Study On Generic Characters Of District Names In Hubei Province

Toponym records the process of people's acknowledgement, application and alteration about natural geographical phenomena and humane geographic issues. In China, we record toponym in Chinese characters so that the study on the characters of toponym is helpful for knowing local living conditions, customs, cultural psychology and the like. Generic characters are one important part of toponymic characters. The generic characters of Hubei province have reflected its regional characteristics, such as varied terrains, plenty rivers and lakes, long history, abundant resources and complicated district changes.This thesis focuses on the generic characters of district names in Hubei.Chapter one will mainly define toponymic characters and generic characters,then simply review the present conditions of toponymic characters, district settings and toponymic research of Hubei province, finally put forward the academic meanings and methodology of this thesis. Chapter two will count and classify the generic characters of Hubei district names so as to understand the characters using. Chapter three will analyze the representative generic characters mentioned in chapter two. Chapter four will study and explain the dialectal characters in the generic characters of Hubei province, from which the knowledge about its landforms and cultures could be got. Chapter five will analyze the using conditions of the difficult characters among generic characters of Hubei province, and then offer some suggestions to standardize the local toponymic characters.