Kanji Up Close: 阜
As pointed out in a post at Nihongo Jouzu, 10 kanji are being added to the Joyo general use kanji list for school. They’re all used to write the names of Japanese prefectures.
This one caught my eye, since it’s used in the name of the prefecture next door, and I see it all the time:
阜
This kanji is usually pronounced with its on-reading ふ and is the second character in 岐阜 (Gifu), the name of both a large regional city and a prefecture. It can also be pronounced おか (hill) as a kun reading.
Its meaning seems to be primarily “mound” or “hill”, although it can also mean “abundant”. It performs as a radical (#170) and appears on the left side of characters like the 阪 in 大阪.
The city of Gifu, originally called Inokuchi (井口), was given its present name by the powerful daimyo Oda Nobunaga in 1567, combining the names of 岐山 (Qishan or きざん, a legendary Chinese mountain) and 曲阜 (Qufu or きょくふ, the birthplace of Confucius). [Source: Wikipedia].
阜 does not have many other uses in modern Japanese, but it is used to write the names of a few Chinese cities, including Fuyang (阜陽市, ふようし), population 9 million (!), and Fuxin (阜新, ふしん), population 800,000. Used as a given name, it is sometimes pronounced ゆたか. It is also used in the rare word 丘阜 (きゅうふ, “hill”) and the anatomical term 陰阜 (いんぷ).
(The source of those last two words is Yahoo Answers, where someone posted a question about this very kanji.)
5 months ago