type:紀要論文

type:Departmental Bulletin Paper

Many people know that there is a goldfish named “ranchu（らんちう）” in Japan. It is the kind of non-dorsalfin fish, egg shape one, but said to be King of the goldfish. When you purchase this, it becomes the good price. However, nobody knows a word this “ranchu” is the word of any country, nor the meaning of it. I aimed at solving this myself in this study. Goldfish is an ornamental fish made artificially in China. The original goldfish which were in Japan in Edo era were brought all in from China. However, “ranchu” is a kind with a unique Quality created in Japan. This kind was made in the Meiji era. but we name the modern “ranchu” after the name reached Japan in the Edo era. Modern “ranchu” is different from “ranchu” of the Edo era for a kind. But they have the same name. In this study, I examined what you meant by this name that came in the Edo era. In a picture book of the Edo era, there is a commentary to call a goldfish without the dorsal fin both 〈ranchu〉 and 〈danchu〉. In this study, I paid my attention to this point and developed the reasoning. I looked for a kanji (Chinese character) based on a promise that the name “ranchu” could be brought from Chinese. Because 〈ran〉 and 〈dan〉 sound sometime exactly the same to our Japanese, I looked for a kanji which have the similar pronunciation with 〈ran〉 and 〈dan〉 and have the valuable meaning. As a result, I found a Word “蚤”, which means egg with shell like duck egg. In addition, about 〈chu〉, I found the word “種”, which means kind. From this consideration, the etymology of “ranchu” is found to be a southern Chinese pronunciation such as Cantonese of the word “蚤種“. This “蚤種”is used as one of the classifications of the kind of the goldfish in China. It would be suitable as a name of the goldfish without the dorsal fin in the 18th century. In addition, it is thought that various words used as a kanji to express “ranchu” in Japanese are substitute characters devised in Japan by pronunciation called “ranchu”.

identifier:3