いばさん

Okinawan

Alternative forms

• しばさん

Etymology

The word stem いば ('iba-), from Proto-Ryukyuan *eba-ᴮ, seems to be cognate to Japanese 狭(せば) (seba-), stem of 狭(せば)い (sebai), older variant of 狭(せま)い (semai), via unknown Japonic substratum in which the *s at the beginning of a word can correspond to a zero consonant.

Adjective

いばさん (ibasan) 

1. narrow, confined