Thousand Character Classic

Common card · No. 365256

The Thousand Character Classic (Chinese: 千字文; pinyin: Qiānzì wén), also known as the Thousand Character Text, is a Chinese poem that has been used as a primer for teaching Chinese characters to children from the sixth century onward. It contains exactly one thousand characters, each used only once, arranged into 250 lines of four characters apiece and grouped into four line rhyming stanzas to facilitate easy memorization. It is sung, akin to alphabet songs for phonetic writing systems. Along with the Three Character Classic and the Hundred Family Surnames, it formed the basis of traditional literacy training in the Sinosphere. The first line is Tian di xuan huang (traditional Chinese: 天地玄黃; simplified Chinese: 天地玄黄; pinyin: Tiāndì xuán huáng; Jyutping: Tin1 dei6 jyun4 wong4; lit. 'Heaven earth dark yellow') and the last line, Yān zāi hū yě (焉哉乎也; Yin1 zoi1 fu4 jaa5) explains the use of the grammatical particles yan, zai, hu, and ye.

Read on Wikipedia · Image Uncertain Note: The National Palace Museum states that the Qing imperial catalog Shiqu Baoji (石渠寶笈) attributed this work to Emperor Gaozong of the Song dynasty, but the museum also states that the wo…, Public domain