Ainu Morpheme Explorer
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Northern Kuril Islands

宇志知島

うししるとう Ushishir

The head form Ushioshir is not explained.

Ainu spellings: Ushioshir, Kamui karu moshiri

Analyses

Kamui karu moshiri

カムイカルモシリ

proposed

the island the god made

Proponent: 鳥居龍藏 (Torii Ryūzō)

Torii's gloss of the second name, which the tale of the thunder god motivates.

鳥居1903 p. 44鳥居1903 第六章 千島地名普通單語集 (pp. 156–172), Kamui鳥居1903 第六章 千島地名普通單語集 (pp. 156–172), Moshiri
Analysis details
Confidence: medium

A transparent three-word phrase, kamuy and moshiri being in Torii's own word list; no other source in this database records the name.

Ushishir

ウシシㇼ

proposed

the island with a bay

Proponent: Картографическая комиссия РГО, 1947 (RGO cartographic commission, 1947)

The reading behind the 1947 restoration, repeated by the 1985 handbook; Браславец 1983 reads usi 'current of water' + sir instead.

Бражник2024 p. 352, quoting the commission's 1947 project
Analysis details
Confidence: low

us is not the Hokkaidō word for a bay, and the island's flooded caldera makes the gloss attractive rather than attested.

Attestations

  • Ushioshir oral record 1903 鳥居龍藏『千島アイヌ』第二章「千島地名解」
    太古にはこの島無かりしが、雷神 Kannan kamui この島を作り、天よりこれを降せりと云ふ、而してこの島を又 Kamui karu moshiri「神の作り給ひし島」と云ふ

    Torii records the tale that the island did not exist of old and was made by the thunder god Kannan kamui and let down from the sky, and the second name Kamui karu moshiri 'the island the god made'.

  • Ушимир (1755) / Ушитир (1949) document 1755 Крашенинников, Описание земли Камчатки, ч. I, гл. 9 «О Курильских островах»
    …из которых Ушитир немного в стороне лежит к востоку…

    From Müller's list. The 1755 printing reads Ушимир; the 1949 edition restores Ушитир from the manuscript (note 363).

    Krasheninnikov1755 1949 ed., p. 169
  • Ushishir document 1897 Snow, Notes on the Kuril Islands
    Ushishir, on the north-east side of Ketoi Strait, is composed of two islands, each about a mile and a half in length…
    Snow1897 p. 67
  • Ушишир document 1947 Проект Картографической комиссии РГО им. Ю. М. Шокальского «Названия географических объектов Курильских островов», 1947
    «Старое айнское название (остров с бухтой)».

    The commission restored the name with this gloss; the book corrects the 1985 handbook, which had called us 'bay' English.

  • Ушишир document 1725–1737 Козыревский 1725–1730; Миллер 1737 (as listed in Бражник–Пономарёв 2024)

    The name is stable in the Russian record from Ушишир пятой на десять (Козыревский 1725) and Ушиширь (1726) to Ушишир пятнадцатый (Миллер 1737); the 1755 printing of Крашенинников has Ушимир, which the book, like the 1949 editors, takes as a misprint.

Sources