rivers

[WilsonFong]

2 questions

1. i was asking my language exchange partner the other day about the difference between "jiang1" and "he2". he told me that "jiang" is used for long rivers and "he" for short ones, but the yellow river is pretty long and it's only referred to as the huang he, does this mean that only rivers at least as big as the chang jiang should be referred to as "jiang" (the others being the mississipi, amazon and nile if i'm correct)?

2. In english, the biggest river in china is known as the yangtze. i asked my language exhange partner about the yangzi and he told me that it is only a very small river, and that the longest river in China is the chang jiang (which he says the yangzi is connected to). so is the english naming scheme wrong or did my language exchange partner just mix things up?

[Mugi]

1. For all intents and purposes, in modern Chinese 江 and 河 are synonyms. Traditionally, I don't think they were distinguished so much by length as shape. According to one dictionary I have on hand, 江 was applied to long, straight rivers, while 河 was applied to long winding rivers. Most dictionaries also note that 江 is more common in the south and 河 more common in the north. I guess 黑龍江 must be an exception.

2. My understanding was that 揚子江 was a colloquial and perhaps outdated way of referring to the 長江. Will be interested to hear from others more enlighted on the subject! It wouldn't be the first time names have gone awry - one that springs immediately to mind is Macao.

[Quest]

1. i was asking my language exchange partner the other day about the difference between "jiang1" and "he2". he told me that "jiang" is used for long rivers and "he" for short ones, but the yellow river is pretty long and it's only referred to as the huang he, does this mean that only rivers at least as big as the chang jiang should be referred to as "jiang" (the others being the mississipi, amazon and nile if i'm correct)?

1. There isn't any real conceptual difference between jiang and he. Just learn the river names the way they are. Also note that 运河 cannot be 运江, and it's more common to say 小河/小溪 than 小江 when the river is small.

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yangtze_River

[nnt]

Originally "jiang" 江 was a name, not a noun, and refered to the Yangzi.

Do you know any 江 longer than this "river" 银河 ?

[johnd]

I think Yangzi is a name that only refers to the part of the Chang Jiang close to the sea, and so the early waiguoren thought that was the name of the whole river.

I seems that rivers, as well as streets, can change their name along their length!

[Mugi]

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yangtze_River

Good old wikipedia!!

[johnd]

Streets in Britain that is. Do streets change their name in China? I don't know anything anymore - I drank too much coffee today.

[Lu]

In Beijing, all the time. Not sure about other cities.

[randall_flagg]

I was told that in northern China most rivers are called 河，in the South they are called 江。Of course, there are countless of examples to disprove this (eg 黑龙江), but I still believe it is somewhat true.

[ala]

it's very systematic:

The ancient historical name for the Yellow River is: 河水 (Middle Chinese: Gha-sui)

The ancient historical name for the Yangtze River is: 江水 (Middle Chinese: Kang-sui)

Thus, rivers that lead to (or close to) the Yellow River are suffixed 河, while rivers that lead to (or close to) the Yangtze are suffixed 江. With the exception of Manchuria/Dongbei and Korea (which use 江), rivers north of the Huai are suffixed with 河.

The region of the Yangtze near the delta area (Nanjing, Yangzhou 扬州, Shanghai) is traditionally called 扬子江 (hence "Yangtze") by the locals, pronounced in Wu: [jAN ts1 kAN]. Today, most Wu and JIanghuai dialects still call this region of the Yangtze River 扬子江.

Rivers in Korea all use 江 (kang): 大同江, 图们江, 鸭绿江, 金江, 琴湖江, 汉江, 兄山江, 洛东江, 太和江, 永江