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Given a crane's long neck and how the bird hunts, possibly related to 蔓(tsuru, “vine”); 弦(tsuru, “bowstring; musical instrumentstring”); 釣る, 吊る(tsuru, “to hangdown; to string up; to fish”). Given how cranes flock together, possibly related also to 連る(tsuru), older root form of modern verb 連れる(tsureru, “to accompany”). That said, 連る also appears to ultimately derive from 蔓(tsuru, “vine”).
The reading tsuru is first seen used to mean “a crane” from the late Heian period. Prior to that time, the only reading used for the bird was tazu. However, the kanji 鶴 was used in the Man'yōshū (759 CE) as a 借訓(shakkun) reading for つる(turu → tsuru), the 連体形(rentaikei, “attributive form”) of つ(tu → tsu, auxiliary verb of affirmation, certainty, or completion), suggesting that tsuru may have already existed as an everyday term meaning “a crane”.[2]
As with many terms that name organisms, this term is often spelled in katakana, especially in biological contexts (where katakana is customary), as ツル.
Speculatively, this could be analyzed as a compound of た(ta, possibly 田(“rice paddy”), where cranes are known to hunt) + つ(*tsu, uncertain, possibly “a largebird”), wherein the tsu changes to dzu, modern zu, as an instance of rendaku (連濁). This tsu may be the tsu in modern tsuru above. (Can this(+) etymology be sourced?)
^ Bjarke Frellesvig and John Whitman, editors (2008), chapter 7, in Proto-Japanese: Issues and Prospects, Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, Proto-Japanese beyond the accent system, pages 140-156
↑ 2.02.12.2Shōgaku Tosho (1988) 国語大辞典(新装版) [Unabridged Dictionary of Japanese (Revised Edition)] (in Japanese), Tōkyō: Shogakukan, →ISBN