The
Thousand Character Classic (千字文) is a
ChineseChinese literature extends back thousands of years, from the earliest recorded dynastic court archives to the mature fictional novel that arose during the Ming Dynasty to entertain the masses of literate Chinese...
poem used as a primer for teaching Chinese characters to children. It contains exactly one thousand unique characters. It is said that
Emperor WuEmperor Wu of Liang , personal name Xiao Yan , courtesy name Shuda , nickname Lian'er , was the founding emperor of the Chinese Liang Dynasty...
of the
Liang DynastyLiang Dynasty , also known as Southern Liang Dynasty , was the third of Southern dynasties in China, followed by the Chen Dynasty...
(r. 502-549) made 周興嗣 (Chow Hing-Ji) compose this poem for his prince to practice
calligraphyCalligraphy is a type of visual art. It is often called the art of writing . A contemporary definition of calligraphic practice is "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious and skillful manner"...
. The original title of the poem was 《次韻王羲之書千字》 and it is sung in the same way in which children learning Latin alphabet writing do with the "
alphabet songAn alphabet song is any of various songs used to teach children the alphabet, used in kindergartens, pre-schools and homes around the world. Alphabet songs typically follow the alphabetic principle , which in languages like English with morphophonemic variation represents a particular modality of...
".
The
Thousand Character Classic is composed of 250 phrases of 4 characters each from "天地玄黃" (
jyutpingJyutping is a romanization system for Standard Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme...
: tin1 dei6 jyun4 wong4,
pinyinPinyin , or more formally Hanyu Pinyin , is currently the most commonly used romanization system for Standard Mandarin. Hanyu means the Chinese language, and pinyin means "phonetics", or more literally, "spelling sound" or "spelled sound"...
: tiān dì xuán huáng) to "焉哉乎也" (
jyutpingJyutping is a romanization system for Standard Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme...
: yin1 zoi1 fu1 jaa5,
pinyinPinyin , or more formally Hanyu Pinyin , is currently the most commonly used romanization system for Standard Mandarin. Hanyu means the Chinese language, and pinyin means "phonetics", or more literally, "spelling sound" or "spelled sound"...
: yān zāi hū yě).
The
Thousand Character Classic (千字文) is a
ChineseChinese literature extends back thousands of years, from the earliest recorded dynastic court archives to the mature fictional novel that arose during the Ming Dynasty to entertain the masses of literate Chinese...
poem used as a primer for teaching Chinese characters to children. It contains exactly one thousand unique characters. It is said that
Emperor WuEmperor Wu of Liang , personal name Xiao Yan , courtesy name Shuda , nickname Lian'er , was the founding emperor of the Chinese Liang Dynasty...
of the
Liang DynastyLiang Dynasty , also known as Southern Liang Dynasty , was the third of Southern dynasties in China, followed by the Chen Dynasty...
(r. 502-549) made 周興嗣 (Chow Hing-Ji) compose this poem for his prince to practice
calligraphyCalligraphy is a type of visual art. It is often called the art of writing . A contemporary definition of calligraphic practice is "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious and skillful manner"...
. The original title of the poem was 《次韻王羲之書千字》 and it is sung in the same way in which children learning Latin alphabet writing do with the "
alphabet songAn alphabet song is any of various songs used to teach children the alphabet, used in kindergartens, pre-schools and homes around the world. Alphabet songs typically follow the alphabetic principle , which in languages like English with morphophonemic variation represents a particular modality of...
".
Composition
The
Thousand Character Classic is composed of 250 phrases of 4 characters each from "天地玄黃" (
jyutpingJyutping is a romanization system for Standard Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme...
: tin1 dei6 jyun4 wong4,
pinyinPinyin , or more formally Hanyu Pinyin , is currently the most commonly used romanization system for Standard Mandarin. Hanyu means the Chinese language, and pinyin means "phonetics", or more literally, "spelling sound" or "spelled sound"...
: tiān dì xuán huáng) to "焉哉乎也" (
jyutpingJyutping is a romanization system for Standard Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme...
: yin1 zoi1 fu1 jaa5,
pinyinPinyin , or more formally Hanyu Pinyin , is currently the most commonly used romanization system for Standard Mandarin. Hanyu means the Chinese language, and pinyin means "phonetics", or more literally, "spelling sound" or "spelled sound"...
: yān zāi hū yě). It was selected among the calligraphies of 王羲之 (
Wang XizhiWang Xizhi was a Chinese calligrapher, traditionally referred to as the Sage of Calligraphy , lived in Jin Dynasty ....
), one of the finest calligraphers in
ChinaChina is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
, and composed by Zhou Xingsi, who lived from 470 to 521 in the Liang country in the Southern Dynasty period. The characters of the poem were sometimes used to represent the numbers from 1 through 1000 (for security against tampering or plagiarism), as described in this link for students:
Qianziwen.
Importance in Japan
WaniWani is a semi-legendary scholar dispatched by the Kingdom of Baekje in southwestern Korea to the Japanese Islands during the reign of Emperor Ōjin, bringing with him the knowledge of Confucianism and the Chinese writing system. He is mentioned in the ancient Japanese chronicles of Nihon Shoki and...
, a legendary Chinese-Baekje scholar, is said to have transmitted the
Thousand Character Classic to
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
along with 10 books of
Analects of ConfuciusLunyu , also known as the Analects of Confucius, are considered a record of the words and acts of the o Chinese thinker and philosopher Confucius and his disciples, as well as the discussions they held....
during the reign of
Emperor Ōjin, also known as Homutawake or Hondawake , was the 15th imperial ruler of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. Emperor Ōjin is considered by many to be a legendary figure, and the name Ōjin Tennō was assigned to him posthumously by later generations.-Legendary narrative:No firm...
(r. 370?-410?). However, this alleged event precedes the composition of the
Thousand Character Classic. This makes many people assume that the event is simply fiction, but some scholars have supposed it to be based in fact, perhaps using a different version of the
Thousand Character Classic.
Importance in Korea
The
Thousand Character Classic was used as a primer for learning Chinese characters for many centuries. It is uncertain when the
Thousand Character Classic was introduced to Korea.
The book is noted as a principal force—along with the introduction of
BuddhismBuddhism, as traditionally conceived, is a path of salvation attained through insight into the ultimate nature of reality. It encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha...
into
KoreaKorea is a civilization and formerly unified nation currently divided into two states. Located on the Korean Peninsula, it borders China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the east by the Korea Strait....
—behind the introduction of Chinese characters into the Korean language. Hanja was the sole means of writing Korean until the
HangulHangul is the native alphabet of the Korean language, as distinguished from the logographic Sino-Korean hanja system...
script was created under the direction of King Sejong the Great in the 15th century; however, even after the invention of Hangul, most Korean scholars continued to write in Hanja until the early 20th century.
The
Thousand Character Classics use as a writing primer for children began in 1583, when King Seonjo ordered Han Ho (1544-1605) to carve the text into wooden printing blocks.
44 legends from "Cheon" (heaven) to "Su" (water) among "Thousand Character Classic" were inscribed one by one on the reverse of "Sangpyung Tongbo" (a Joseon DynastyJoseon , was a Korean sovereign state founded by Taejo Yi Seong-gye that lasted for approximately five centuries. It was founded in the aftermath of the overthrow of the Goryeo Kingdom at what is today the city of Kaesong...
Korean coin).
The Thousand Character Classic
has its own form in representing the Chinese characters. For each character, the text shows its meaning (saegim
or hun
(訓)) and sound (eum
(音)). The vocabulary to represent the saegim
has remained unchanged in every edition, despite the natural evolution of the Korean language since then. However, in the editions Gwangju Thousand Character Classic
and Seokbong Thousand Character Classic,
both written in the 16th century, there are some number of different meanings expressed for the same character. The types of changes of saegims
in Seokbong Thousand Character Classic
into those in Gwangju Thousand Character Classic
fall roughly under the following categories:
- Definitions turned more generalized or more concrete when semantic scope of each character had been changed;
- Former definitions were replaced by synonyms; and
- Parts of speech in the definitions were changed.
From these changes, replacements between native Korean and Sino-Korean, etc. can be found. Generally, "rare saegim
vocabularies" are presumed to be pre-16th century, for it is thought that they may be a fossilized form of native Korean vocabulary or affected by the influence of a regional dialect in JeollaJeolla was one of the eight provinces of Korea during the Joseon Dynasty. Jeolla was located in the southwest of Korea. The provincial capital was Jeonju.-History:...
Province.
Manchu texts
Several different ManchuManchu is a Tungusic language spoken in Northeast China; it used to be the language of the Manchu, though now most Manchus speak Mandarin Chinese and there are fewer than 70 native speakers of Manchu out of a total of nearly 10 million ethnic Manchus...
texts of the Thousand Character Classic
are known today. They all use the Manchu script to transcribe Chinese characters. They are utilized in research on Chinese phonology.
The 滿漢千字文
(jyutpingJyutping is a romanization system for Standard Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme...
: mun5 hon3 cin1 zi6 man4, pinyinPinyin , or more formally Hanyu Pinyin , is currently the most commonly used romanization system for Standard Mandarin. Hanyu means the Chinese language, and pinyin means "phonetics", or more literally, "spelling sound" or "spelled sound"...
: mǎn hàn qiān zì wén) by 沈啓亮 (jyutpingJyutping is a romanization system for Standard Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme...
: cam4 kai2 loeng6, pinyinPinyin , or more formally Hanyu Pinyin , is currently the most commonly used romanization system for Standard Mandarin. Hanyu means the Chinese language, and pinyin means "phonetics", or more literally, "spelling sound" or "spelled sound"...
: chén qǐ liàng) contains Chinese text and Manchu phonetic transcription. It seems that the Man han ciyan dzi wen
was published during the reign of the Kangxi EmperorThe Kangxi Emperor was the third Emperor of the Manchu-led Qing Dynasty and the second Qing emperor to rule over China proper, from 1661 to 1722...
.
Another text, the 清書千字文
(jyutpingJyutping is a romanization system for Standard Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme...
: cing1 syu1 cin1 zi6 man4, pinyinPinyin , or more formally Hanyu Pinyin , is currently the most commonly used romanization system for Standard Mandarin. Hanyu means the Chinese language, and pinyin means "phonetics", or more literally, "spelling sound" or "spelled sound"...
: qīng shū qiān zì wén) by 尤珍 (jyutpingJyutping is a romanization system for Standard Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme...
: jau4 zan1, pinyinPinyin , or more formally Hanyu Pinyin , is currently the most commonly used romanization system for Standard Mandarin. Hanyu means the Chinese language, and pinyin means "phonetics", or more literally, "spelling sound" or "spelled sound"...
: yóu zhēn), was published in 1685 as a supplement to the 百體清文
(jyutpingJyutping is a romanization system for Standard Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme...
: baak3 tai2 cing1 man4, pinyinPinyin , or more formally Hanyu Pinyin , is currently the most commonly used romanization system for Standard Mandarin. Hanyu means the Chinese language, and pinyin means "phonetics", or more literally, "spelling sound" or "spelled sound"...
: bǎi tǐ qīng wén). It provides Manchu transcription without original Chinese. It is known for being referred to by Japanese scholar Ogyū Sorai, also known by the pen name Butsu Sorai, was a Japanese Confucian philosopher. He has been described as the most influential such scholar during the Tokugawa period. His primary area of study was in applying the teachings of Confucianism to government and social order...
for Manchu studies as early as the 18th century.
The undated ciyan dzi wen
which is owned by the Bibliothèque nationale de FranceThe Bibliothèque nationale de France is the National Library of France, located in Paris. It is intended to be the repository of all that is published in France. The current president of the library is Bruno Racine.-History:...
is a variant of the Qingshu Qianziwen. It is believed to have been used by the translation office of the
Joseon DynastyJoseon , was a Korean sovereign state founded by Taejo Yi Seong-gye that lasted for approximately five centuries. It was founded in the aftermath of the overthrow of the Goryeo Kingdom at what is today the city of Kaesong...
of Korea. It contains Hangul transcription for both Manchu and Chinese. It is valuable to the study of Manchu phonology.
Similar poems in other languages
- Alphabet song
An alphabet song is any of various songs used to teach children the alphabet, used in kindergartens, pre-schools and homes around the world. Alphabet songs typically follow the alphabetic principle , which in languages like English with morphophonemic variation represents a particular modality of...
- Iroha
The is a Japanese poem, probably written sometime during the Heian era . Originally the poem was attributed to the founder of the Shingon sect of Buddhism, Kukai, but more modern research has found the date of composition to be later in the Heian Period. The first record of its existence dates...
, Japanese
- Shiva Sutra
The Shiva Sutras or Maheshvara Sutras are fourteen verses that organize the phonemes of the Sanskrit language as referred to in the of , the foundational text of Sanskrit grammar...
, Sanskrit
See also.