Seems all English translations of Psalm 137:1 use "RIVERS of Babylon," but elsewhere it's often WATERS! Why?

Question

My best guess: It may go back to Luther's German, which is "An den WASSERN zu Babel," not the "An den Flüssen Babels" of Eberfelder or the "An den Strömen Babels" of Schlachter. (See http://scripturetext.com/psalms/137-1.htm and click the Mult tab.)

If so, there would be a source, presumably in English, accessible (or ancestral) to Lord Byron and Christina Rossetti, Stephen Vincent Benét and Robert Schenkkan, and reggae singers and classical composers. Anybody know of it?

Or is it just that it's easier to sing AH than IH, and the songs influence the prose and poetry?

Interesting commentary, O mystical viking, but nothing whatever to do with the question!

Answer 1

I don't know really, but my best guess is that, because the scriptures were written by hand in Aramaic and translated into other dead languages before they were translated into modern languages some copies may have been in languages that had no matching word for river so used water instead.
Some languages lack words that others use i.e the Eskimo language has no word for just snow but it has over 200 words for descriptive versions of snow ( wet snow, dry snow ect.).