Son ha vs. Giang san
Hue-Tam Tai hhtai at fas.harvard.edu
Fri Jul 10 19:27:41 PDT 2015
Dear all (especially linguists)
Anh Ngo Thanh Nhan observed in a private email that in Chinese, "ha" is
used in the north and " giang" in the south. I confess I had never given
this any thought before.
It seems to me that son ha and giang san are used interchangeably in
Sino-VIetnamese, the choice depending largelyon euphony. But I could well
be wrong. Can one think of reasons for preferring giang san over son ha and
vice- versa in Vietnamese?
Hue-Tam Ho Tai
Harvard
John Phan jdp49 at cornell.edu
Fri Jul 10 19:52:36 PDT 2015
Dear Professor Tai,
This doesn't quite answer your question, but the north/south distribution
of "ha" and "giang" derives from the fact that "ha" was probably the
Sinitic word for "river" in the Yellow River plain, and was often used to
denote *the* river (the Hoang Ha) in early Chinese civilization. "Giang"
was a southern word for "river" often used to designate the most important
river in the south (the Truong Giang), and Jerry Norman and Mei Tsu-lin
suggested it was cognate with, and possibly a borrowing from Vietnamese
"song." That would make "giang" a *re-*borrowing of a Chinese borrowing of
a Proto-Vietic or other Austroasiatic root.
But anyway, both words for "river" were current by classical Chinese times,
and the compound "giang san" is used in the Zhuangzi. So I can't think of
any real reason why one might be used over another, except for poetic or
stylistic reasons.
Best, John
Hue-Tam Tai hhtai at fas.harvard.edu
Fri Jul 10 20:02:59 PDT 2015
Thank you John. I, too, have the feeling that the two are used pretty much
interchangeably and we should not read too much in the use of "son ha" in
Ly Thuong Kiet's poem!
Hue Tam Ho Tai
Harvard
Nhan Ngo nhan at temple.edu
Fri Jul 10 20:55:07 PDT 2015
Dear Anh Phan and Prof. Huệ Tâm,
Thanks. I agree that we should not read too much in the use of "sơn
hà" in Lý Thường Kiệt's poem today.
Except for 紅河 Hồng Hà "Red River" in Vietnam, but the section of
this river in China is called 元江 "Nguyên giang" ;-)
Somehow, we say "sơn hà" but we don't say "hà sơn", we say "giang
sơn" but we do not feel sure about "sơn giang". However, we say both
"sông núi" and "núi sông" to mean the same.
-- Nhan
Center for Vietnamese Philosophy, Culture & Society
Temple University
Dinh Lu Giang lugiangdinh at gmail.com
Fri Jul 10 21:27:44 PDT 2015
Prof. Tam, Prof. Nhan and Dr. Phan John
I strongly agree with Dr. John Phan on the root of Giang/Hà and would like
to add Xuyên in the list for further discussion.
"Sơn hà" and "giang san" can be exchangeably used when they are not in
expressions like "sơn hà xã tắc" or "sơn hà nguy biến". While "giang san"
is not much used (san is rarely found in Vietnamese as mountain), a much
more popular variation is "giang sơn" which is used in "giang sơn gấm vóc"
etc.
Remark on the order of the syllables in the words by Prof. Nhan is very
very interesting. Thank you very much.
Dinh Lu Giang
Dept. of Literature & Linguistics
University of Social Sciences and Humanities (Vietnam National University -
HCMC - Vietnam)
Visiting Associate professor at TUFS, Japan
John Phan jdp49 at cornell.edu
Sat Jul 11 10:59:31 PDT 2015
Dear all,
Just one quick addendum: Norman & Mei's position on *giang*, while famous,
has not by any means been universally accepted, and it is very possible
that the term has nothing to do with the Austroasiatic root.
Best, JDP
Nhan Ngo nhan at temple.edu
Sun Jul 12 10:30:12 PDT 2015
Dear John,
I have seen 江河 giang hà, and 江海 giang hải.
There are two authors who attended the Nôm Studies conference
at Temple in May 2015, Phan Anh Dũng and Nguyễn Cung Thông,
who belong to a group called Nhóm Từ Nguyên. The group attempts
to use historical reconstruction databases from the works of Karlgren,
Lý Phương Quế, Vương Lực, Baxter, Trịnh Trương Tượng Phương,
and Phan Ngộ Vân, … and pair the results to the "sound" of Hán
and Nôm in old dictionaries and books (which soon will be in web
accessible reference).
The coincidence of giang/jiang to kông (Mê Kông) and the rivers
south of Dương từ giang/Yangtse is too many to ignore, Nguyên
Giang, Châu giang, Cửu long giang, … Nguyễn Tài Cẩn posited
klong and krong for ideogram 工, now pronounced công and cong,
while Nôm 滝 sông uses ideogram 竜, now pronounced long.
And the existence of hà north of Yangtse prompted the question.
It is an open field…
Best,
Nhàn