The Thousand Character Classic (千字文) is a Chinese poem used as a primer for teaching Chinese characters to children. It exactly contains one thousand unique characters. It is said that Emperor Wu (梁武帝) of the Liang Dynasty (r. 502-549) made Zhou Xingsi (周興嗣) compose this poem for his prince to practice calligraphy. The original title of the poem was 《次韻王羲之書千字》.

Composition

The Thousand Character Classic is composed of 250 phrases of 4 characters each from "Tian Di Xuan Huang" (天地玄黃) to "Yan Zai Hu Ye" (焉哉乎也) (see full text). It was selected among the calligraphies of Wang Xizhi (王羲之), one of the finest writers in China, and composed by Zhou Xingsi, who lived from 470 to 521 in the Liang country in the Southern Dynasty period (南朝).

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, but some think that it may have been introduced long before the cultural flourishing of the kingdom of Baekje.

The book is noted as a principal force—along with the introduction of Buddhism into Korea—behind the introduction of Chinese characters into the Korean language. Hanja was the sole means of writing Korean until King Sejong the Great invented the Hangul script 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 Classic's 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 Dynasty 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:

1. Definitions turned more generalized or more concrete when semantic scope of each character had been changed;
2. Former definitions were replaced by synonyms; and
3. 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 Jeolla Province.

Importance in Japan

Wani Kishi , a legendary Chinese-Baekje scholar, is said to have transmitted the Thousand Character Classic to Japan along with 10 books of Analects of Confucius during the reign of Emperor Ojin (r. 370?-410?). However, it precedes the composition of the Thousand Character Classic. Some think that this event was a mere fiction and others consider that it reflects some fact. Some presume a different version of the Thousand Character Classic. The Thousand Character Classic was used for a text book for primary learning and for calligraphy.

See also

• List of China-related topics
• List of Korea-related topics
• List of Japan-related topics