Research On Inheritance And Protection Of Kuitun Place Names

A place name is a microcosm of the city civilization which often reflects thenatural and cultural characters of a place. It’s known as the "living fossil" for thereason that it’s a complex of geography, history, language, culture, and etc factors ofa place. The culture of the place name can not only demonstrate characteristics ofplace names, but also shows the mental factors of the natural and man-madelandscape and other tangible factors of a city and reflects people’s preferences to theplace names and their cultural connotation. Place names of China reflect the ideas ofChinese historical ethnic fusion, territory changes of administrative districts, thetraditional cultures, and etc. Place names covers enormous scope, which does notonly mean the names of villages, small streets and bridges, but also includes thenames of autonomous regions, provinces and countries. There are traces of historical,geographical and social development behind each place name. The origin of placenames, naming principles and their meanings all contain the essence of heritage andcultural history. Thus, the culture of place names is a kind of valuable intangibleassets and wealth.Xinjiang has always been a special area of a multi-ethnic, multi civilizations andculture coexist. The place name culture of Xinjiang is not only a collection ofdifferent civilizations, but also has the history mark of long-term coexistence anddevelopment of all nations. With the evolution of history, national cultures’ mutualpenetration and integration gradually formed the unique Xinjiang culture withdiversified characteristics, which could be reflected in the place names. Kuitun is inthe vital communication line, where multi nationalities lived, nomadized there. Thereare different national cultures, which gradually generate the rich and colorful cultureof place names. Kuitun is the key traffic route in the history which used to be an areaof nomad owned by various tribes. Then there are soldiers and people who camefrom different provinces to open up the wasteland. The various ethnic cultures whichformed in this area generated colorful place-name cultures, which could reflect theethnic culture in reverse. So the inheritance and protection of the culture of placename is significant to reality.Taking Kuitun as its object, the author has accumulated some basic theoreticalknowledge based on a large number of relevant literature and material.Then thetheories and methods are put into the research of Kuitun’s place names for thepurpose of analyzing the characteristics of Kuitun and the value of place culture. Atlast, according to the present situation of inheritance and protection of culture ofplace names in kuitun, it offers some suggestions, hoping to devote a little power tothe protection of place names in China.