Thousand Character Classic

Thousand Character Classic
A calligraphic work titled An Authentic "Thousand Character Classic", Song dynasty
Chinese name
Chinese	千字文
Hanyu Pinyin	Qiānzì wén
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Qiānzì wén Bopomofo ㄑㄧㄢ ㄗˋ ㄨㄣˊ Wade–Giles Chʻien1 Tzŭ4 Wên2 Yale Romanization Chyāndz̀ Wén IPA [tɕʰjɛ́n.tsɹ̩̂ wə̌n] Wu Romanization Tshie zy ven Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization Chīnjih Màhn Jyutping Cin1zi6 Man4 IPA [tsʰin˥.tsi˨ mɐn˩] Southern Min Hokkien POJ Chhian-jī-bûn Tâi-lô Tshian-jī-bûn Middle Chinese Middle Chinese t͡sʰen d͡zɨH mɨun
Vietnamese name
Vietnamese alphabet	Thiên tự văn
Chữ Hán	千字文
Korean name
Hangul	천자문
Hanja	千字文
Transcriptions Revised Romanization Cheonjamun McCune–Reischauer Ch'ŏnjamun
Japanese name
Kanji	千字文
Transcriptions Romanization Senjimon

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, Yan zai hu ye (焉哉乎也; Yān zāi hū yě; Yin1 zoi1 fu4 jaa5) explains the use of the grammatical particles yan, zai, hu, and ye.^[1]