ANSTHRLD - Even More ILOI Conflicts

[Kathleen O'Brien]

>Greetings from Robert Fitzmorgan, Northkeep Herald.  I'll be seeing most of
>these people ths weekend and would like to be able to discuss their
>submissions with them with them.

Bless you!!!


>>  9) Ikijima Katsutoshi (Northkeep)
>>  [Name] Mari has found data that would return this name.
>>  [Device] The device would go back automatically.
>>
>    Can you elaborate please?

If the name gets returned, the device is automatically returned since it
can't go forward without a name.

Here's the commentary I sent to Retiarius about this name.  Please let me
know if there is anything more I should look up to help the submitter.

Mari

-----------------------------------------------

[My apologies if some of this commentary does not address the documentation
summarized in the ILoI; I am writing this based on a forwarded summary of
the submission in the ILoI as I have not yet been able to get my hands on a
copy of ILoI 09/2000.]

Regarding the submitted Japanese name: Ikijima Katsutoshi

The submitter has the basic structure of the name correct:
     family name + nanori
So <Ikijima> is being used as the family name and <Katsutoshi> is being
used as the nanori.

Katsutoshi:
'Katsutoshi' is a masculine Nanori whose Kanji is dated to 1568 in Solveig
(p. 335).  This portion of the name is good to go.

Ikijima:
Unlike Western languages that are usually discussed in these comments on
ILoIs, Japanese is a pictographically-based language rather than a
phonetically-based language.

Kanji characters are modified pictograms representing the item they refer
to.  Hiragana and Katakana (collectively referred to as Kana) character
sets are used to phonetically represent Kanji characters.  The fourth
character set is the one we are concerned with: Romanji.  Romanji is a
standardized method of representing Kanji & Kana using Roman characters.

So the order is:
    idea -> Kanji -> Kana -> Romanji

This affects us in the following way: if the proposed Kanji combination
does not make sense in Kanji, then it won't appear in Kanji.  And so won't
appear in Kana or Romanji.  Which can bring you up against that phrase we
often see in LoARs, "Returned for lack of documentation of ....".

Now, to further complicate things, in the step Kanji -> Kana, the Kana form
may vary depending upon some rather obscure rules.

For example, the Kanji character for island, when following another Kanji,
is normally pronounced <-shima>, occasionally <-jima>.  And that's with no
stress on any of the syllables.  For example, <Hiroshima> is properly
pronounced \hi-ro-shi-ma\ not \HEE-row-SHEE-mah\ as it is commonly
pronounced in English.  If you cut down the length of time you pronounce
\HEE\ and \SHEE\ by about two-thirds, you'll be much closer to the Japanese
pronunciation.

Solveig (p. 144 under "Island") dates the Kanji for 'Samejima' to 1332 as a
family name.  The Kanji for 'Samejima' is the Kanji character for shark +
the Kanji character for island.  So 'Samejima' is a family name that refers
to a location, specifially an island where there are sharks.

I could find nothing like 'Ikijima' used as a family name.

There was a province 'Iki' formed as part of the Taika Reform (645 A.D.).
The characters for this location are one + forking road.  Found in Nelson:
Ichi, Itsu p. 129 (item 983) & Ki, chimata p. 183 (item 1447)

Solveig (p. 133) lists the character KI (for Divide/Fork/Split/Branch) and
says of this Kanji that "the imphasis is not upon the lsope of the
mountains cuting down to where they meet, but upon the cleavage of a
mountain in twain."

Since 'Iki' is therefore already a counter (one) and a solid idea/main
focus (a divided mountain), adding island to it would not seem to fit Kanji
structure.  The names that Solveig lists under Island (pp. 144-145) do not
include any parallel examples to the submitted Ikijima.

As such, if we cannot find other support for Ikijima as a Japanese family
name / surname, I am afraid that this name will need to be returned.


Sources:

Solveig Throndardottir, _Name Construction in Mediaeval Japan_, Free
Trumpet Studies in Heraldry & Onomastics 87 (Albuquerque, NM: The Outlaw
Press, 1994).

Andrew W. Nelson, _The Compact Nelson Japanese-English Character
Dictionary_, abridged by John H. Haig. (Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle
Company, 1999).

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