Talk:Korpokkur

Source of info

What's this? Can someone show me source? I, as Japanese have never heard of it. -- Taku 02:14 Jan 7, 2003 (UTC)

I don't know where the name "Koro-pok-guru" comes from, but I've always heard of it as Korobokkuru. It's a legendary creature from Ainu folklore. This article desperately needs to be rewritten, with more information on the actual creature and less focus on modern appearances in games and shows. Shikino 20:47, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Need timeframe

This article says nothing about timelines. The information is not particularly useful without time frames. --jaknouse

Moved info here

I moved the following here:

The name signifies 'the people having depressions', and is usually rendered by western writers as 'Pit-dwellers'. In the Japanese writings the Koro-pok-guru are referred to as 'the small people' and 'earth spiders'. (1)

These koro-pok-guru were of such small stature as to be considered dwarfs. They wore skins of animals for clothing, and that they understood the potter's art and used flint arrow-heads is clearly proved by excavations at the sites of their pits. The Ainu, on the contrary, never had any knowledge of pottery. (2)

Since the article clearly says where it took the material from, it was pretty obviously copyrighted. -- Zoe

The Ainu name for these mythological sprites, korpokkur, cannot mean "the people having depressions" because Ainu is an SOV language, and the proper order for such a compound would be [depression] + kor ("have") + kur ("person"). The name is widely recognized to mean "people under the leaves of Petasites japonicus (Japanese butterbur)"; the common Ainu name for the entire Japanese butterbur plant is korkoni, but the noun kor (as opposed to the verb kor, which means "have; keep") is said to be an older word that refers specifically to the leaves of this plant. Ebizur (talk) 03:40, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Is there some reason why it is spelled this way?

The word is Ainu, not Japanese, and it is korpokkur (made up of kor, fuki tree, pok under, kur person). I learned it from the Ainu class I took with Hiroshi Nakayama in 2004, though I'm sure there are many other sources. Can we rename the article so that it has the correct Ainu name? Mark Yaima (talk) 14 June 2019 (UTC)

There can be no doubt that "Koro-pok-guru" is a Japanese approximation, what with those surplus synonyms. As the actual word is Ainu, I support the move to change the name of the article to "Korpokkur" and move the Japanified version into the list of variants. Laodah 00:37, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

That sounds great, Laodah; how do we initiate this change? I would gladly do it but I'm something of a beginner to editing Wikipedia. I would be happy to scan a page from one of my Ainu textbooks that contains this word if need be. Mark Yaima (talk) 00:39, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Wish I knew, Mark. I've signaled title changes before and never knew how they actually happened, if indeed they did. Maybe a post in one of the fora? (By the way, in my first post above I meant "surplus syllables", not synonyms. Cerebral autocorrect, apparently.) Laodah 05:30, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Hello. This article should be moved to Korpokkur. Please search the word "Korpokkur", and you will find many references such as:

• Ainu-Grammatik, vol.2 Hans Adalbert Dettmer O. Harrassowitz, 1997
• 日本国語大辞典, vol.5 小学館, 2001
• 国語大辞典 言泉 Ōki Hayashi 小学館, 1986
• Early European writings on Ainu culture: religion and folklore, vol.5 Kirsten Refsing RoutledgeCurzon, 2002
• European studies on Ainu language and culture Philipp-Franz-von-Siebold-Stiftung. Deutschen Institut für Japanstudien Iudicium-Verl., 1993

--miya (talk) 14:07, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

I corrected the spelling to Korpokkur per jawp article ja:コロポックル.--miya (talk) 14:15, 16 April 2020 (UTC)