Research On Chinese Cognate Words Of The Period From Late Qing Dynasty To The Early Days Of The Republic Of China

Research is focused on the cognate words during the period from Late Qing Dynasty to the Early Days of the Republic of China, and based the work of these language scholars, Wang Guowei, Huang Kan, Zhang Taiyan, Shen Jianshi, and Yang Shuda. The reason for choosing this period is because that this is the peak days of the development of the traditional Chinese cognate words, during which came forth a large number of distinguished scholars specializing in cognate words research. Meanwhile, the traditional Chinese Etymology, affected by Western scholars of the language, has borrowed and absorbed the achievement of Western Linguistics in sound, broadened the sight in the words homology studies, and eventually made the word homology study to a new peak. The most famous event is the emergence of Zhang Taiyan's WenShi, which has consciously used sound to study the homology words.The writer chose this period for trying to make comparison of Chinese Etymology and Western Etymology. According to the basis of theory and methodology, the similarities and differences of them are explored. Etymology of Chinese and Western history both belong to the area of linguistics, and both of them have a common task of finding the origin and development of words. Furthermore, on the standard of confirming cognate words, they both choose the rule of the sounds similar and the meanings in harmony. However, they also have big differences on the theory basis, the methodology, and the historic development. Therefore, according to the comparison of the two, and reasonably making use of the advantages of both studies, it might be thought to benefit the development of Chinese and Western Etymology. That is what has been tried to explain in this paper.