Persian builds رودخانه out of two ordinary words: رود (river) plus خانه (house). Where the water lives.
What it means
رودخانه (rud-khâne) means “river.” Pure Persian, A1, identical across registers. The compound is transparent: رود (rud) is “river, stream” on its own, and خانه (khâne) is “house” in the broad sense, often meaning “the place of” in compounds. So رودخانه reads literally as “river-house” or “the place of the river.” In modern Persian رود by itself sounds slightly poetic or archaic, while رودخانه is the everyday word. The major Iranian rivers each have a name: کارون (kârun) in the southwest, ارس (aras) on the Azerbaijan border, سفیدرود (sefid-rud, “white river”) in Gilan, زایندهرود (zâyande-rud, “life-giving river”) through Isfahan.
How to use it
- کنار رودخانه (kenâr-e rud-khâne) “by the river”
- رودخانهی بزرگ (rud-khâne-ye bozorg) “big river”
- توی رودخانه (tu-ye rud-khâne) “in the river”
- رودخانه خشک شده (rud-khâne khoshk shode) “the river has dried up”
In a sentence
- کنار رودخانه نشستیم. · kenâr-e rud-khâne neshastim. · We sat by the river.
- زایندهرود از وسط اصفهان رد میشه. · zâyande-rud az vasat-e esfahân rad mishe. · The Zayandeh River runs through the middle of Isfahan.
- این رودخانه تابستونا خشک میشه. · in rud-khâne tâbestunâ khoshk mishe. · This river dries up in summers.
Cultural note
The Iranian relationship with رودخانه is shaped by scarcity. Iran is mostly arid, and most rivers run seasonally, fed by mountain snowmelt rather than steady rain. The Zayandeh River through Isfahan is the most photographed: the Si-o-se-pol bridge, with its 33 arches, was built by Shah Abbas in 1602 to span it, and recent decades of drought have repeatedly left the riverbed dry under the bridge. Pre-Islamic Iran venerated water (آب) and the river that fed agriculture, and the Yazata Anahita, goddess of the waters, has temples that survive in fragments. Modern Iranian water politics, dam-building, drought, mismanagement, gives the everyday word رودخانه a contemporary edge. The Karun (کارون) in Khuzestan is Iran’s only fully navigable river. The Aras (ارس) marks a long stretch of the northern border with Azerbaijan and Armenia, and Persian poetry from the Safavid period onward returns to it as a boundary between exile and home. The compound shape of رودخانه (river + house) is a small lesson in Persian word-building: the language sees water as something that lives somewhere, not just something that moves.
References
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