桜ん坊

Alternative forms

• 桜桃 (less common)

Etymology

/sakuranbau/ → /sakuranbɔː/ → /sakuranboː/

Etymology unclear. Leading theories include:

• Compound of 桜 (sakura, “cherry, cherry tree”) +‎ の (no, possessive particle) +‎ 坊 (bō, “boy, monk”, in reference to the tradition of shaven heads, indicating the smooth skin of the cherry fruit)
• Compound of 桜 (sakura, “cherry, cherry tree”) +‎ 桃 (momo, “peach”, in reference to fruit in general; with a phonetic shift from /m/ to /b/ and shift from /bobo/ to /boː/, )

Given the historical reading of sakuranbau, matching the historical bau reading of 坊, the initial derivation seems more likely.

The sakuranbō represents a regular historical shift from older sakuranbau. Sakuranbō with the long ō has been somewhat superseded in modern Japanese by the shortened reading sakuranbo.

The alternative 桜桃 spelling is an example of jukujikun (熟字訓), from Middle Chinese 櫻桃.

Pronunciation

• (Tokyo) さくらんぼー [sàkúráńbóó] (Heiban – [0])
• IPA^(key): [sa̠kɯ̟ᵝɾã̠mbo̞ː]

• (Irregular reading)
  • (Tokyo) さくらんぼ [sàkúráńbó] (Heiban – [0])^[1]
  • IPA^(key): [sa̠kɯ̟ᵝɾã̠mbo̞]

Noun

桜ん坊 (hiragana さくらんぼう, rōmaji sakuranbō, alternative reading さくらんぼ, katakana サクランボ, rōmaji sakuranbo, historical hiragana さくらんばう)

1. (fruit) cherry (mostly used for Japanese cherries)

   Synonym: チェリー (cherī) (mostly used for non-Japanese cherries)

References