Kanji for ikaru

It names いかる (ikaru), a Japanese bird with a thick yellow bill.

Dictionaries also give いかるが (ikaruga). In a bird passage, read it as ikaru; in the place name Ikaruga or a reference to Hōryū-ji, read it as ikaruga. Alone in chat, 鵤 gives little clue about the sender's intended context.

The Man'yōshū, an anthology of Japanese poetry, records the spoken name phonetically as 伊加流我 in the late 8th century. Shinsen Jikyō, a Japanese dictionary, attests this exact spelling in 898–901.

Why are 鵤 and 斑鳩 linked?

They are written forms associated with the same Japanese bird name.

An early Japanese dictionary entry for 鵤 cites 崔禹錫食經, a Chinese text on food, and describes a pale-billed bird. Wamyō Ruijushō, another Japanese dictionary compiled in 931–938, connects this bird-name entry with 斑鳩.

These are historical naming records, not a secure modern species identification: later sources disagree about which bird the names refer to. The connection explains the spellings, not a guarantee that every old text means the same species.

How do I type 鵤?

Enter いかる or いかるが in a Japanese IME, then select 鵤.

The Japanese readings overlap with 斑鳩, so conversion may show it as a separate candidate. Choose the exact spelling used by your source.

If conversion does not offer 鵤, search for it in a character map or Unicode lookup using U+9D64.