Japanese is hard enough for English speakers. But there are elements of the language, crafted by time and tradition, that can make it challenging even for native Japanese.
One example is place names in Hokkaido and Okinawa. Names in both locations bear strong influences from, respectively, the Ainu and Ryukuan languages.
Another, perhaps more insidious, example is the common place name character 町. Ask a native Japanese speaker how to pronounce this in a given location’s name and even they might have to look it up.
Chou vs. machi
Most Japanese kanji have two sets of readings: an onyomi, or pronunciations derived from the original Chinese; and kunyomi, Japanese native pronunciations given to the characters. Characters can have multiple onyomi or kunyomi readings.
In the case of 町, which means “town” or “village,” the character has an onyomi of chou (ちょう) and a kunyomi of machi (まち). And that’s where the confusion comes in.
町 is an incredibly common character used in the names of towns throughout Japan. But whether it’s pronounced chou or machi seems like a crapshoot. Just in Tokyo, for example, you have Ootemachi (大手町) and Okachimachi (御徒町) – but you also have Ningyocho (人形町), Jimbocho (神保町), and others.
Are there “chou/machi” rules?
Which raises the question: is there any way to tell? Are there any handy rules to follow?
Several newspapers in Japan have analyzed data to answer that question. In 2011, Nikkei ran the numbers and found some clear trends.
In a study of 750 places recognized by their prefectures as independent municipalities, a researcher found that 60% were chou and around 40% were machi. In general, Eastern Japan (Kanto region) breaks for machi, while in Western Japan, they go for chou.
There are exceptions, though. Hokkaido breaks for chou, while in the West, Fukuoka and Kumamoto go for machi despite being in a chou area of the country. Many prefectures in both areas are either all chou or all machi, with a few having a mix of both but clearly trending in one direction.
Why does this difference even exist? No one really knows. One professor at Waseda University, Sasahara Hiroyuki, argues chou is most prevalent in areas that had heavy Chinese cultural influence – i.e., the Kansai and Kyushu areas in the west and south of Japan.
What about Tokyo?
Now, here’s where it gets tricky. This study was only run on municipalities. Places in the Tokyo Metropolitan area like Ootemachi aren’t towns, they’re neighborhoods. Ootemachi, for example, is a neighborhood in Chiyoda City. (There’s also an Ootemachi in Hiroshima City, even though Hiroshima Prefecture generally uses chou in town names.)
So why does Tokyo have a mix of chou and machi? There’s actually a historical reason for this one! During the Shogunate’s rule machi was reserved for places that primarily housed soldiers, while chou were living places for ordinary citizens.
Machi were further divided by what type of soldier or vassal lived there. If a place had 御 (O) attached to it – like Okachimachi, for example – it meant that low-ranking samurai lived there. If it was a machi without the O, it was the home of the Hatamoto, or samurai that were direct retainers of the shogun.
Even in this case, there are exceptions. For example, soldiers lived in Bancho (番町). However, it’s true as a general rule.
For what it’s worth, Nikkei notes that, as shrinking towns merge into one another – a common phenomenon in modern Japan due to population decline – chou seems to be taking over. (Example: Mitanecho in Akita Prefecture, created in 2006, went with chou even though Akita is mostly a machi prefecture.) Maybe one day then, in the not-too-distant future, we’ll live in a world where it’s all chou, all the time.
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