Hard-to-Read Place Names of Nagano: How the Readings Come Apart
Open a map of Nagano for the first time, and place names that resist any obvious reading turn up again and again. Working from the official readings, here is how those readings come apart.
A name can look perfectly readable in kanji and still turn out to sound completely different. Nagano has examples in every one of its four regions: Hokushin, Toshin, Chushin, and Nanshin.
Using the official readings recorded in Japan Post's postal-code data and the Geospatial Information Authority's place-name records, this article sorts the ways a reading can come apart into four patterns. It stays away from guessing at origins and focuses on how each reading actually works.
When a familiar reading gets in the way: collisions with nationwide words and place names
Tsukama (筑摩)
This spelling calls to mind the Chikuma River and the publisher Chikuma Shobo, both read "Chikuma." In Matsumoto, though, the official reading is "Tsukama." The more familiar a reading is elsewhere, the easier it is to misapply here.
Source:Japan Post -- Postal Code Data Download (Nagano Prefecture, small-kana notation)Geospatial Information Authority of Japan -- GIS and National Land Information (place-name data)
Owa (大和)
Almost everyone in Japan reads these two characters as "Yamato," the classical name for Japan itself. In Suwa City, the very same two characters are officially read "Owa." A reading this famous makes the local difference harder to notice, not easier.
Source:Japan Post -- Postal Code Data Download (Nagano Prefecture, small-kana notation)Geospatial Information Authority of Japan -- GIS and National Land Information (place-name data)
Yonako (米子)
Yonago City in Tottori Prefecture, written with the same two characters, is well known nationwide and ends in a voiced "go." The Suzaka City neighborhood of the same spelling is read "Yonako," unvoiced at the end. Voicing does not automatically travel with the kanji from one place to another.
Source:Japan Post -- Postal Code Data Download (Nagano Prefecture, small-kana notation)Geospatial Information Authority of Japan -- GIS and National Land Information (place-name data)
Tsuiji (築地)
Most people who see these characters think first of Tokyo's Tsukiji, the famous market district. Ueda City's neighborhood of the same spelling is read "Tsuiji," with a different vowel entirely. A well-known reading elsewhere can be the very thing that gets in the way here.
Source:Japan Post -- Postal Code Data Download (Nagano Prefecture, small-kana notation)Geospatial Information Authority of Japan -- GIS and National Land Information (place-name data)
Konami (湖南)
Read the characters for "lake" and "south" the way Sino-Japanese compounds usually work, and "Konan" looks like a safe guess. The Suwa City neighborhood is officially "Konami" instead, a reading that fits neither a straightforward on'yomi nor kun'yomi pattern.
Source:Japan Post -- Postal Code Data Download (Nagano Prefecture, small-kana notation)Geospatial Information Authority of Japan -- GIS and National Land Information (place-name data)
Sōza (惣社)
A soja was a Heian-era shrine that gathered a province's deities in one place for the governor's convenience, and the name recurs across Japan: Soja City in Okayama and the Soja neighborhood of Maebashi, Gunma are both read "Sōja." Matsumoto's version stops one step short, voiced as "Sōza" rather than "Sōja."
Source:Japan Post -- Postal Code Data Download (Nagano Prefecture, small-kana notation)Geospatial Information Authority of Japan -- GIS and National Land Information (place-name data)
When the characters don't add up: whole-word readings and borrowed sounds
Kumashiro (神稲)
Neither the standard readings of "god" nor "rice plant" point anywhere near "kuma" or "shiro." Working through the characters one at a time will not get a reader to this name; the two-character unit has to be learned whole, the classic shape of a jukujikun reading.
Source:Japan Post -- Postal Code Data Download (Nagano Prefecture, small-kana notation)Geospatial Information Authority of Japan -- GIS and National Land Information (place-name data)
Mamejima (大豆島)
The two characters for "soybean" normally read "daizu" as a compound. Here the first character's sound is dropped entirely, leaving only the second character's kun'yomi, "mame," to carry the whole word. Adding up the characters one by one does not explain this reading.
Source:Japan Post -- Postal Code Data Download (Nagano Prefecture, small-kana notation)Geospatial Information Authority of Japan -- GIS and National Land Information (place-name data)
Seba (洗馬)
Read on'yomi, "wash" gives "sen" and "horse" gives "ba," which would add up to "Senba." Shiojiri's neighborhood drops the "n" entirely and is read "Seba." Treating the two characters as one word, rather than two syllables in sequence, produces the contraction.
Source:Japan Post -- Postal Code Data Download (Nagano Prefecture, small-kana notation)Geospatial Information Authority of Japan -- GIS and National Land Information (place-name data)
Tokiwagi (常磐城)
"Tokiwa" means lasting and unchanging, and the everyday word "tokiwagi" uses it to mean an evergreen tree, written with a character for "tree." Ueda's place name swaps in the character for "castle" at the end, yet keeps the exact same reading, "tokiwagi." The spelling changed while the sound of an existing word stayed fixed.
Source:Japan Post -- Postal Code Data Download (Nagano Prefecture, small-kana notation)Geospatial Information Authority of Japan -- GIS and National Land Information (place-name data)
Hissori (日曽利)
None of "day," "formerly," or "profit," the plain meanings of the three characters, carries any sense of quiet. Read straight through, though, the three characters sound exactly like "hissori," the everyday word for hushed and still. The kanji were almost certainly chosen for their sound alone.
Source:Japan Post -- Postal Code Data Download (Nagano Prefecture, small-kana notation)Geospatial Information Authority of Japan -- GIS and National Land Information (place-name data)
Chikaramachi (主税町)
"Shuzei" traces back to an old court office that handled land tax paid through people's labor; the word for that labor, "chikara," came to be written with characters meaning "taxation." Iida's neighborhood preserves that old reading, unconnected to any modern sense of the characters.
Source:Japan Post -- Postal Code Data Download (Nagano Prefecture, small-kana notation)Geospatial Information Authority of Japan -- GIS and National Land Information (place-name data)
Voiced, clipped, or fused: shifts in pronunciation
Otai (小田井)
The first two characters usually voice to "Oda," as in Odawara, the well-known city in Kanagawa. Saku City's neighborhood that starts with the same two characters stays unvoiced, "Otai." Reasoning from a nearby, more famous reading turns out to point the wrong way here.
Source:Japan Post -- Postal Code Data Download (Nagano Prefecture, small-kana notation)Geospatial Information Authority of Japan -- GIS and National Land Information (place-name data)
Obinatamachi (大日向町)
Read plainly, the core three characters would be "Oohinata." Suzaka's neighborhood contracts the doubled "oo" down to a single "o" and voices "hinata" into "binata." Two separate shifts, a vowel contraction and a rendaku voicing, land on top of each other in the same word.
Source:Japan Post -- Postal Code Data Download (Nagano Prefecture, small-kana notation)Geospatial Information Authority of Japan -- GIS and National Land Information (place-name data)
Tomigata (富県)
The character for "prefecture" has an old reading, "agata," naming a land district from before it came to mean "prefecture." When "tomi" is joined to "agata," the vowels at the seam fuse and the leading "a" disappears, leaving "Tomigata." An old word changes shape once folded into a compound.
Source:Japan Post -- Postal Code Data Download (Nagano Prefecture, small-kana notation)Geospatial Information Authority of Japan -- GIS and National Land Information (place-name data)
Arigasaki (蟻ケ崎)
The character "ケ" here functions as a possessive marker read "ga," and that voicing carries into the final character, which shifts from "saki" to "gasaki." Matsumoto's neighborhood shows both voicings stacked in a single name.
Source:Japan Post -- Postal Code Data Download (Nagano Prefecture, small-kana notation)Geospatial Information Authority of Japan -- GIS and National Land Information (place-name data)
"Agata," "toki," "osa": old words still living in place names
Agata (県)
In modern Japanese this character is read "ken" and means "prefecture," essentially without exception. "Agata" is an older word for a land district that predates the prefectural system. Matsumoto keeps a place name that is this single character alone, and the same old word resurfaces, reshaped, in Ina City's "Tomigata" to the south.
Source:Japan Post -- Postal Code Data Download (Nagano Prefecture, small-kana notation)Geospatial Information Authority of Japan -- GIS and National Land Information (place-name data)
Tokiiri (常入)
The character for "jo/tsune" is read "jō" in the great majority of modern words, as in "nichijō" (everyday) or "tsūjō" (usual). "Toki" is an older kun'yomi, preserved in the word "tokiwa" (lasting, unchanging). Ueda's neighborhood carries that older reading forward.
Source:Japan Post -- Postal Code Data Download (Nagano Prefecture, small-kana notation)Geospatial Information Authority of Japan -- GIS and National Land Information (place-name data)
Osachi (長地)
The character for "long" is read "chō" or "naga(i)" in nearly all modern usage, but it also has an old kun'yomi, "osa," meaning the head of a village or group. Okaya's neighborhood keeps that reading, and the same "osa" turns up to the east in Ueda City's "Sanada-machi Osa."
Source:Japan Post -- Postal Code Data Download (Nagano Prefecture, small-kana notation)Geospatial Information Authority of Japan -- GIS and National Land Information (place-name data)
Hachisu (蓮)
The lotus is read "hasu" in ordinary modern Japanese. "Hachisu" is the older name for the same plant, still current in classical Japanese. Iiyama keeps a place name that is this single character alone, about as far from an everyday reading as any on this list.
Source:Japan Post -- Postal Code Data Download (Nagano Prefecture, small-kana notation)Geospatial Information Authority of Japan -- GIS and National Land Information (place-name data)
FAQ
Why do so many of Nagano's hard-to-read place names share kanji with famous words or places elsewhere in Japan?
The same kanji circulate nationwide, but each place kept its own reading as it was handed down locally, independent of anywhere else using those characters. Knowing a famous reading well can make the local one harder to notice, not easier.
Why doesn't reading each character separately work for some of these names?
Readings of this kind, called jukujikun, treat two or more characters as a single word rather than a sum of separate sounds. In some cases, such as the soybean example above, one character's sound is dropped from the compound entirely.
Is voicing and contraction in these readings unique to Nagano?
No. Rendaku voicing, its reverse, and vowel contraction all appear throughout Japanese place names nationwide. What this article gathers are cases where that general tendency happens to trip up a reader.
How can I check the official reading of a place name not covered here?
The two sources listed with each entry above are the public records behind this article. Once you have learned a reading, you can put it to the test in the Hard-to-Read Place Names quiz.