ゆーわー【硫黄】 : yuuwaa | define meaning

Cognate with Kazuno (Akita), Chiba and Shizuoka ゆおう yuou; Chiba ゆを yuwo and よー yoo; Kagoshima いお io; Okinawan ゆーわー yuuwaa; Miyako よー yoo; Yaeyama (Hatoma) いよー iyoo, いおー ioo and よー yoo; and standard Japanese いおう【硫黄】 iou and ゆおう yuou "sulfur, sulphur". Spelled in classical Japanese as ゆわう yuwau and いわう iwau.

Origin debated.

1. One theory traces it back to the term 【由乃阿和】 *yu no awa (modern ゆのあわ【湯の泡】), literally "hot-water bubbles", as recorded in the Wamyō ruijushō (倭名類聚抄). The term may have later become ゆあわ【湯泡】 yuawa and finally ゆわう yuwau "sulfur, sulphur" in Old Japanese.
2. A second theory traces it back to the term【由王】 *yuwan or *yuwau, as recorded in the Wamyō ruijushō (倭名類聚抄), which suggests it may ultimately come from Chinese 【硫黃・硫黄・硫磺・流黃・流黄】 "sulfur" (cf. Mandarin liúhuáng, Cantonese lau4 wong4; Sino-South Korean 유황 yuhwang; Min Nan liû-hông; Sino-North Korean 류황 (r)yuhwang; and Sino-Vietnamese lưu huỳnh and lưu hoàng), reconstructed for Middle Chinese as *ljuw hwang. However, two arguments cast doubt upon this theory: 1) the *h quality in the second syllable would have resulted in *k in Japanese (counter-argument: 卵黄 ran'ou), and 2) the initial *liu should have resulted in *riyu and later *ryuu in Japanese.