# 秋刀魚
## Chinese

* 秋刀魚

### Pronunciation

* Mandarin
    (Pinyin): qiūdāoyú
    (Zhuyin): ㄑㄧㄡ ㄉㄠ ㄩˊ
* Cantonese (Jyutping): cau$^1$ dou$^1$ jyu$^{4-2}$
* Southern Min (Teochew, Peng'im): ciu$^1$ do$^1$ he$^5$
* Mandarin
** (Standard Chinese)
*** Hanyu Pinyin: qiūdāoyú
*** Zhuyin: ㄑㄧㄡ ㄉㄠ ㄩˊ
*** Tongyong Pinyin: cioudaoyú
*** Wade–Giles: chʻiu$^1$-tao$^1$-yü$^2$
*** Yale: chyōu-dāu-yú
*** Gwoyeu Romatzyh: chioudauyu
*** Palladius: цюдаоюй (cjudaojuj)
*** Sinological IPA : /t͡ɕʰi̯oʊ̯⁵⁵ tɑʊ̯⁵⁵ y³⁵/
* Cantonese
** (Standard Cantonese, Guangzhou–Hong Kong)
*** Jyutping: cau$^1$ dou$^1$ jyu$^{4-2}$
*** Yale: chāu dōu yú
*** Cantonese Pinyin: tsau$^1$ dou$^1$ jy$^{4-2}$
*** Guangdong Romanization: ceo$^1$ dou$^1$ yu$^{4-2}$
*** Sinological IPA : /t͡sʰɐu̯⁵⁵ tou̯⁵⁵ jyː²¹⁻³⁵/
* Southern Min
** (Teochew)
*** Peng'im: ciu$^1$ do$^1$ he$^5$
*** Pe̍h-ōe-jī-like: tshiu to hṳ̂
*** Sinological IPA : /t͡sʰiu³³⁻²³ to³³⁻²³ hɯ⁵⁵/

### Noun

秋刀魚
* Pacific saury (Cololabis saira)

#### Synonyms

* (Taiwanese Hokkien) sàn-bah

## Japanese

Kanji in this term :
| 秋 | 刀 | 魚 |
| さんま |||
| Grade: 2 | Grade: 2 | Grade: 2 |
| jukujikun |||
* Alternative spelling
* 三馬 (dated, rare)

### Etymology

Uncertain, theories include:
* An alteration from earlier compound 狭 (sa, “narrow”, in reference to the slender body of the fish) + 真魚 (mana, “edible fish”):
    /samana/ → /samuma/ → /samːa/
* An alternative derivation suggests 狭間 (sama, “narrow space”) + 魚 (na, “fish”, ancient term, and part of the roots of modern reading sakana), where ma again references the narrowness of the fish's body, but this is problematic, as 間 (ma) can only refer to the space between things, not the width of a thing itself.
* Another possibility is that sanma is cognate with 鯖 (saba, “mackerel”). The two kinds of fish are somewhat similar, and sanma is even called mackerel pike in English. In addition, the voiced plosive /b/ sound in modern Japanese appears to have been pre-nasalized in Old Japanese as something closer to /mb/, and there is evidence of /b/ ⇔ /m/ alternation in various terms in Japanese. There is also Ainu サㇺバ (samba, “mackerel”), likely a borrowing either into or from Japanese. This suggests that modern sanma may have arisen as an /m/ ⇔ /b/ alteration of older sanba.
The 秋刀魚 spelling likely arose quite recently in 1922 during the Taisho period, when a popular poem by Haruo Satō used this spelling. It alludes to the fish's harvest season of autumn (秋) and its blade-shaped body (刀).

### Pronunciation

* (Tokyo) さんま [sàńmá] (Heiban – [0])
* IPA: [sã̠mːa̠]

### Noun

秋刀魚(さんま) or 秋刀魚(サンマ) • (sanma)
* the Pacific saury or mackerel pike, Cololabis saira
    Synonym: さいら (saira)

#### Usage notes

As with many terms that name organisms, this term is often spelled in katakana, especially in biological contexts (where katakana is customary), as サンマ.

#### Derived terms

* 秋刀魚(さんま)飯(めし) (sanmameshi)

#### Proverbs

* 目(め)黒(ぐろ)の秋刀魚(さんま) (meguro no sanma)

### References

* ↑ John Batchelor (1905) An Ainu-English-Japanese dictionary (including a grammar of the Ainu language)‎, Tokyo, London: Methodist Publishing House; Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner Co.
* 1 2 Matsumura, Akira, editor (2006), 大辞林 [Daijirin] (in Japanese), Third edition, Tokyo: Sanseidō, →ISBN
* ↑ NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute, editor (1998), NHK日本語発音アクセント辞典 [NHK Japanese Pronunciation Accent Dictionary] (in Japanese), Tokyo: NHK Publishing, Inc., →ISBN

### Further reading

* Etymology entry for 秋刀魚 at Japan Dictionary (in Japanese): http://www.nihonjiten.com/data/45619.html
* Etymology entry for 秋刀魚 at Gogen Jiten (Etymology Dictionary; in Japanese): http://gogen-allguide.com/sa/sanma.html