Talk:Nunobiki Falls

Names of the constituent waterfalls

Pinging Pinkville (as creator), Nihonjoe (as contributor of content), or indeed anyone:

The article currently says: "Nunobiki waterfalls comprises four separate falls: Ondaki, Mendaki, Tsusumigadaki, and Izumoki." It offers no photo described as any of these four; instead, it offers two of "Odaki". It's clear that something is wrong here. I'm confident that I can improve it (which I'll do in the next few minutes), but not confident that I can do so perfectly -- so please read on.

ja:布引の滝 tells us that there are three constituent waterfalls:

• 雄滝 - 高さ 43m、滝壺は面積430m2、深さ6.6m、滝の横には5箇所の甌穴（最大のもので10畳大）があり、竜宮城に続いているという伝説がある。
• 夫婦滝 - 高さ 9m
• 鼓滝 - 高さ 8m
• 雌滝 - 高さ 19m

Annoyingly, it doesn't specify the/a reading for any of them. (Perhaps because the readings are thought to be so blazingly obvious. And indeed even I wouldn't hesitate to pronounce the second among the four.)

This page (within a private individual's elaborate website) says:

布引の滝（ぬのびきのたき）は雄滝（おんたき）、雌滝（めんたき）、夫婦滝（めおとだき）、鼓滝（つづみがだき）の四つの滝の 総称で生田川の布引渓流に位置する。

(This says that 雄滝, 雌滝, 夫婦滝 and 鼓滝 are Ontaki, Mentaki, Meotodaki and Tsuzumigadaki respectively.)

This page of a Kobe tourism website says:

布引の滝は、雄滝（おんたき）、夫婦滝（めおとたき）、鼓滝（つつみだき）雌滝（めんたき）の４つの滝をまとめて布引の滝と読んでいます。

(This says that 雄滝, 雌滝, 夫婦滝 and 鼓滝 are Ontaki, Mentaki, Meototaki and Tsutsumidaki respectively.)

This page of Ontaki Chaya's website says:

「布引滝」は雄滝(おんたき)・雌滝(めんたき)・夫婦滝(めおとだき)・鼓滝(つつみだき)の4つの滝の総称で、なかでも雄滝は高さ43mの名瀑です。

(This says that 雄滝, 雌滝, 夫婦滝 and 鼓滝 are Ontaki, Mentaki, Meotodaki and Tsutsumidaki respectively.)

Thus so far we have agreement on Ontaki and Mentaki, and disagreement on Meotodaki/Meototaki and Tsutsumidaki/Tsuzumigadaki.

"O" is a commonsensical reading of 雄; "Odaki" in our article seems to have been a simple misreading of what should have been "Ontaki" (or "Ondaki"). And I see no evidence for "Izumoki" (added in this 2015 edit by an otherwise unknown IP). I'm about to change "Odaki" to "Ontaki", and "Izumoki" to "Meotodaki". As for the others, I'll leave them till somebody comes up with information from a 地名辞典 with credible claims to being "authoritative" -- although in my experience, there's a degree of fuzziness about the readings of the names of Japanese geographical features that aren't very well known, and thus a degree of arbitrariness/artificiality about any claim for "standardness". -- Hoary (talk) 00:48, 29 October 2017 (UTC) ... Fixed typos in what's above. Incidentally, I've just now made the provisional changes that I say above I'd make. -- Hoary (talk) 00:55, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Hiya! I recall only the 'Ontaki' transliteration, so your correction looks good to me. Certainly there must have been several transliteration variants in the 19th c. when foreigners first visited and photographed the site. I'm less sure of the other sections of the falls, but your reasoning seems sound. As usual, well spotted! Pinkville (talk) 03:47, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, Pinkville! ¶ I've just now added a "t" to what was "Tsusumigadaki" to make it "Tsutsumigadaki": while I'm not certain that the latter is the best choice (let alone that it is "the right" choice), I don't believe that the former is even a possibility. -- Hoary (talk) 04:13, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

That seems logical. I had a look at some 19th c. photos of the falls, and common transliterations at the time include Odaki (now also Osudaki, Osutaki), Metaki (now also Meotodaki, Mendaki), Tsuzumigadaki. These all come from the Nagasaki University Old Photographs Database. It's a very useful online photo archive, but they are quite haphazard when it comes to transliterations of placenames... Just thought I'd muddy the water... Pinkville (talk) 17:37, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

This picture of a sign posted at the falls gives Ontaki, Meotodaki, Tsuzumidaki, and Mentaki as the readings. --Cckerberos (talk) 23:42, 30 October 2017 (UTC)