Language is the living fossil of culture and the etymological motivation of vocabulary often contains rich cultural concepts. Therefore, it would be a preferable way to explore the cultural information behind the words by examining their origins. In this article, we explore the naming rationale of ancient weapons and interpret the cultural concepts behind them. The naming rationale of ancient weapons implies the internal relationship between the creation of weapons and everything in nature, the perfect fusion of weapon shape and actual combat function, the efficient use of weapons functions and the inherent constraint of weapons. It reflects the ancients‘ artifact-making ideology of learning from nature, the substance-function thought of “the resemblance of form and identity”, the military thought of making good use of tools and the ritual thought of prohibiting violence.

• 李方園(鄭州大學) | Fangyuan LI
• 何余華(鄭州大學漢字文明研究中心) | Yuhua HE