秋刀魚
See also: 秋刀鱼
Chinese
autumn; fall; harvest time autumn; fall; harvest time; a swing | knife | fish | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
trad. (秋刀魚) | 秋 | 刀 | 魚 | |
simp. (秋刀鱼) | 秋 | 刀 | 鱼 |
Pronunciation
Noun
秋刀魚
- Pacific saury (Cololabis saira)
Japanese
Kanji in this term | ||
---|---|---|
秋 | 刀 | 魚 |
さんま | ||
Grade: 2 | Grade: 2 | Grade: 2 |
jukujikun |
Alternative spelling |
---|
三馬 (dated, rare) |
Etymology
Uncertain, theories include:
- An alteration from earlier compound 狭 (sa, “narrow”, in reference to the slender body of the fish) + 真魚 (mana, “edible fish”):
- /samana/ → /samuma/ → /samːa/
- An alternative derivation suggests 狭間 (sama, “narrow space”) + 魚 (na, “fish”, ancient term, and part of the roots of modern reading sakana), where ma again references the narrowness of the fish's body, but this is problematic, as 間 (ma) can only refer to the space between things, not the width of a thing itself.
- Another possibility is that sanma is cognate with 鯖 (saba, “mackerel”). The two kinds of fish are somewhat similar, and sanma is even called mackerel pike in English. In addition, the voiced plosive /b/ sound in modern Japanese appears to have been pre-nasalized in Old Japanese as something closer to /mb/, and there is evidence of /b/ ⇔ /m/ alternation in various terms in Japanese. There is also Ainu サㇺバ (samba, “mackerel”),[1] likely a borrowing either into or from Japanese. This suggests that modern sanma may have arisen as an /m/ ⇔ /b/ alteration of older sanba.
The 秋刀魚 spelling likely arose quite recently in 1922 during the Taisho period, when a popular poem by Haruo Satō used this spelling. It alludes to the fish's harvest season of autumn (秋) and its blade-shaped body (刀).[2]
Pronunciation
- (Tokyo) さんま [sàńmá] (Heiban – [0])[2][3]
- IPA(key): [sã̠mːa̠]
Noun
秋刀魚 • (sanma)
- the Pacific saury or mackerel pike, Cololabis saira
- Synonym: さいら (saira)
Usage notes
As with many terms that name organisms, this term is often spelled in katakana, especially in biological contexts (where katakana is customary), as サンマ.
Derived terms
- 秋刀魚飯 (sanmameshi)
Proverbs
- 目黒の秋刀魚 (meguro no sanma)
References
- John Batchelor (1905) An Ainu-English-Japanese dictionary (including a grammar of the Ainu language), Tokyo; London: Methodist Publishing House; Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner Co.
- 2006, 大辞林 (Daijirin), Third Edition (in Japanese), Tōkyō: Sanseidō, →ISBN
- 1998, NHK日本語発音アクセント辞典 (NHK Japanese Pronunciation Accent Dictionary) (in Japanese), Tōkyō: NHK, →ISBN
Further reading
- Etymology entry for 秋刀魚 at Japan Dictionary (in Japanese): http://www.nihonjiten.com/data/45619.html
- Etymology entry for 秋刀魚 at Gogen Jiten (Etymology Dictionary; in Japanese): http://gogen-allguide.com/sa/sanma.html