Thousand Character Classic(en.wikipedia.org)
en.wikipedia.org
Thousand Character Classic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_Character_Classic
49 comments
I’m also reminded what’s almost the inverse, a Chinese poem consisting of a single repeated syllable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion-Eating_Poet_in_the_Stone_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion-Eating_Poet_in_the_Stone_...
It's difficult to overstate the importance of this and similar primer texts from this period. Every literate person not only in China but elsewhere in the Sinic reading world would have memorized this as a child. You might not speak the same language, but you could both read and write this set of 1000 characters.
Was also used for a Keno-style game that spread across the Pacific! https://games.porg.es/games/pigeon-lottery/
Was also used for a Keno-style game that spread across the Pacific! https://games.porg.es/games/pigeon-lottery/
> Every literate person not only in China but elsewhere in the Sinic reading world would have memorized this as a child
Nah, 千字文 is mainly used for practice calligraphy, are you thinking of Three Character Classic (三字经) ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Character_Classic
Nah, 千字文 is mainly used for practice calligraphy, are you thinking of Three Character Classic (三字经) ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Character_Classic
Supposedly the QianZiJing was also widely memorised. The SanZiJing is a MUCH later text (probably half a millenium, give or take). That said, the SanZiJing is a much more pedagogical and all-round meaningful text. More value can be derived memorising it, as it is essentially a pre-Syllabus for a classical education, not only laying out basic principles, a set of texts for the student to learn, but also featuring an array of keywords that a curious student with access to a good teacher or extensive library can follow up on, all contained in an easy to memorise summary. QianZiJing by comparison is a fun and interesting literary curiosity.
I would, however, add that traditional Chinese character learning involved the complete memorisation of a text, followed by learning the characters associated with each word of that text. Learning individual characters in the way we think of as "traditional" today is actually a modern innovation compared to how people used to do it. In that context, memorising a text that consists of 1000 purely unique characters takes on a different character, even though I would think people would be better served just memorising more useful texts.
The thousand character classic was also used to teach the reading of chinese characters in Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese, though perhaps to a lesser extent than the three character classic. I have no idea to what extent this is true today, but it certainly held up until the 19th century.
Yes, 千字文 is not common in mainland China at all. I was born and raised in mainland China, and have no memory of the content of 千字文 other than the title.
三字经 on the contrary, is ubiquitous. I am guessing everyone heard of the first 2 terms of 三字经: 人之初 性本善, meaning "the human nature is good"
This can be seen as a foundational psychology imprint of relatively dossile personality on every Chinese.
Nowadays, I always get a vibe of Dune when reading Chinese ancient classics. What a monumental accumulation of human cultivation in those classics!
Despite communism transformation, China actually get back to its traditional way of thinking and dealing with the outsiders around the world.
Or a different interpretation: the conventional mandate of heaven returned, but with a communism decoration.
三字经 on the contrary, is ubiquitous. I am guessing everyone heard of the first 2 terms of 三字经: 人之初 性本善, meaning "the human nature is good"
This can be seen as a foundational psychology imprint of relatively dossile personality on every Chinese.
Nowadays, I always get a vibe of Dune when reading Chinese ancient classics. What a monumental accumulation of human cultivation in those classics!
Despite communism transformation, China actually get back to its traditional way of thinking and dealing with the outsiders around the world.
Or a different interpretation: the conventional mandate of heaven returned, but with a communism decoration.
> Yes, 千字文 is not common in mainland China at all. I was born and raised in mainland China, and have no memory of the content of 千字文 other than the title.
But the original content is talking about the past, not the modern era.
But the original content is talking about the past, not the modern era.
Amazing. It’s like their
“The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”
But with no repeated characters!
Although since characters are words, I guess that “room for interpretation” affords some combinatorial leniency, which you can’t get when spelling latin words.
“The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”
But with no repeated characters!
Although since characters are words, I guess that “room for interpretation” affords some combinatorial leniency, which you can’t get when spelling latin words.
It's still impressive---imagine writing 1000 words of English without reusing any function words like "the", "it", "of", "is". And just to show off, the Qianziwen holds a bunch of those words for the very last line!
I think it might be possible to do a literal translation into English that also eschews function words – since it's poetry, you can use a freely associating style.
E.g. the first rhyming couplet 天地玄黃 宇宙洪荒 was translated somewhat verbosely by Nathan Sturman as "The sky was black and earth yellow; space and time vast, limitless" but why many words when few do trick? "Dark sky, yellow earth; vast space, barren time."
To make it rhyme, you could replace "earth" by "lime" (referring to calcium oxide, not the fruit) but that would be very barren indeed.
E.g. the first rhyming couplet 天地玄黃 宇宙洪荒 was translated somewhat verbosely by Nathan Sturman as "The sky was black and earth yellow; space and time vast, limitless" but why many words when few do trick? "Dark sky, yellow earth; vast space, barren time."
To make it rhyme, you could replace "earth" by "lime" (referring to calcium oxide, not the fruit) but that would be very barren indeed.
> It's still impressive---imagine writing 1000 words of English without reusing any function words like "the", "it", "of", "is".
How about:
> Gadsby is a [260-page] 1939 novel by Ernest Vincent Wright which includes only four words that contain the letter E, the most common letter in English.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadsby_(novel)
How about:
> Gadsby is a [260-page] 1939 novel by Ernest Vincent Wright which includes only four words that contain the letter E, the most common letter in English.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadsby_(novel)
Or:
> [The novel] "A Void", translated from the original French La Disparition (lit. "The Disappearance"), is a 300-page French lipogrammatic novel, written in 1969 by Georges Perec, entirely without using the letter e, following Oulipo constraints. [0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Void
> [The novel] "A Void", translated from the original French La Disparition (lit. "The Disappearance"), is a 300-page French lipogrammatic novel, written in 1969 by Georges Perec, entirely without using the letter e, following Oulipo constraints. [0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Void
La Disparition / A void isn't just "without using that fifth glyph"; it's about a world without that fifth glyph, and uncanny discomfort from not having it but not knowing why, and trying to find illuminating truth.
Also, http://reddit.com/r/AVoid5
If you don't want to visit that community, you can ask ChatGPT for non-fifth-glyph writing, most of which looks as if it is a copy from that community.
Also, http://reddit.com/r/AVoid5
If you don't want to visit that community, you can ask ChatGPT for non-fifth-glyph writing, most of which looks as if it is a copy from that community.
I was on an early mastodon instance where the fifth glyph was prohibited. It was really tough for me to do posts, but there was a person who was getting their PhD in linguistics, and if you didn't know that they had to avoid that letter, you'd never guess. Just amazing writing.
also, there is https://dolphin.town/ which plays a slight variant on this game :)
(and sadly will complain about expired certificates when you visit it)
(and sadly will complain about expired certificates when you visit it)
Fantastic contrapoint to
https://oulipo.social/
https://oulipo.social/
It can also function as placeholder text just like Lorem ipsum.
Stuff like this really makes me appreciate phonetic alphabets. Even if I've never seen a written word before, I can still sound it out and gain some clues on what it means.
I'm surprised that Chinese never became at least a hybrid system like Japanese. Kanji can still be frustrating to learn, but it's usually mixed with hiragana/katakana and sometimes includes furigana for uncommon kanji or for texts aimed at younger readers.
I'm surprised that Chinese never became at least a hybrid system like Japanese. Kanji can still be frustrating to learn, but it's usually mixed with hiragana/katakana and sometimes includes furigana for uncommon kanji or for texts aimed at younger readers.
I've been studying Mandarin since around 2010. For various reasons, about 8 months ago I started studying Biblical Greek. After about a week, once I'd got the letters down, it was amazing HOW MUCH easier it is to learn when you can Just Read words you've never seen before!
Chinese is quasi-phonetic, the right side (or if the character is only made of one section) strongly suggests the pronunciation of character. The number I have been told by my tutor is 70% of the time it is similar.
Far bigger of a problem to me seems to be how many characters are pronounced the same. I suspect that the common usage of it avoids words that sound the same and cause confusion, but it is still a problem.
Far bigger of a problem to me seems to be how many characters are pronounced the same. I suspect that the common usage of it avoids words that sound the same and cause confusion, but it is still a problem.
Yes, most Chinese characters are phono-semantic compounds.[0] However, this makes most sense in the original Old Chinese[1] phonology, where the forms were taking place.
For example,
偒 was pronounced /*l̥ʰaːŋʔ/ and 陽 was pronounced /*laŋ/, but the modern pronunciations are tǎng (/tʰɑŋ²¹⁴/) and yáng (/jɑŋ³⁵/) respectively. So the phonetic part 昜 /*laŋ/ no longer consistently represents that sound, although in this case the final -aŋ is still present.
And as for sounds that were present in Old Chinese but not in Middle Chinese and Mandarin, like [2] 巽 was pronounced /*sqʰuːns/, now xùn (/ɕyn⁵¹/), they underwent a series of regular sound shifts that make them sound quite different when used in characters in Mandarin.
Also, Old Chinese was not a tonal language, tones first appeared in Middle Chinese, which the modern system derives from (with changes). Tones never had a chance to appear in writing.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classificati...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Chinese
[2] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%B7%BD
For example,
偒 was pronounced /*l̥ʰaːŋʔ/ and 陽 was pronounced /*laŋ/, but the modern pronunciations are tǎng (/tʰɑŋ²¹⁴/) and yáng (/jɑŋ³⁵/) respectively. So the phonetic part 昜 /*laŋ/ no longer consistently represents that sound, although in this case the final -aŋ is still present.
And as for sounds that were present in Old Chinese but not in Middle Chinese and Mandarin, like [2] 巽 was pronounced /*sqʰuːns/, now xùn (/ɕyn⁵¹/), they underwent a series of regular sound shifts that make them sound quite different when used in characters in Mandarin.
Also, Old Chinese was not a tonal language, tones first appeared in Middle Chinese, which the modern system derives from (with changes). Tones never had a chance to appear in writing.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classificati...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Chinese
[2] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%B7%BD
That's one style of character composition, by far the most common, but not the only one.
> I suspect that the common usage of it avoids words that sound the same and cause confusion
This problem is solved in modern Chinese by making most words more than one syllable long.
> I suspect that the common usage of it avoids words that sound the same and cause confusion
This problem is solved in modern Chinese by making most words more than one syllable long.
English also has homophones. It's challenging, but also fun. There's some tradeoff between "language complication (unnecessary complexity) impairs thinking" and "language puzzles inspire thinking".
It's good to know that TCC was pushed by the Chinese leaders so that their people could read but couldn't think and write independently -- those thousand characters are not enough to write anything intellectual in Chinese. Nowadays, the program expects that 3000 characters are known in the third year of primary school. A modern dictionary has 7000-8000 characters. The Shuowen (edit: Kangxi Dictionary), the dictionary used by the elite in that period to make all literary writing very hard to read by using archaic characters contained 47000. TCC is very political and symbolic.
See Lu Xun's essay in Qiejie ting zawen.
Could expand more on it if someone's interested.
Edit: change "government" to "leaders"
See Lu Xun's essay in Qiejie ting zawen.
Could expand more on it if someone's interested.
Edit: change "government" to "leaders"
That's a rather idiosyncratic interpretation. If you want to write something rebellious insulting the emperor, 皇帝卑俗無德, the thousand characters have got you covered.
Same for the intellectual first sentence of Confucius' Analects 子曰: 學而時習之, 不亦說乎? And of course people would also study other texts that would introduce them to additional vocabulary.
Your character count for the Shouwen dictionary is way off, it has less than 10000 distinct characters, and its primary purpose wasn't to provide obscure characters for use in new texts, but to provide easier-to-understand definitions for characters found in old texts. A tool to ease understanding, not hinder it.
I'm not sure which of Lu Xun's essays in particular you're referring to, but in general his beef was with the continued use of literary Chinese, not that people weren't being taught enough characters to write in it.
Same for the intellectual first sentence of Confucius' Analects 子曰: 學而時習之, 不亦說乎? And of course people would also study other texts that would introduce them to additional vocabulary.
Your character count for the Shouwen dictionary is way off, it has less than 10000 distinct characters, and its primary purpose wasn't to provide obscure characters for use in new texts, but to provide easier-to-understand definitions for characters found in old texts. A tool to ease understanding, not hinder it.
I'm not sure which of Lu Xun's essays in particular you're referring to, but in general his beef was with the continued use of literary Chinese, not that people weren't being taught enough characters to write in it.
The essay I'm referring to was originally published in the Shenbao from the 24th of August to the 10th of September under the name "Huayu" in the rubric Ziyou Tan ("Free Speech"? More or less) which was then regrouped by Lu Xun in Qiejie ting zawen (see Quanji, VI, p. 86).
Regarding the Shuowen, you are absolutely right, I was thinking of the Kangxi dictionary.
Hope this clarifies it.
Regarding the Shuowen, you are absolutely right, I was thinking of the Kangxi dictionary.
Hope this clarifies it.
I'm having difficulty finding an essay by Lu Xun under the name 話語. Maybe if you mentioned the year of publication, I could find a scan of the newspaper... I certainly don't have a physical copy of his collected works where I can just check page 86 and know what you're talking about. Wikisource has digitized versions of much (all?) of his writing, can you find it in there? https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:%E9%AD%AF%E8%BF%85#%E9...
I did find another text where he brings up the thousand-character classic:
https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E4%BA%94%E7%8C%96%E6%9C%83
記得那時聽人說, 讀《鑒略》比讀《千字文》、《百家姓》有用得多, 因為可以知道從古到今的大概。知道從古到今的大概, 那當然是很好的, 然而我一字也不懂。“粵自盤古”就是“粵自盤古”, 讀下去, 記住它, “粵自盤古”呵! “生於太荒”呵! ......
I remember hearing someone say at that time that reading "Jianlue" is much more useful than reading the "Thousand-Character Classic" or "Hundred Family Surnames" because you can get a general idea of everything from ancient times to the present. Getting a general idea of everything from ancient times to the present, of course that would be good, but I don’t understand a word of it. "Yue from Pangu" is just "Yue from Pangu", read on and remember it, "Yue from Pangu!" "Born in the wilderness!" ...
(It appears that he misremembered 大荒 as 太荒: https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&chapter=56603&remap=gb )
I did find another text where he brings up the thousand-character classic:
https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E4%BA%94%E7%8C%96%E6%9C%83
記得那時聽人說, 讀《鑒略》比讀《千字文》、《百家姓》有用得多, 因為可以知道從古到今的大概。知道從古到今的大概, 那當然是很好的, 然而我一字也不懂。“粵自盤古”就是“粵自盤古”, 讀下去, 記住它, “粵自盤古”呵! “生於太荒”呵! ......
I remember hearing someone say at that time that reading "Jianlue" is much more useful than reading the "Thousand-Character Classic" or "Hundred Family Surnames" because you can get a general idea of everything from ancient times to the present. Getting a general idea of everything from ancient times to the present, of course that would be good, but I don’t understand a word of it. "Yue from Pangu" is just "Yue from Pangu", read on and remember it, "Yue from Pangu!" "Born in the wilderness!" ...
(It appears that he misremembered 大荒 as 太荒: https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&chapter=56603&remap=gb )
The year is 1934. I'm going to try and find it (this may take some time).
I found the August 24, 1934 issue of Shenbao https://archive.org/details/shenbao-1934.08-226/mode/2up but I couldn't spot the article in there. (It's amusing that the front page has a huge ad for school textbooks.)
The argument that a collection of 4-character phrases in this particular manual and in the many other that follow using the same name, particularly after 1911, is enough to "criticize the emperor" misses the point.
It is not an idiosyncratic interpretation either, but it is one of a contemporary, Peng Ziyun (see Dazhongyu yu dazhong wenhuade shuizhun wenti, Shehui Bao, 1934, VII, 3)
As far as I'm aware, Lu Xun shared this opinion.
It is not an idiosyncratic interpretation either, but it is one of a contemporary, Peng Ziyun (see Dazhongyu yu dazhong wenhuade shuizhun wenti, Shehui Bao, 1934, VII, 3)
As far as I'm aware, Lu Xun shared this opinion.
Actually, I've found Lu Xun defending exactly that in the part VIII of that essay.
This is absolutely not an "idiosyncratic interpretation".
Imperfect translation: "Expressing one's own thoughts with this was impossible, the number of characters being far too small. In short, it was as if a prisoner had been given a little space, but limited in such a way that he could walk, stand, sit or lie down, without the possibility of jumping out of the cage installed for him."
This is absolutely not an "idiosyncratic interpretation".
Imperfect translation: "Expressing one's own thoughts with this was impossible, the number of characters being far too small. In short, it was as if a prisoner had been given a little space, but limited in such a way that he could walk, stand, sit or lie down, without the possibility of jumping out of the cage installed for him."
Which Chinese government when?
These poems are supposedly 1000-1500 years old. I don’t think many governments (or kings, chieftains etc.) anywhere were very liberal back then.
These poems are supposedly 1000-1500 years old. I don’t think many governments (or kings, chieftains etc.) anywhere were very liberal back then.
While there is a first TCC, the one from this page, the name was used and reused for new manuals, intellectuals sometimes argued that 1000 characters was all that the masses could possibly comprehend/need.
At the end of the Qing dinasty, in particular, when some intellectual and political leaders were preoccupied by bringing "writing to the masses", intellectuals and great (war|) lords participated in the movements but with the sole intention of being understood by the masses without giving them the ability to express themselves. For a range, it's 1897-1911/1912.
At the end of the Qing dinasty, in particular, when some intellectual and political leaders were preoccupied by bringing "writing to the masses", intellectuals and great (war|) lords participated in the movements but with the sole intention of being understood by the masses without giving them the ability to express themselves. For a range, it's 1897-1911/1912.
> By the Song dynasty, since all literate people could be assumed to have memorized the text, the order of its characters was used to put documents in sequence in the same way that alphabetical order is used in alphabetic languages.
I struggle enough with 26 letters! I genuinely can’t imagine this.
I struggle enough with 26 letters! I genuinely can’t imagine this.
There are mnemonics to help remember the characters. For example:
- 嫉 (jealousy) is composed of 女 (woman) and 疾 (illness, hatred): jealousy is a feminine illness or a manifestation of feminine hatred;
- 惑 (to be puzzled) is composed of 心 (heart, intention) 或 (maybe, possibility): an unsure heart;
- 愚 (to be stupid) is composed of 心 (heart, intention) 禸 (trample) 田 (field): the heart of someone who tramples a field (and thus ruining the crops);
etc.
You often have to be creative. If I understand the research correctly[0], finding such interpretations used to be common, and different people would debate different interpretations.
I've actually wrote a tool to help studying Chinese from that perspective, by allowing to read classics such as the Thousand Character Classic[1], and systematically decomposing characters.
[0]: http://crlao.ehess.fr/docannexe/file/1513/bottero.wen_zi.pdf
[1]: https://zhongmu.eu/book.html#c=2;w=0;b=qian-zi-wen (~unusable on mobile screens).
- 嫉 (jealousy) is composed of 女 (woman) and 疾 (illness, hatred): jealousy is a feminine illness or a manifestation of feminine hatred;
- 惑 (to be puzzled) is composed of 心 (heart, intention) 或 (maybe, possibility): an unsure heart;
- 愚 (to be stupid) is composed of 心 (heart, intention) 禸 (trample) 田 (field): the heart of someone who tramples a field (and thus ruining the crops);
etc.
You often have to be creative. If I understand the research correctly[0], finding such interpretations used to be common, and different people would debate different interpretations.
I've actually wrote a tool to help studying Chinese from that perspective, by allowing to read classics such as the Thousand Character Classic[1], and systematically decomposing characters.
[0]: http://crlao.ehess.fr/docannexe/file/1513/bottero.wen_zi.pdf
[1]: https://zhongmu.eu/book.html#c=2;w=0;b=qian-zi-wen (~unusable on mobile screens).
There's a Languagelog blog post from years ago on the difficulties that even native speakers of Chinese languages have in looking up words in dictionaries. Collation is a serious problem.
> I struggle enough with 26 letters! I genuinely can’t imagine this.
alphabets are like x86 instructions of phonemes, Chinese scripts on the other hand is the "bytecode" of many languages (mandarin/cantonese/you-name-it). The first emperor of China unified text writing but not the pronouciations
alphabets are like x86 instructions of phonemes, Chinese scripts on the other hand is the "bytecode" of many languages (mandarin/cantonese/you-name-it). The first emperor of China unified text writing but not the pronouciations
Not true. You know uppercase, lowercase, and cursive, as well as iconography used commonly in the west for various road signs, currencies, and governments. You know flags and warning labels.
Kanji is just a superset of that.
Kanji is just a superset of that.
What a strange coincidence. I just picked this up in my local library about two hours ago. I just returned home now.
[deleted]
Strangely, they don't say anything about a translation into English.
The very first link under "External links" of the Wikipedia page: "Transcribed, Translated and Annotated Thousand Character Essay by Nathan Sturman"
https://www.angelfire.com/ns/pingyaozhuan/tce.html
The meanings conveyed by the text is not very unique or useful, and this is especially apparent once translated to another language. It provides practically no insight to anything, as this isn't a true classical text.
https://www.angelfire.com/ns/pingyaozhuan/tce.html
The meanings conveyed by the text is not very unique or useful, and this is especially apparent once translated to another language. It provides practically no insight to anything, as this isn't a true classical text.
Check the bibliography and external links sections, e.g. http://www.camcc.org/_media/reading-group/qianziwen-en.pdf
Google tried its best but not surprisingly doesn't work well on poetry; it begins with "The sky and the earth are dark and yellow, and the universe is primitive. Covering this body and hair are the four elements and five constant elements."
And contains such amusements as:
"Gong Wei Ju Yang, how dare you damage it."
"It clears up confusion and benefits customs, and everything is wonderful."
"Upgraded to accept the emperor, turned into a star of doubt."
"The world is luxurious and rich, and the car is fat and light."
And contains such amusements as:
"Gong Wei Ju Yang, how dare you damage it."
"It clears up confusion and benefits customs, and everything is wonderful."
"Upgraded to accept the emperor, turned into a star of doubt."
"The world is luxurious and rich, and the car is fat and light."
ChatGPT's got it.
Yo, listen up, as I paint the universe broad and deep, Sky's dark, Earth's yellow, secrets ancient they keep. This life, this hair, rooted in the core, Four elements, five virtues, what we livin' for.
Cities shining, from east to west we're ruling, Grounded in the earth, it's agriculture we're schooling. Lose yourself in books or market's charm, Life's treasures, keep close, safe from harm.
Sun and moon, their dance of light and dark, Nature's cycle, in harmony, leaves its mark. Respect for life, ain't no damage done, From mountains high to rivers deep, under the same sun.
etc.
Yo, listen up, as I paint the universe broad and deep, Sky's dark, Earth's yellow, secrets ancient they keep. This life, this hair, rooted in the core, Four elements, five virtues, what we livin' for.
Cities shining, from east to west we're ruling, Grounded in the earth, it's agriculture we're schooling. Lose yourself in books or market's charm, Life's treasures, keep close, safe from harm.
Sun and moon, their dance of light and dark, Nature's cycle, in harmony, leaves its mark. Respect for life, ain't no damage done, From mountains high to rivers deep, under the same sun.
etc.
It doesn't help that many of these characters are not in frequent use anymore, which means that the translation model has been trained with way less sentences involving them. Others' usage pattern have shifted, or they picked up many additional meanings over the millenia, and the translation model is probably not savvy enough to ignore all the modern ones. With "modern" meaning everything after like 200 A.D.
This text only dates to the 6th century CE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iroha
Plus as a poem it slaps:
Although its scent still lingers on
the form of a flower has scattered away
For whom will the glory of this world remain unchanged?
Arriving today at the yonder side of the deep mountains of evanescent existence
We shall never allow ourselves to drift away
intoxicated, in the world of shallow dreams.