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A friend has at home this banner from an old fish shop in Sapporo. I suppose it's a souvenir from Japan. It intrigues me a lot!

What's this の with an upper stroke and the ten-ten? What's the name for the place? Does the following make sense: ⻌の魚? On the bottom left there's a phone number written with kanji?

Maybe this is the result of the (free)style of the calligrapher or the の with the stroke and ten-ten is to resemble a fish?

本の魚

Jason Lint
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  • This is a complete guess, but I might say しじの, where the stroke+ten ten above the の is a stylistic/sideways hiragana voiced くりかえし mark　(ゞ). Thus, the じ after a し. No basis for this really though. – istrasci Oct 10 '16 at 23:10
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    If it is a hentaigana then the の with a 点 and the 濁点 should read が but I have no clue for the first. – 永劫回帰 Oct 10 '16 at 23:34

1 Answers1

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I think it's read right-to-left as 魚{うお}がし 'fish market'. The kana が and し are written as hentaigana, variant forms of kana that are usually no longer used.

This is が:

hentaigana が

This is し:

hentaigana し

(Images taken from benricho.org)

  • 皆さん、ありがとう！ I've learned lots with istrasci-san guess and snailplane-san answer which I presume it's correct. :) – Jason Lint Oct 17 '16 at 19:58