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| settlement_type = Core city | image_skyline = Nara motange.jpg | image_caption = From top left: Wakakusayama Mountain Burning, Great Buddha of Todai-ji, Yakushi-ji, Todai-ji, Kasuga Shrine and a deer in Nara Park | image_flag = Flag of Nara, Nara.svg | image_map = Nara in Nara Prefecture Ja.svg | lat_deg = 34 | lat_min = 41| lat_sec = | lon_deg = 135 | lon_min = 48| lon_sec = | region = Kansai | prefecture = Nara Prefecture | district = | mayor = Gen Nakagawa | area_km2 = 276.84 | population = 368,636 | population_as_of = January 1, 2010 | density_km2 = 1331.58 | tree = Quercus gilva | flower = Nara yaezakura | bird = Japanese Bush Warbler | city_hall_address = 1-1-1 Nijō-ōji, Nara-shi, Nara-ken | city_hall_postal_code = 630-8580 | website = }} is the capital city of Nara Prefecture located in the Kansai region of Japan. The city occupies the northern part of Nara Prefecture, bordering Kyoto Prefecture. Eight temples, shrines and ruins in Nara remain: specifically Tōdai-ji, Saidai-ji, Kōfuku-ji, Kasuga Shrine, Gangō-ji, Yakushi-ji, Tōshōdai-ji, and the Heijō Palace, together with Kasugayama Primeval Forest, collectively form "Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara", a UNESCO World Heritage Site. ==Etymology== By the Heian period, a variety of different characters had been used to represent the name Nara: 乃楽, 乃羅, 平, 平城, 名良, 奈良, 奈羅, 常, 那良, 那楽, 那羅, 楢, 諾良, 諾楽, 寧, 寧楽 and 儺羅. A number of theories for the origin of the name Nara have been proposed, and some of the better-known ones are listed here. The second theory in the list, by notable folklorist Kunio Yanagita (1875-1962), is most widely accepted at present. * The ''Nihon shoki'' (''The Chronicles of Japan'', the second oldest book of classical Japanese history) suggests that "Nara" was derived from ''narasu'' (to flatten). According to this account, in September in the tenth year of Emperor Sujin, "...leading selected soldiers (the rebels) went forward, climbed Nara-yama (hills lying to the north of Heijō-kyō) and put them in order. Now the imperial forces gathered and flattened trees and plants. Therefore the mountain is called Nara-yama." Though the narrative itself is regarded as a folk etymology and few researchers regard it as historical, this is the oldest surviving suggestion, and is linguistically similar to the following theory by Yanagita. * "Flat land" theory (currently most widely accepted): In his 1936 study of placenames,〔(柳田国男 (Yanagita, Kunio) (1936): 地名の研究 ''(The Study of Place Names)'' ), pub. 古今書院 (Kokon Shoin), pp. 217-219〕 the author Kunio Yanagita states that "the topographical feature of an area of relatively gentle gradient on the side of a mountain, which is called ''taira'' in eastern Japan and ''hae'' in the south of Kyushu, is called ''naru'' in the Chūgoku region and Shikoku (central Japan). This word gives rise to the verb ''narasu'', adverb ''narashi'', and adjective ''narushi''." This is supported by entries in a dialect dictionary〔東条 操 (Tōjō, Misao) (1951): 全国方言辞典 ''Dictionary of Japanese Dialects''〕 for nouns referring to flat areas: ''naru'' (found in Aida District, Okayama Prefecture and Ketaka District, Tottori Prefecture) and ''naro'' (found in Kōchi Prefecture); and also by an adjective ''narui'' which is not standard Japanese, but is found all across central Japan, with meanings of "gentle", "gently sloping", or "easy". Yanagita further comments that the way in which the fact that so many of these placenames are written using the character 平 ("flat"), or other characters in which it is an element, demonstrates the validity of this theory. Citing a 1795 document, from the province of Inaba, the eastern part of modern Tottori, as indicating the reading ''naruji'' for the word 平地 (standard reading ''heiya'', meaning a "plain"), Yanagita suggests that ''naruji'' would have been used as a common noun there until the modern period. Of course, the fact that historically "Nara" was also written 平 or 平城 as above is further support for this theory. * The idea that Nara is derived from ''nara'' (Japanese for "oak, deciduous ''Quercus'' spp.") is the next most common opinion. This idea was suggested by a linguist, Yoshida Togo.〔(吉田東伍 YOSHIDA Tōgo (1907), 『大日本地名辞書 上巻』 (The Dictionary of Place Names in the Great Japan, Fuzambo, Vol.1), 冨山房, pp.190-191. )〕 This noun for the plant can be seen as early as in Man'yōshū (7-8th century) and Harima-no-kuni Fudoki (715). Note that the name of the nearby city of Kashihara (literally "live oak plain") contains a semantically similar morpheme (Japanese ''kashi'' "live oak, evergreen ''Quercus'' spp.") * Then, there is the idea that Nara is a loan word from Korean ''nara'' (나라 : country, nation, kingdom). This idea was put forward by a linguist Matsuoka Shizuo.〔(松岡静雄 編 MATSUOKA Shizuo ed. (1929), 『日本古語大辞典』 ''(The Great Dictionary of Old Japanese)'', 刀江書院, p.955. ) Previous to Matsuoka, KANAZAWA Shôzaburô (1903) pointed out the possibility of influence from Korea. Both were, however, comparing Old Japanese to Modern Korean, not Old Korean.〕 However, almost nothing about the Old Korean language is known today besides some fragmentary transcriptions of toponyms, personal titles, and the like written with phonetically approximate Chinese characters. The first written attestation of a word ancestral to Modern Korean ''nara'' is as late as the 15th century, such as in Yongbieocheonga(1447), Wolinseokbo (月印釋譜. 1459), or Beophwagyeongeonhae (法華經諺解. 1463),〔劉昌惇 (1964), 李朝語辭典 ''(The Dictionary of Words in the Joseon Dynasty)'', 延世大学校出版部.〕 and there is no evidence that proves the word already existed as far back as the 7th century. These 15th-century books used ''narah'' (나랗), an old form of ''nara'' in Korean, and its older form might be reconstructed *''narak''. American linguist Christopher I. Beckwith infers the Korean ''narak'' derives from the late Middle Old Chinese 壌 ( *''nrak'', earth), from early *''narak'', and has no connection with Goguryoic and Japanese ''na''.〔Beckwith (2007): ''Koguryo, the Language of Japan's Continental Relatives'', Brill Academic Publishers, 2004. 2nd ed., 2007. p.176〕 (See also the next theory.) Kusuhara also points out this hypothesis cannot account for the fact there are lots of places named Nara, Naru and Naro besides this Nara.〔Kusuhara (1981)〕 * There is the idea that Nara is akin to Tungusic ''na''.〔One of the earliest assumption for this is seen in 奈良市 編 Nara ed. (1937), 『奈良市史』 ''(The History of Nara, Nara)''., 奈良市.〕 In some Tungusic languages such as Orok (and likely Goguryeo language), ''na'' means earth, land or the like. Some have speculated about a connection between these Tungusic words and Old Japanese ''nawi'', an archaic and somewhat obscure word that appears in the verb phrases ''nawi furu'' and ''nawi yoru'' ('an earthquake occurs, to have an earthquake').〔宮腰賢ほか編 MIYAKOSHI Masaru et al. ed. (2011), 『全訳古語辞典』 ''(The Dictionary of Old Japanese with Complete Translation)'' 第4版, 旺文社.〕 The "Flat land" theory is adopted by Nihon Kokugo Daijiten (the largest dictionary of Japanese language), various dictionaries for place names,〔e.g. 楠原佑介 KUSUHARA Yūsuke (1981), 『古代地名語源辞典』 ''(The Dictionary of Ancient Place Name Etymology)'', 東京堂出版.〕 history books on Nara〔e.g. 斎藤建夫 編 SAITŌ Tateo ed. (1997), 『郷土資料事典 : ふるさとの文化遺産. 29(奈良県) 』 ''(The Dictionary of Native Place Data. Vol. 29. Nara Prefecture.)'', 人文社.(1997),〕 and the like today, and it is regarded as the most likely. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Nara, Nara」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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