Yangtze River - Names

Names

The name "Yangtze", which is also spelled "Yangtse" or "Yangzi", is derived from the local name for a stretch of the lower Yangtze near Yangzhou.

"Yangzi" (Chinese: 扬子; pinyin: Yángzǐ) was the name of a village and site of an ancient ferry crossing, and "Jiang" (Chinese: 江; pinyin: Jiāng) is one of the Chinese words for river. In the 13th century, the famous Song Dynasty official, Wen Tianxiang penned a poem entitled Yangzi Jiang. Later, Western missionaries heard the name and applied it to the entire river.

Read more about this topic:  Yangtze River

Famous quotes containing the word names:

    And even my sense of identity was wrapped in a namelessness often hard to penetrate, as we have just seen I think. And so on for all the other things which made merry with my senses. Yes, even then, when already all was fading, waves and particles, there could be no things but nameless things, no names but thingless names. I say that now, but after all what do I know now about then, now when the icy words hail down upon me, the icy meanings, and the world dies too, foully named.
    Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)

    I come to this land to ride my horse,
    to try my own guitar, to copy out
    their two separate names like sunflowers, to conjure
    up my daily bread, to endure,
    somehow to endure.
    Anne Sexton (1928–1974)

    Our foreparents were mostly brought from West Africa.... We were brought to America and our foreparents were sold; white people bought them; white people changed their names ... my maiden name is supposed to be Townsend, but really, what is my maiden name? What is my name?
    Fannie Lou Hamer (1917–1977)