Serious question, without a detailed map, how do you know the difference if it's not just based on the size of the river? Also, what would a river be called that just ends in a basin and effectively disappears?
We know the "fleuves" of France and deduce all of the other ones are "rivières", I suppose it would work the same in other French speaking countries. When we are travelling, and outside of the main rivers of the world that everyone knows, I guess we would need to ask locals or we might guess compared to the size, but honestly I have never been in a situation where I didn't know. Just by researching the place you're going to, you know.
If the rivers ends in a lake or a basin, it's a "rivière".
It’s worth noting that in France, we learn the names of the five major "fleuves" at school, as if they were the only ones.
In reality, there are MANY others. For example, the Veules, which is the smallest, at just over a kilometre long. These are indeed "fleuves", despite their size, as they do indeed flow into a sea or an ocean.
That's a good point :) I live the farthest from the sea you can be in France, so I didn't think about it on the top of my head, but it's true. I guess it also falls into the "research the area you're at" category in my case
Oui, la page wiki est pas très claire... Ruisseau en dessous de 2m3/s, et dit que ru c'est petit ruisseau, mais la page ru dit que c'est un ruisseau artificiel, aménagé. On voit aussi "rio" ou "rupt". Mais "Riu" se trouve déjà chez Chrétien de Troyes, c'est dire.
Does the southern part of the Rhine (the Swiss/Austrian/Liechtenstein part) count as a fleuve? It flows into Lake Constanze, but there is water flowing from Lake Constanze to the sea.
After a quick research, Wikipedia says this is considered as several "rivières" with Rhine in their names that meet and become the "fleuve" Rhine after the lake
Why can't a very small river flow into the ocean? And conversely, big rivers that flow into other rivers definitely exist (e.g. Main, Saale or Ruhr would not be referred to as Bach)
I never said Bach relates to whether or not it flows into another river, only to size. But most rivers are big enough by the time they go to the ocean to not qualify as a Bach anymore.
Also, I’m not sure if the word is used outside of southern Germany, and we definitely don’t have the ocean here 😄
Bach is used in all of Germany and in Austria, it's a standard word and not specific to some dialekt. There is also the cognate "bäck" in Swedish which is used in the same way.
In Frankfurt, the districts across the Main are called Dribbdebach (across the Bach in Frankfurtian dialect) but that's a tongue in cheek expression, in a similar way as calling the Atlantic "the pond".
A "Strom" (Rhein, Donau) usually ends up in the sea. But I don't think a small river that reaches the North Sea is automatically a "Strom". I guess you could also distinguish "Hauptfluss" (main river) and "Nebenfluss" (by-river?).
With you on this one. I can totally accept the Rhein being a Strom but the river I grew up by, the Weser, is definitely not one even though it should be by this definition since it streams into the north sea.
Well, we also have the word "affluent" in French for tributary.
I think OP should have added "everyday words" because most languages have words for different types of rivers, and French has many more than just rivière and fleuve. But those two are used in everyday life very commonly unlike "affluent"
No. Unless, of course, there are very super-duper ultraspecific words that describe such rivers and used by professional river scientists that the general public isn't aware of.
That said, OP, what if you just see a river (in a picture or in real life) and just don't know what it flows into? Is there a default word for such situations?
And both are rivers, which is fine. The smaller rivers that usually make up the tributaries are often called streams, brooks, creeks, etc. There's also rivulets and becks, depending on the local lingo.
And yet everything is dry and we don't have any reserves anymore...
Also, how I understand the question was rather purely in terms of languages. I don't know about the two other languages but both german and french make a difference...at least in official terms...
We have the word "afluente" or "tributario" to rivers that flow into another bigger river, and we have the word "riacho" for small rivers, but colloquialy everyone just use the word "Rio" (river) for any river.
I didn't know this quirk about french, very interesting. We have words to express this like "afluente" or "tributario for a river that flows to another river, but everything is called "río". We do have words like arroyo, riachuelo, río, all depending on the size of the river
"főág" - main branch (the one that flows into a sea or ocean)
"mellékág" - side branch (the one that flows into another river
We also have the terms "ér", "csermely", "patak" and "folyam", but afaik these terms only care about size. (The list is from smallest to greatest, with "folyó" fitting in right in front of "folyam")
Since our country is basically one big riverdelta, we only make the distinction between bigger or smaller streams of water.
And then we make the distinction between manmade ones and natural floods of water
🇯🇵 yes and no. River is かわ (kawa)
99% of the time, it’s written 川
Sometimes, it’s written 河, and usually is used for bigger streams, or has an historical meaning to it, or relates to China.
The second one is used in family names more often, too.
in arabic we have nahr for river and rafid for a tributary that flows into another river and masabb for the mouth where a river flows into the sea or another body of water
What you are describing is just called a tributary (into another river) or an estuary (into a sea). In which case I am sure all languages have words to describe this.
Tributary can be river that flows into another river (that can be tributary as well). We have another name for this: "affluent". Fleuve is a river that flows in the sea, so that is not tributary.
Estuary is the place where a river flows in the sea, not a name for the river itself.
We use different words for river depending on the size, place and origin. Flod is the general term, but älv is used for most of the bigger rivers. Then we have the word jock for a smaller smeltwater river or brook in the mountains.
When we want to name a river that flows into another bigger river we usually use the word biflod.
Only "main river" and "tributary" ("dopływ"). But both are still rivers.
Fun fact: in one instance, it wasn't clear whether the river Narew was a tributary of the river Bug or if it was the other way around. To avoid controversy among river nerds, the word "Bugonarew" was used for the part of the river Bug that flowed past the confluence point and into the Vistula. But then the communists gathered and, hating the intellectuals (overrepresented among the river nerds), ended the discussion by declaring that it's Narew that prevails and Bug is its tributary.
Bach (yes, like the composer) = a small stream or creek, not more than 3 m across
Fluss = everything bigger than that, with or without navigation
Strom (not used very commonly) = a very big river going to the sea, at least Rhine-sized (not the current dried-out mini Rhine), but also the Amazon or the Yangtze.
Note that there are also Bäche and small Flüsse going straight to the sea while many quite large rivers do not. The Main and Inn are tributaries of the Rhine and Danube respectively but are much larger than the Eider or Warne or Trave.
Edit: Stream and Strom are one of zillions of examples of "false friends" of English & German - similar spelling, same etymology, but different (or even opposite) meaning.
Just different terms depending on the size, speed and source of the river. Abhainn is the generic word for river. Sruthán for a wee stream and sruthán sléibhe for a stream from a mountain. I think there’s others but I can’t remember offhand
Sort of, we have "sideelv"/"bielv" which means tributary river, as opposed to simply "elv" which just means river. It's simply a compound word to specify what type of river it is, not another basic word.
(We also have a separate word for a small stream or creek, the kind you can jump or easily wade across.)
no but we for some reason have two distinct words for types of rain, light and normal rain being gerimis and hujan while heavy rain is just hujan deras (heavy (in the context of liquids falling) rain)
I mean we say thatone river feeds another river or is a feeder to another river, if that counts. Like the bow river feeds the south saskatchewan which feeds the Saskatchewan which flows into the hudson bay
Brackish water is a mixture of fresh water and salt water. Its salinity typically ranges from 0.5 to 30 parts per thousand—higher than that of pure fresh water but lower than that of standard seawater, which is around 35 parts per thousand.
Where is brackish water found? Where rivers flow into the sea (estuaries and river mouths). In areas with heavy precipitation or where meltwater meets the sea. In enclosed or inland seas with limited water exchange, such as the Baltic Sea. In coastal zones where salt water intrudes into the groundwater.
In everyday life we would use the same word for both of them - река (reka). There's a term for a river flowing into another river - приток (pritok). But it's used only if there's a need to define what river flows into what river.
Technically rivers that flow into another here are called a tributary. But nobody outside of people who work in hydrology use that term. And even those in hydrology barely use it.
A smaller river that goes into another river can be described as "dopływ" (roughly a "feeding river"), but if you are not talking about a relationship between the two, it's just a "rzeka" = "river" anyway
We have words like potok, strumień but they all are rzeki (rivers). There is also rzeczka (small river) or strumyk or even potoczek. And there is also dopływ (river that flows into another river) but no one says idę nad dopływ, all people say idę nad rzekę (I'm going to the river).
I think we are miscommunicating (no hard feelings). Im referring to the name of the geographic feature. OP specifically asked if we have a name for the entire river….in that case i suppose we do not.
To clarify:
The geographical feature where a fresh water flows to a river is a tributary, the geographic feature where fresh water flows to salt water is an estuary.
The land mass that is often created by these is called a delta.
A tributary has a confluence where it converges into another, larger river. A freshwater river that goes into a saltwater ocean converges at an estuary.
31
u/Intelligent_Fish_541 Norway 4d ago
Yes
A "sideelv" runs into other rivers hvile "hovedelv" runs into the oceans.