(also spelled Yezo or Yeso) is the Japanese term historically used to refer to the people and the lands to the northeast of the Japanese island of

Honshu , historically called , is the largest and most populous island of Japan. It is located south of Hokkaidō across the Tsugaru Strait, north of Shikoku across the Inland Sea, and northeast of Kyūshū across the Kanmon Straits. The island separ ...

. This included the northern Japanese island of

Hokkaido is Japan's second largest island and comprises the largest and northernmost prefecture, making up its own region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; the two islands are connected by the undersea railway Seikan Tunnel. The la ...

, 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, r=Sakhalín, p=səxɐˈlʲin; ja, 樺太 ''Karafuto''; zh, c=, p=Kùyèdǎo, s=库页岛, t=庫頁島; Manchu: ᠰᠠᡥᠠᠯᡳᠶᠠᠨ, ''Sahaliyan''; Orok: Бугата на̄, ''Bugata nā''; Nivkh: ...

and the

Kuril Islands The Kuril Islands or Kurile Islands (; rus, Кури́льские острова́, r=Kuril'skiye ostrova, p=kʊˈrʲilʲskʲɪjə ɐstrɐˈva; Japanese: or ) are a volcanic archipelago currently administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast in the ...

. In reference to the people of that region, the same two

kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and 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 ...

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

Emishi The (also called Ebisu and Ezo), written with Chinese characters that literally mean "shrimp barbarians," constituted an ancient ethnic group of people who lived in parts of Honshū, especially in the Tōhoku region, referred to as in contemp ...

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

Ainu people The Ainu are the indigenous people of the lands surrounding the Sea of Okhotsk, including Hokkaido Island, Northeast Honshu Island, Sakhalin Island, the Kuril Islands, the Kamchatka Peninsula and Khabarovsk Krai, before the arrival of the Y ...

of today.

Etymology

Japanese sources that include an etymology describe ''Ezo'' as probably originally a borrowing from the

Ainu Ainu or Aynu may refer to: *Ainu people, an East Asian ethnic group of Japan and the Russian Far East *Ainu languages, a family of languages **Ainu language of Hokkaido **Kuril Ainu language, extinct language of the Kuril Islands **Sakhalin Ainu la ...

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 called , is the largest and most populous island of Japan. It is located south of Hokkaidō across the Tsugaru Strait, north of Shikoku across the Inland Sea, and northeast of Kyūshū across the Kanmon Straits. The island separa ...

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

, Karafuto (that is,

), and the

. The

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

jukujikun are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are still used, along with the subsequent ...

), 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 beards 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 branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

term , as in ''

Fragaria yezoensis ''Fragaria yezoensis'' is a species of wild strawberry native to the eastern side of the Japanese island of Hokkaidō, and the adjacent Kuril Islands and Sakhalin in Russia. It is of no economic value. Some botanists include the very similar '' ...

'' and '' Porphyra yezoensis''. 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 Yoshi ...

. 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 supported the posthumous abridged publication of Titsingh's French translation of . Julius Klaproth was the editor, completing the task which was left incomplete by the death of the book's initial editor, Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat.

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 rest of Ezo was known as the (), or 'Ainu Lands'. 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 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 is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press A university press is an academic publishing hou ...

. ;
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: Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland
OCLC 2563166
''also'
OCLC 561284561

External links

* Waseda University —