Japan renames island of Iwo Jima - Democratic Underground

JI7

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Wed Jun-20-07 11:45 PM
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Japan renames island of Iwo Jima

Source: BBC

A Japanese island that was the scene of one of the fiercest battles of World War II has been renamed to reflect the wishes of its original inhabitants.

Iwo Jima has now become the island of Iwo To, as it was known before the war.

The battle of Iwo Jima in 1945 saw 100,000 US troops attack 22,000 entrenched Japanese soldiers.

The battle produced one of the most enduring images of the war, showing US troops raising the Stars and Stripes on the island's highest point.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6224870.stm

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uppityperson

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Wed Jun-20-07 11:54 PM
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1. That's very interesting, thank you.

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Art_from_Ark

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Thu Jun-21-07 01:17 AM
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2. There are actually 2 "Iwo Jima" islands in Japan

One is just off the southern coast of Kyushu. The other, where the big battle took place, is near Latitude 25 North, Longitude 140 East. If both were called "Iwo Jima", it would make sense to rename one of them. As the article mentions, "to" (pronounced like "toe") is an alternative pronunciation of the Chinese character "shima" (or "jima"), the Japanese word for "island".

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Kagemusha

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Thu Jun-21-07 02:16 AM
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3. A case can be made that "to" is the standard pronunciation anyway.

Matters little. The archaic pronunciation is in the "Iwo" part, really.

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Art_from_Ark

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Thu Jun-21-07 09:16 AM
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4. While "to" is the standard "on-yomi" reading,

and it is often used in compound words containing the "island" character (retto, hanto), when the "island" character is used in Japanese place names, it is almost always read as either "shima" or "jima", such as Miyake-jima, Tane-ga-shima, Sado-ga-shima, Okushiri-jima, Iriomote-shima, Oki-shima, Chichibu-shima, Awaji-shima, and so on.

But you're right, the spelling and pronunciation of "Iwo" are archaic. For some reason, the Japanese decided to drop the "wo" sound from their language :shrug:

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Javaman

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Thu Jun-21-07 09:35 AM
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5. They first wanted to rename it Shirly, but that didn't go over so well. nt

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