琉球語の「にし」(北)の語源について

要旨

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the etymology of the word nishi `north' in the Ryukyuan language. In the literature, there are four hypotheses on the etymology of the word: ones presented by Shōsaburō Kanazawa (1913), Seizen Nakasone (1972), Takeshi Shibata (1974), and Masachie Nakamoto (1981). This current paper examines each of these hypotheses in detail to see whether their arguments hold. As a result, it is found that there are some problems such as inconsistency and unclear explanations in their arguments. This paper proposes its own hypothesis based on the phonological, morphological, and semantic analysis of the word nishi. It concludes that the word is a compound consisting of two morphemes: ni and shi. The former is ni `north, rat (the first symbol of the Chinese zodiac)' (< ne) and the latter shi `direction' (< shi `wind' in Old Japanese).

主題