河馬

See also: 河马

Chinese

		river	horse; surname
trad. (河馬)		河	馬
simp. (河马)		河	马
anagram		馬河／马河

Pronunciation

• Mandarin

  (Pinyin): hémǎ

  (Zhuyin): ㄏㄜˊ ㄇㄚˇ

• Cantonese

  (Guangzhou–Hong Kong, Jyutping): ho⁴ maa⁵

  (Taishan, Wiktionary): ho³ ma⁴

• Hakka (Sixian, PFS): hò-mâ
• Southern Min (Hokkien, POJ): hô-bé / hô-bée
• Wu (Shanghai, Wugniu): ⁶wu-mo

---

• Mandarin
  • (Standard Chinese)
    • Hanyu Pinyin: hémǎ
    • Zhuyin: ㄏㄜˊ ㄇㄚˇ
    • Tongyong Pinyin: hémǎ
    • Wade–Giles: ho²-ma³
    • Yale: hé-mǎ
    • Gwoyeu Romatzyh: hermaa
    • Palladius: хэма (xɛma)
    • Sinological IPA ^(key): /xɤ³⁵ mä²¹⁴⁻²¹⁽⁴⁾/
    • Homophones:

      edit edit 河馬 / 河马 荷馬 / 荷马

• Cantonese
  • (Standard Cantonese, Guangzhou–Hong Kong)
    • Jyutping: ho⁴ maa⁵
    • Yale: hòh máh
    • Cantonese Pinyin: ho⁴ maa⁵
    • Guangdong Romanization: ho⁴ ma⁵
    • Sinological IPA ^(key): /hɔː²¹ maː¹³/
    • Homophones:

      edit edit 河馬 / 河马 荷馬 / 荷马

  • (Taishanese, Taicheng)
    • Wiktionary: ho³ ma⁴
    • Sinological IPA ^(key): /hᵘɔ²² ᵐba²¹/
• Hakka
  • (Sixian, incl. Miaoli and Neipu)
    • Pha̍k-fa-sṳ: hò-mâ
    • Hakka Romanization System: ho^ˇ ma^ˊ
    • Hagfa Pinyim: ho² ma¹
    • Sinological IPA: /ho¹¹ ma²⁴/
• Southern Min
  • (Hokkien: General Taiwanese, Xiamen, Singapore)
    • Pe̍h-ōe-jī: hô-bé
    • Tâi-lô: hô-bé
    • Phofsit Daibuun: hoi'bea
    • Sinological IPA (Singapore): /ho²⁴⁻²¹ be⁴²/
    • Sinological IPA (Taipei): /ho²⁴⁻¹¹ be⁵³/
    • Sinological IPA (Xiamen): /ho²⁴⁻²² be⁵³/
    • Sinological IPA (Kaohsiung): /hɤ²³⁻³³ be⁴¹/
  • (Hokkien: Penang)
    • Pe̍h-ōe-jī: hô-bée
    • Tâi-lô: hô-bée
    • Sinological IPA (Penang): /ho²³⁻²¹ bɛ⁴⁴⁵/
• Wu
  • (Northern: Shanghai)
    • Wugniu: ⁶wu-mo
    • MiniDict: wu^去 mo
    • Wiktionary Romanisation (Shanghai): ³hhu-mo
    • Sinological IPA (Shanghai): /ɦu²² mo⁴⁴/

Noun

河馬

1. hippopotamus; hippo

Derived terms

• 倭河馬 / 倭河马 (wōhémǎ)

Descendants

Sino-Xenic (河馬):

• → Korean: 하마(河馬) (hama)
• → Vietnamese: hà mã (河馬)

Japanese

河馬 (kaba): a hippopotamus.

Kanji in this term
河	馬
か Grade: 5	ば Grade: 2
on'yomi

Etymology

Sources are agreed that the Japanese term is a calque from Dutch, but disagree on the source term. The leading theories:

• Calque of Dutch revierpaard, obsolete form of rivierpaard (literally “river horse”), itself a calque of Ancient Greek ἱπποπόταμος (hippopótamos), attested in the Doeff-Halma Dictionary, mainly edited in 1816-1817 and published in 1833 (scan available here).
• Calque of Dutch nijlpaard (literally “Nile horse”), where Dutch nijl refers to the Nile as a metonym for the sense of river, ostensibly as included in the Doeff-Halma Dictionary.. However, that dictionary seems to have no entries at all starting with nij-, as we see none using either English collation rules (treating the ij digraph as two letters, with j coming alphabetically after i and before k) as seen here, or using Dutch collation rules (treating the ij digraph as a single letter, coming alphabetically after x and before y) as seen here.

Japanese sources also mention an 1855-58 re-edition of the Doeff-Halma Dutch-Japanese dictionary, reworked for a Japanese-language audience, that also glosses Japanese 河馬 as Dutch nijlpaard.

Either way, the spelling 河馬 first appears in the Doeff-Halma dictionary in roughly 1816. The reading is not attested in the earliest sources, until an 1869 Japanese-English dictionary used furigana to indicate a kun'yomi reading of kawamuma (see also the now-obsolete muma reading for 馬). This reading appears to have fallen by the wayside; that same 1869 bilingual dictionary also listed the modern on'yomi reading of kaba, and monolingual Japanese references list the kaba reading from 1907.

Pronunciation

• (Tokyo) かば [káꜜbà] (Atamadaka – [1])
• IPA^(key): [ka̠ba̠]

Noun

河(か)馬(ば) • (kaba) 

1. [from 1816] a hippopotamus

Usage notes

• As with many terms that name organisms, this term is often spelled in katakana, especially in biological contexts (where katakana is customary), as カバ (kaba).

Derived terms

• 小人河馬(こびとかば) (kobitokaba, “pygmy hippopotamus (Choeropsis liberiensis)”)

References

• “河馬”, in 漢字ぺディア [Kanjipedia]‎^[2] (in Japanese), The Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation, 2015–2026

Korean

Hanja in this term
河	馬

Noun

河馬 • (hama) (hangeul 하마)

1. hanja form^? of 하마 (“hippopotamus”)

Vietnamese

chữ Hán Nôm in this term
河	馬

Noun

河馬

1. chữ Hán form of hà mã (“hippopotamus”)