is the

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

term historically used to refer to the people and the lands to the northeast of the Japanese island of

Honshu , historically known as , is the largest of the four main islands of Japan. It lies between the Pacific Ocean (east) and the Sea of Japan (west). It is the list of islands by area, seventh-largest island in the world, and the list of islands by ...

. This included the northern Japanese island of

Hokkaido is the list of islands of Japan by area, second-largest island of Japan and comprises the largest and northernmost prefectures of Japan, prefecture, making up its own list of regions of Japan, region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō fr ...

, which changed its name from "Ezo" to "Hokkaidō" in 1869, Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)
"Ezo"
in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', p. 184. and sometimes included

Sakhalin Sakhalin ( rus, Сахали́н, p=səxɐˈlʲin) is an island in Northeast Asia. Its north coast lies off the southeastern coast of Khabarovsk Krai in Russia, while its southern tip lies north of the Japanese island of Hokkaido. An islan ...

and the

Kuril Islands The Kuril Islands or Kurile Islands are a volcanic archipelago administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast in the Russian Far East. The islands stretch approximately northeast from Hokkaido in Japan to Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia, separating the ...

. The word ''Ezo'' means 'the shrimp barbarians' in Japanese. In reference to the people of that region, the same two

kanji are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are ...

used to write the word ''Ezo'' can also be read ''

Emishi The were a group of people who lived in parts of northern Honshū in present-day Japan, especially in the Tōhoku region. The first mention of the Emishi in literature that can be corroborated with outside sources dates to the 5th century AD, ...

''. The descendants of these people are most likely related to the

Ainu people The Ainu are an Indigenous peoples, indigenous ethnic group who reside in northern Japan and southeastern Russia, including Hokkaido and the Tōhoku region of Honshu, as well as the land surrounding the Sea of Okhotsk, such as Sakhalin, the Ku ...

of today.

Etymology

Japanese sources that include an etymology describe ''Ezo'' as probably originally a borrowing from the Ainu word meaning . The term is first attested in Japanese in a text from 1153 in reference to any of the non-Japanese people living in the northeast of

Honshū , historically known as , is the largest of the four main islands of Japan. It lies between the Pacific Ocean (east) and the Sea of Japan (west). It is the seventh-largest island in the world, and the second-most populous after the Indonesian ...

, and then later in 1485 in reference to the northern islands where these people lived, primarily

, Karafuto (i.e.

), and the

. The

spelling is based on the meanings of the characters rather than the phonetics (

jukujikun are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are ...

), and is composed of the characters meaning and meaning . The use of the character for might be in reference to the long "whiskers" ( antennae) of these animals, alluding to the prominent

beard A beard is the hair that grows on the jaw, chin, upper lip, lower lip, cheeks, and neck of humans and some non-human animals. In humans, beards are most commonly seen on pubescent or adult males, though women have been observed with beards ...

s worn by Ainu men. The spelling ''Yezo'' reflects its pronunciation , when Europeans first came in contact with Japan. It is this historical spelling that is reflected in the scientific

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

term , as in ''

Fragaria yezoensis ''Fragaria nipponica'' is a species of wild strawberry native to the western side of the Japanese island of Honshū, with a variety ''Fragaria nipponica'' var. ''yakusimensis'' on Yakushima. Some botanists treat it as a synonym of '' Fragaria ye ...

'' and ''

Porphyra yezoensis ''Porphyra'' is a genus of coldwater seaweeds that grow in cold, shallow seawater. More specifically, it belongs to red algae phylum of laver species (from which comes laverbread), comprising approximately 70 species.Brodie, J.A. and Irvine, L. ...

''. However, there are species that use a different spelling, such as the Japanese scallop known as .

History

The first published description of Ezo in the West was brought to Europe by

Isaac Titsingh Isaac Titsingh FRS ( January 1745 – 2 February 1812) was a Dutch diplomat, historian, Japanologist, and merchant.Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Isaak Titsingh" in . During a long career in East Asia, Titsingh was a senior official of the ...

in 1796. His small library of Japanese books included by

Hayashi Shihei was a Japanese military scholar and a retainer of the Sendai Domain. His name is sometimes transliterated (according to the Sino-Japanese reading) as ''Rin Shihei''. Biography Hayashi was born in Edo as the second son of Hayashi Gonhyoue Y ...

. This book, which was published in Japan in 1785, described the Ezo region and its people. In 1832, the

Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, commonly known as the Royal Asiatic Society, was established, according to its royal charter of 11 August 1824, to further "the investigation of subjects connected with and for the encourag ...

supported the posthumous abridged publication of Titsingh's French translation of .

Julius Klaproth Heinrich Julius Klaproth (11 October 1783 – 28 August 1835) was a German linguist, historian, ethnographer, author, orientalist and explorer. As a scholar, he is credited along with Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat with being instrumental in turning ...

was the editor, completing the task which was left incomplete by the death of the book's initial editor,

Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat (; 5 September 1788 – 2 June 1832) was a French sinologist best known as the first Chair of Sinology at the Collège de France. Rémusat studied medicine as a young man, but his discovery of a Chinese herbal treati ...

Subdivisions

or () was divided into several districts. The first was the Wajinchi, or 'Japanese Lands', which covered the Japanese settlements on and around the

Oshima Peninsula The Oshima Peninsula (渡島半島 ''Oshima-hantō'') is the southernmost part of Hokkaidō, the northernmost of the Japanese islands. Where the peninsula starts is open to interpretation. A more generous interpretation is to draw a line southea ...

. The rest of Ezo was known as the (), or 'Ainu Lands'. There were also Japanese people who moved from other places to the coastal areas of Ezochi. Ezochi was in turn divided into three sections: North Ezochi, which covered southern Sakhalin; West Ezochi, which included the northern half of Hokkaidō; and East Ezochi, which included the populous southern and eastern Hokkaidō and the Kuril Islands.Frey, Christopher J. (2007)

Notes

References

* Cullen, Louis M. (2003)
''A History of Japan, 1582-1941: Internal and External Worlds.''
Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press was the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted a letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it was the oldest university press in the world. Cambridge University Press merged with Cambridge Assessme ...

. ;
OCLC 50694793
* Hayashi, Shihei. (1786). . Edo: Manuscript
OCLC 44014900
* Klaproth, Julius. (1832). ''San kokf tsou ran to sets, ou Aperçu général des trois royaumes.'' Paris:

OCLC 2563166
''also'
OCLC 561284561

External links

Waseda University Waseda University (Japanese: ), abbreviated as or , is a private university, private research university in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as the Tōkyō Professional School by Ōkuma Shigenobu, the fifth Prime Minister of Japan, prime ministe ...

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