Ainu Morpheme Explorer
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Jinya-chō, Shiraoi, Iburi region, Hokkaidō

ウトカンベツ

うとかんべつ Utokanbetsu

The two readings differ over whether the name records an event or the bed of the stream.

Ainu spellings: Utka-un-pet

Analyses

u-tukan-pet

ウトゥカンベツ

received reading

river where they shot at each other

Proponent: 定説

Explained as the river where the two sides shot arrows at each other in war. The Sendai domain camp stood at Jinya-chō and an Ainu casi stood there before it, which the author says makes the image of an exchange of arrows easy to follow.

Objections

  • Names of this kind have no parallels, and the explanation reads as a story attached to the name afterwards. — zenibako_trek zenibako_trek2025
zenibako_trek2025 「ウトカンベツ」
Analysis details
Confidence: low

The reading depends on an event; the article reports no other place name of the same shape.

utka-un-pet

ウッカンベツ

proposed

river with shallows

Proponent: zenibako_trek（小樽銭函地名歴史研究会） (zenibako_trek (Otaru Zenibako Place-Name and History Society))

utka is a common landform word for shallows and appears in place names: water running with a murmur over shallow gravel where the stones show. The river ran beside the Shiraoi settlement. The present channel has been straightened, so the author could not see the shallows.

zenibako_trek2025 「ウトカンベツ」Batchelor1905 s.v. Utka, n. Rapids
Analysis details
Confidence: low

pet is a dictionary word in the sense used, and Batchelor carries utka as a word for rapids; the sense 'shallows' is given in the article without a dictionary citation. The landform it names cannot be checked on the present channel.

Sources