What is the difference between 河，江 and 川？

[Pascal Ma]

I am sure this is a recurrent question, yet I was unable to find it, so please forgive me if it's been answered before.

So basically, can someone explain the difference between 河，江 and 川？

We have 四川, 红河 (which is apparently also called 元江), 澜沧江 (also called 湄公河), etc.

So are they simply interchangeable? Could we say for example 湄公江？

Can 川 be used in a river's name?

[renzhe]

江 is generally bigger than 河, but this is not always reflected in the names, depending on where and when the river first got its name.

You can't just change characters in rivers' names, because they are a part of the name. There is no 黄江 or 长河, only 长江 and 黄河.

川 is not really used as a word today, but it shows up in older place names like 四川. Obviously, 四河 and 四江 don't work either

[mcgau]

There is no clear difference among all these words, but 江 isn't generally bigger than 河. In ancient Chinese, 河 exclusively referred to the Yellow River. (http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%BB%84%E6%B2%B3); and 江 exclusively meant Chang Jiang. ( http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%95%B7%E6%B1%9F)

Then these two words become Chinese vocab to refer to rivers of any size. There's a theory that southern China has more "江" than "河" and it's contrary in the north. It might be true in the ancient China, but seemingly not the case in modern China. Think of 黑龍江, one of the most well known river in the north.

Besides 河, 江, 川, Chinese also has 濟, 水 for rivers. it seems that when a river was named, whether it's 江 or 河 or 水 were just randomly picked, but as Renzhe mentioned, once the word is picked, you can't change it when talking about a specific name, or also a proverb.

But when Chinese translated the name of rivers in other countries, they seemingly use the word "河" only. e.g. 尼羅河 (Nile) , 萊茵河 (Rhine), 湄公河 (Mekong River) , 温尼伯河 (Winnipeg River).

[skylee]

Can 川 be used in a river's name?

off the top of my head, there is 清溪川 in Seoul (of course 溪 itself means creek).

PS - and 川 is common in Japanese river names.

[trien27]

河 = river / canal

江 = river / stream

川 = river [mostly used in ancient times for "river" or in modern times it can be either "tributaries" or "streams"]

水 = could be "anything with a flowing current of water": river, stream, canal, well, etc...

off the top of my head, there is 清溪川 in Seoul (of course 溪 itself means creek).

PS - and 川 is common in Japanese river names.

川 = kawa or gawa in Japanese which was borrowed from "chuan" and means "river" and from Chinese, the character was borrowed into Korean, and pronounced as 천, ch'on.

Edited January 3, 2010 at 03:27 AM by trien27

[roddy]

You certainly get 川 in placenames - 汶川， 沐川，龙川. You'd imagine at some point there'd have been an actual river with that name, but I'm not sure.

[xiaocai]

You certainly get 川 in placenames - 汶川， 沐川，龙川. You'd imagine at some point there'd have been an actual river with that name, but I'm not sure.

There is 忘川,

[skylee]

Pascal, could you tell us what Chinese name you used on the admission form that you mentioned on your other thread?

[Pascal Ma]

Pascal, could you tell us what Chinese name you used on the admission form that you mentioned on your other thread?

I'll update the other thread with where I'm at, but I still haven't decided, though I think I'm close.

[chrix]

Since people have brought up Japanese, here's how the three characters are used there:

河 and 川 both have the kun "kawa", with 河 used for bigger rivers and 川 for smaller ones (regardless of this distinction, river names in Japan usually use the 川 character, which is read kawa/gawa).

江 has the kun "e" (as in Edo 江戸), but "e" usually means "inlet, bay" (as in "irie"　入り江), but also "big river, sea", but this meaning is no longer frequent today. Incidentally, "Edo" is the old name of 東京 and this can either mean "river mouth", or "a place where there is an inlet".

[brilight]

河 and 江 can both be used as a part of a name of a river , and in some traditional Chinese idioms.

江 is rarely used in modern chinese as a common word to refer to a river. People always use 河 to indicate an unknown river or a general river, like 旁边有一条河， not 旁边有一条江

[Inkfish]

溪<河<江

not sure about 川, never used in modern language

[anonymoose]

Well, there's 冰川, although it's not a place name.

And also 山川.

[chrix]

Interesting, what's more common, 冰川 or 冰河? (in Japanese it's 氷河)

[Inkfish]

well...i mean by the single character 川, it means river as well.

but i'm not sure about the differences it has with 河 or 江

[Inkfish]

Interesting, what's more common, 冰川 or 冰河? (in Japanese it's 氷河)

IMO, they are different things.

冰川 is more common used to indicate the glacier especially in polar region

冰河...sounds like something in myth

[chrix]

According to the MOE dictionary, they're both synonyms. It might be that Taiwan usage is influenced by Japanese more though...