China Social Science Review

No.4, 2023

 

The Linguistic Path of Mythology in Exploring the Origins of Chinese Civilization

(Abstract)

 

Wu Xiaodong

 

Archaeology and history have achieved fruitful results in exploring the origin of Chinese civilization, but there are certain limitations in the study of oral tradition. For reasons of materials and cognition, it is difficult to distinguish between mythology and history, so it is necessary to open up and clarify the difficulties and hot issues in the study of early civilization through the linguistic path of mythology. In this process, we should deal with the systematization of myth and language, that is, in the language path, consider both the system composed of the name or type of god between mythological texts and take into account another system composed of the law of the development and evolution of speech, as well as combine the two to improve the scientific nature of its interpretation.