ざんぬゆ : zan nu yu | define meaning

Ultimately a compound of ざん zan "dugong", the genitive particle ぬ nu, and ゆ【魚】 yu "fish".

Cognate with Kunigami (Oku) だんぬいる dan nu iru; Okinawa (Shuri) ざんぬいゆ zan nu iyu; Yaeyama (Hateruma) ざんぬゆ zan nu yu "dugong; mermaid". Borrowed into Japanese during the late 19th century as ざんのいを zan no iwo and ざんのうを zan no uwo "dugong", now spelled ざんのいお【犀魚】 zan no io and ざんのうお zan no uo respectively, with some early 20th-century works also adding the definition of "walrus".

Compare Kunigami (Oku) だん dan; Okinawa, Miyako (Ikema) and Tarama じゃん jan; Okinawa (Kudaka, Shuri, Uruma), Miyako (Hisamatsu) and Yaeyama (Hateruma, Hatoma, Kuroshima, Miyara, Kabira) ざん zan; Yaeyama (Aragusuku) ざぬ zanu; Yaeyama (Iriomote: Komi) and Yonaguni (Sonai) ざの zano; and Yonaguni (Sonai) ざーの zaano "dugong; mermaid". Possibly cognate with standard Japanese ぞう【象】 zou "elephant" (< Middle Chinese *zjangX).

Historical attestations

• Kenkyusha's New School Dictionary: (English-Japanese) (1890), published by Kenkyusha, records the form ざんのいを zan no iwo in the entry "Dugong 名《動》儒艮（じゅごん）、ざんのいを。【マライ語】".