Meaning:shallow, sandy place in a river or on its bank
Russian meaning:отмель, песчаное место на реке или на берегу
Old Japanese:kapara
Middle Japanese:kafara
Tokyo:kàwara
Kyoto:káwárá
Kagoshima:kawára
Comments:JLTT 446. The word is usually treated as *kápà 'river' + *pàrà 'plain', but the elision is strange and the accent does not fit. This is most probably a folk-etymology due to secondary phonetic coincidence.