out toward the shore', and it is a plural verb, so the reading amounts to 'many ridge ends jutting out'. tu is sometimes rendered 'peak' or 'cape', but situ is the usual word for a ridge and tu on its own is not often used that way. — zenibako_trek zenibako_trek…
- Sapporo Chimei-kō: the name belonged originally to the Tsukisamu River, so neither this reading nor chi-kisa-p convinces. — 『札幌地名考』さっぽろ文庫 zenibako_trek…
- Sarashina Genzō: the shift from chi-kes-sap 'the downward slope at the edge of the hill' is also put forward, but the name was given to a river in the first place, which makes it doubtful. — 更科源蔵 zenibako_trek…
kes and sap are dictionary words and the reading matches the modern Tsukisappu and the landform, but the first element has to be a tu 'ridge' that the documentary spellings never show and that the dictionaries barely support on its own.
tuk-e-sap
トゥケサㇷ゚ ‘the projecting descents’ proposedProponent: ジョン・バチェラー (John Batchelor)
Batchelor's list of place names reads the name as a jutting slope, half a century before the reading in Hokkaidō Ekimei no Kigen. The list stands apart from his own dictionary entry Chikisap 'a slope, a hill-side'.
tuk, e- and sap are all dictionary words and the sense agrees with the sloping terrace edge, but the reading needs the initial chi of the Edo-period spellings to have been tuk, and no record writes the name that way.
chi-ke-sap
チケサㇷ゚ ‘the cliff descends; the slope that scrapes itself’ proposedProponent: zenibako_trek（小樽銭函地名歴史研究会） (zenibako_trek (Otaru Zenibako Place-Name and History Society))
The author builds the name on chikep 'a sheer cliff' in Chiri's small dictionary of place-name Ainu, decomposed as chi-ke-p 'the thing that has scraped itself'. The Chikyū Cape in Muroran was poro-chikep 'the great cliff' and its modern reading Chikiu goes back to cikep by way of cikew and cikewe, which the author cites as a parallel loss of the medial p. Chikisap would be the same chikep with sap 'slope' in place of the final p. The bluffs along the Motsukisamu River survive, and the escarpment at the Kanjōdai in Tsukisamu Park is the author's candidate for the cliff.
Variants
- chikisap ‘the slope of the cliff’ — The compounded shape the author takes as the name itself.
Evidence
- parallel place names
Chikyū Cape at Muroran appears as Chikewe in the old records. Chiri Mashiho and Yamada Hidezō read its original name as poro-cikewe, from poro-cikep 'parent cliff', ci-ke-p 'the thing that scraped itself', and trace cikep to cikew and then cikewe once the shape cikep had been forgotten. Suma-san 'the rock juts out' at Temiya in Otaru has the same landform-plus-motion-verb shape as chike-sap.
- documents
Matsuura's field notebook writes Horochikinshafu, with a nasal between ki and sha. A form built on kisa 'drill' would leave no room for a consonant there.
- documents
Batchelor's dictionary gives Chikisap as 'a slope, a hill-side' in its own entry. In his second edition San is listed as a noun, 'a descent, a slope', with Sap given as its plural; the fourth edition corrects Sap to the plural of the verb san.
- topography
Tamamushi Sadayū's Inaw-zaka, 'more than three ri' from Shimamatsu, falls at Tsukisamu; he calls it winding and too steep for a horse. Ainu offered inaw at dangerous points on a route, and a slope that needed inaw is a slope worth naming.
The reading is grammatical, keeps the initial chi of the oldest spellings, and matches Batchelor's independent gloss 'a slope, a hill-side'. Its weak point is the medial p of chikep, for which the support is the Chikyū Cape parallel and one field-notebook spelling with a nasal. The author presents it as a proposal.
chi-kep-sam
チケㇷ゚サㇺ ‘beside the cliff’ proposed- chikep ‘sheer cliff’
- sam ‘beside, near’
Proponent: zenibako_trek（小樽銭函地名歴史研究会） (zenibako_trek (Otaru Zenibako Place-Name and History Society))
The author's second candidate. sam is a locative noun and follows its noun directly, which gives a clean grammatical shape; reading the ending as the plural verb sap left the plural unexplained. On this reading the modern spelling Tsukisamu would have restored the older sound.
Evidence
- parallel place names
Nosappu and Noshappu are taken to be not-sam 'beside the cape'; the Inō large map writes Nosshamu for Noshappu, and sa is pronounced both sa and sha. Hassamu in Nishi-ku shows the same wavering between Hatchamu and Hasshafu in the old records, and is probably hat-sam 'beside the wild grapes'. Both show a final sam heard as sap.
Objections
- The sound handed down locally is firmly Tsukisappu and the old records keep the shape Chikisap, so the reading stays a possibility. — zenibako_trek zenibako_trek…
sam is a dictionary-attested locative noun and the sam-heard-as-sap parallels are real place names, while every recorded spelling of this name ends in a labial stop.
Attestations
- チキシヤフ document 1858 戊午新道日誌
チキシヤフ 名義 昔し婆が火打を忘れしが故に号るとや
Matsuura Takeshirō's explanation, that an old woman once forgot her fire-striker here.
zenibako_trek… - チキシヤブ document Edo period 西蝦夷日誌
チキシヤブ（小川）昔し神が火打を忘れし古跡なりと。チキシヤブは火打の事なり。依て奏皮アカダモをチキシヤニといへるなり。
The same story with a kamuy in place of the old woman, and the elm called Chikishani beside it.
zenibako_trek… - ホロチキンシャフ document Edo period 手控 午第十番手記
サッホロ／チキシャフ 小川／ホロチキンシャフ 小川／ラウネナイ 小川
Matsuura's field notebook, which records what he heard on the spot. The syllabic nasal between ki and sha points to a form with a consonant there. In this list the stream nearer the Toyohira River, today's Motsukisamu, carries the bare name Chikishafu, and the Tsukisamu River carries horo.
zenibako_trek… - ツキシャーブ／モツキシャーブ document 1857 入北記
イナヲ坂 ツキシャーブと云ふ渓河あり。此辺桜草多し。／モツキシャーブ 此辺柏木椛多し
Tamamushi Sadayū places Tsukishābu nearer Toyohira than Motsukishābu, the reverse of the present arrangement, and names an Inaw-zaka slope at the same point. The plants he lists here are primrose, oak and maple.
zenibako_trek… - Chikisap dictionary 1905
Chikisap, チキサプ, 斜面, 小山ノ坂ノ面. n. A slope. A hill-side. Syn: Huru-kotoro.
A separate entry from Chikisap 'to strike fire with a flint and steel', which stands immediately above it, and from Chikisa-ni 'the elm tree'.
Batchelor1905 s.v. Chikisap (second entry) - Chikisap dictionary 1905
Chikisap, チキサプ, [...] v4, To strike fire with a flint and steel.
Batchelor1905 s.v. Chikisap (first entry)
Related names
- 望月寒川 もつきさむがわ — mo 'small', the smaller of the two Tsukisamu rivers, against si 'main stream' in Shii-Tsukisamu for the larger. The bluffs the author identifies as the cliff of the name stand along this river, and the author suggests the name began there and passed to the shorter stream beside it, the longer one taking the name Tsukisamu River. Route 36 crosses the Tsukisamu River on the Mochizuki Bridge and the Motsukisamu River on the Tsukisamu Bridge. zenibako_trek…
- 月寒（浦河町） つきさっぷ — A second 月寒 in Hidaka, still read Tsukisappu. zenibako_trek…
- チキシャニタイ（黒松内町） ちきしゃにたい — chi-kisa-ni-tay 'elm wood', a name for a stand of elm in Shiribeshi, cited in support of reading Tsukisamu as an elm name. zenibako_trek…
- 地球岬（室蘭市） ちきゅうみさき — Original name poro-cikewe, from poro-cikep 'the parent cliff'. Chiri Mashiho and Yamada Hidezō derive the modern Chikiu from cikep through cikew and cikewe. zenibako_trek…