Thousand Character Classic

Thousand Character Classic
An calligraphic work titled An Authentic "Thousand Character Classic", Song dynasty
Chinese name
Chinese
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Qiānzì wén Wade–Giles Ch'ien-tzu-wen Wu Romanization Tshie zy ven Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization Chīn jih màhn Jyutping Cin1 zi6 man4 Southern Min Hokkien POJ Chhian-jī-bûn
Vietnamese name
Vietnamese alphabet	Thiên tự văn
Chữ Hán
Korean name
Hangul	천자문
Hanja	千字文
Transcriptions Revised Romanization Cheonjamun McCune–Reischauer Ch'ŏnjamun
Japanese name
Kanji	千字文
Kana	せんじもん
Transcriptions Romanization Senjimon

The Thousand Character Classic (Chinese: 千字文; pinyin: Qiānzìwén), also known as the Thousand Character Text, is a Chinese poem 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 make it easy to memorize. It is sung in a way similar to children learning the Latin alphabet singing an "alphabet song." Along with the Three Character Classic and the Hundred Family Surnames, it formed the basis of literacy training in traditional China.

The first line is Tian di xuan huang (simplified Chinese: 天地玄黄; traditional Chinese: 天地玄黃; pinyin: Tiāndì xuán huáng; Jyutping: tin1 dei6 jyun4 wong4) ("Heaven and Earth Dark and Yellow") and the last line, Yan zai hu ye (Chinese: 焉哉乎也; pinyin: Yān zāi hū yě; Jyutping: yin1 zoi1 fu1 jaa5) explains the use of the grammatical particles "yan", "zai", "hu", and "ye".

There are several stories of the work's origin. One says that Emperor Wu of the Liang Dynasty (r. 502–549) commissioned Zhou Xingsi (simplified Chinese: 周兴嗣; traditional Chinese: 周興嗣; pinyin: Zhōu Xìngsì, 470–521) to compose this poem for his prince to practice calligraphy. Another says that the emperor commanded Wang Xizhi, a noted calligrapher, to write out one-thousand characters and give them to Zhou as a challenge to make into an ode. Another story is that the emperor commanded his princes and court officers to compose essays and ordered another minister to copy them on a thousand slips of paper, which became mixed and scrambled. Zhou was given the task of restoring these slips to their original order. He worked so intensely to finish doing so overnight that his hair turned completely white.