江

江 (Kangxi radical 85, 水+3, 6 strokes, cangjie input 水一 (EM), four-corner 3111₀, composition ⿰氵工)

• 䑭, 㳩, 㴂, 鴻 (鸿), 茳

• エ (Japanese katakana)
• 𛀁 (Japanese hentaigana)

• Kangxi Dictionary: page 606, character 4
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 17140
• Dae Jaweon: page 999, character 13
• Hanyu Da Zidian (first edition): volume 3, page 1551, character 3
• Unihan data for U+6C5F

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 / 形声, OC *kroːŋ): semantic 氵 (“water”) + phonetic 工 (OC *koːŋ).

"Yangtze River"

Borrowed from a substrate Austroasiatic language as Proto-Sino-Tibetan *kl(j)u(ŋ/k) (“river, valley”); compare Proto-Mon-Khmer *ruŋ ~ ruuŋ ~ ruəŋ (“river”) > Proto-Vietic *k-roːŋ (“river”) (Vietnamese sông), Mon ကြုၚ် (krɜŋ, “small river, creek”).

Derivative: 港 (OC *kroːŋʔ, *ɡloːŋs, “harbour”).

江

1. Yangtze River

   Synonym: 江水 (jiāngshuǐ)

   • c. 4th century BCE, 孟子 [Mencius], 孟子 [Mencius]:

     決汝漢，排淮泗，而注之江。 [Classical Chinese, trad.]
     决汝汉，排淮泗，而注之江。 [Classical Chinese, simp.]

     Jué Rǔ Hàn, pái Huái Sì, ér zhù zhī Jiāng. [Pinyin]

     He opened a vent also for the Ru and Han, and regulated the course of the Huai and Si, so that they all flowed into the Jiang.

2. (by extension) river (Classifier: 條／条)

   錢塘江／钱塘江  ―  Qiántángjiāng  ―  Qiantang River

3. (obsolete) (～日) (telegraphy) the third day of a month
4. a surname, Jiang (Mainland China), Chiang (Taiwan), Kong (Hong Kong), or Kiang (archaic)

   江澤民／江泽民  ―  Jiāng Zémín  ―  Jiang Zemin

The word that referred to bodies of flowing water such as stream, creek or river was represented in early Chinese by 水 (shuǐ) and 川 (chuān), pictograms showing water flowing between two banks. Specialized characters were created to represent words that described particular bodies of water. These words often contain the water radical (氵), which was originally written in the same way that the original form of 水 was written. The term 河 (hé) usually referred directly to the 黃河／黄河 (Huáng Hé, “Yellow River”). Over time, 河 became used as a generalized term for rivers that were bigger than a stream. Similarly, 江 was originally the name of the Yangtze River which is a relatively larger body of flowing water. And later 江 became a generic term.

Among Modern Chinese users, there are commonly held beliefs about the differences between these near synonyms that may not be reflected in an ordinary dictionary. 江 are often thought of as the larger rivers that are usually in southern China, while 河 are usually rivers with comparatively lesser volume or that are artificial and are usually found in northern China. These two terms are often the subject of attempts at comparisons. Terms for smaller bodies of flowing water include: 溪 (xī), 港 (gǎng), 水道 (shuǐdào), 溝／沟 (gōu), 渠 (qú), 塘 (táng). Additional terms that are mainly used for rivers in certain regions include: 川 (chuān) (from Japanese from Classical Chinese), 涌 (chōng) (from Cantonese), 曲 (qū) (from Tibetan), 藏布 (zàngbù) (from Tibetan), 郭勒 (guōlè) (from Mongolian). As for rivers outside Sinosphere, 河 is usually used. There are many exceptions to these patterns owing to inconsistent usage of the relevant terms in different forms of Chinese and English over time, and also due to cultural attitudes about proper usage of the terms.

• 河 (hé)
• 川 (chuān)

• “江”, in 漢語多功能字庫 (Multi-function Chinese Character Database)‎^[1], 香港中文大學 (the Chinese University of Hong Kong), 2014–
• 李如龙 [Li, Ru-long]; 刘福铸 [Liu, Fu-zhu]; 吴华英 [Wu, Hua-ying]; 黄国城 [Huang, Guo-cheng] (2019), “江”, in 莆仙方言调查报告 [Investigation Report on Puxian Dialect] (overall work in Mandarin and Puxian Min), Xiamen University Press, →ISBN, page 258.

(Jōyō kanji)

1. creek
2. inlet
3. bay

• Go-on: こう (kō, Jōyō)^{←こう (kou, historical)}
• Kan-on: こう (kō, Jōyō)^{←かう (kau, historical)}
• Kan’yō-on: ごう (gō)^{←がう (gau, historical)}
• Kun: え (e, 江, Jōyō)^{←え (e, 江, historical)←𛀁 (ye, 江, ancient)}
• Nanori: ええ (ee)、くん (kun)、こ (ko)、とうみ (tōmi)、のぶ (nobu)、み (mi)、りえ (rie)

/je/ → /e/

From Old Japanese. The ye pronunciation merged with e in Early Middle Japanese. The merged sound was ye until the Edo period, which is found in Yedo, yen and Yebisu.

This term was so representative of the ye reading that it lent its shape to the hentaigana 𛀁 (ye).

• (Tokyo) え [éꜜ] (Atamadaka – [1])^[1]
• IPA^(key): [e̞]

江(え) • (e) 

1. inlet, bay
2. (archaic, possibly obsolete) (general term for a large body of water)
   1. sea
   2. large river
   3. lake

Although 江 (e) was sometimes used generically for a large body of water, it was most often used to indicate the portion of that body of water that extended inland.^[2]

• (inlet): 入(いり)江(え), 入(い)り江(え) (irie)
• (bay): 湾(わん) (wan)

江(え) • (E) 

1. a surname

/kau/ → /kɔː/ → /koː/

From Middle Chinese 江 (MC kaewng).

The 漢音 (kan'on) reading, so likely a later borrowing.

• IPA^(key): [ko̞ː]

江(こう) • (kō) ^{←かう (kau)?}

1. (archaic) large river

江(こう) • (Kō) ^{←かう (Kau)?}

1. short for 長江 (Chōkō): the Yangtze River
2. old name for 琵琶湖 (Biwa-ko): Lake Biwa
3. a surname
4. a unisex given name

• 江(こう)河(が) (Kōga): the Yangtze River and the Yellow River

Various nanori readings.

• (Tokyo) ごー [góꜜò] (Atamadaka – [1])
• IPA^(key): [ɡo̞ː]

江(ごう) • (Gō) 

1. a surname
2. a unisex given name

江(へ) • (e) 

1. (dated) alternative spelling of へ (e, “to, towards”)
   • 1977, 週刊文春1977年1月13日号

     内(ない)藤(とう)国(くに)雄(お)より美(み)空(そら)ひばり賛(さん)江(へ)

     Naitō Kunio yori Misora Hibari san e

     From Kunio Naito to dear Ms. Hibari Misora

江(𛀁) • (ye) 

1. (obsolete) Identical in meaning to the particle へ, but used only after pronunciations of え, 𛀁, and ゑ. (Can we verify⁽⁺⁾ this sense?)

• “江”, in 漢字ぺディア [Kanjipedia]‎^[2] (in Japanese), The Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation, 2015–2025

From Middle Chinese 江 (MC kaewng). Recorded as Middle Korean 가ᇰ (kang) (Yale: kang) in Hunmong Jahoe (訓蒙字會 / 훈몽자회), 1527.

江 (eumhun 강 강 (gang gang))

1. hanja form^? of 강 (“river”)

• 국제퇴계학회 대구경북지부 (國際退溪學會 大邱慶北支部) (2007). Digital Hanja Dictionary, 전자사전／電子字典. [3]

江: Hán Nôm readings: giang, giăng, nhăng, gianh

1. (only in compounds) river
2. chữ Hán form of Giang (“a surname from Chinese”)