Hundred Family Surnames

Hundred Family Surnames
Chinese name
Chinese百家姓
Hanyu PinyinBǎijiā Xìng
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinBǎijiā Xìng
Bopomofoㄅㄞˇ   ㄐㄧㄚ   ㄒㄧㄥˋ
Gwoyeu RomatzyhBaejia Shinq
Wade–GilesPai3 Chia1 Hsing4
Yale RomanizationBǎijyā Syìng
IPA[pàɪ.tɕjá ɕîŋ]
Yue: Cantonese
Yale RomanizationBaakgā Sing
Jyutpingbaak3 gaa1 sing3
Southern Min
Hokkien POJPah-ka-seⁿ
Vietnamese name
Vietnamese alphabetBách gia tính
Chữ Hán百家姓
Korean name
Hangul백가성
Hanja百家姓
Transcriptions
Revised RomanizationBaekgaseong
Japanese name
Kanji百家姓
Kanaひゃっかせい
Transcriptions
RomanizationHyakkasei
Hundred Family Surnames poem written in Chinese characters and Phagspa script, from Shilin Guangji written by Chen Yuanjing in the Yuan dynasty

The Hundred Family Surnames (Chinese: 百家姓), commonly known as Bai Jia Xing,[1] also translated as Hundreds of Chinese Surnames,[2] is a classic Chinese text composed of common Chinese surnames. An unknown author compiled the book during the Song dynasty (960–1279).[3] The book lists 507 surnames.[3] Of these, 441 are single-character surnames and 66 are double-character surnames.[3] About 800 names have been derived from the original ones.[4]

In the dynasties following the Song, the 13th-century Three Character Classic, the Hundred Family Surnames, and the 6th-century Thousand Character Classic came to be known as San Bai Qian (Three, Hundred, Thousand), from the first character in their titles. They served as instructional books for children,[5] becoming the almost universal introductory literary texts for students (almost exclusively boys) from elite backgrounds and even for a number of ordinary villagers. Each text was available in many versions, printed cheaply and available to all since they did not become superseded. When a student had memorized all three, he had a knowledge of roughly 2,000 characters. Since Chinese did not use an alphabet, this was an effective, though time-consuming, way of giving a crash course in character-recognition before going on to understanding texts and writing characters.[6]

  1. ^ Ting Hui Lee (2011). Chinese Schools in Peninsular Malaysia: The Struggle for Survival. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. pp. 249–. ISBN 978-981-4279-21-5.
  2. ^ Patrick Hanks; Richard Coates; Peter McClure (November 17, 2016). The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland. OUP Oxford. pp. 43–. ISBN 978-0-19-252747-9.
  3. ^ a b c K. S. Tom. [1989] (1989). Echoes from Old China: Life, Legends and Lore of the Middle Kingdom p. 12. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0-8248-1285-9.
  4. ^ Chen, Janey. [1992] (1992). A Practical English-Chinese Pronouncing Dictionary. Tuttle Publishing. ISBN 0-8048-1877-0
  5. ^ "Taking Stock of Classic Early Childhood Readers". China Times. June 26, 2014.
  6. ^ Rawski (1979), pp. 46–48.

Developed by StudentB