Changes and Traces of Ainu Place Names in Contact with Japanese

Abstract

At the 17th ICOS conference in Helsinki, I gave a paper entitled “Ainu Substratum in the Distribution of Japanese Microtoponyms” and I now would like to present my continuing studies on this topic. In Tohoku (North East District of Japan), there remain many place names having the same word structures as the names in Hokkaido where there still remain Ainu aborigines. But many names in Tohoku have changed through contact with the Japanese language, and it is necessary to interpret these names as to how they changed from Ainu to a Japanized word.