() is the

Vietnamese Catholic The Catholic Church in Vietnam () is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership Pope in Holy See, Rome. Vietnam has the fifth largest Catholic population in Asia, after the Philippines, India, People's Republic of China ...

term for reciting a prayer or sacred text. In communal worship settings, ' is characterized by

cantillation Cantillation is the ritual chanting of prayers and responses. It often specifically refers to Jewish Hebrew cantillation. Cantillation sometimes refers to diacritics used in texts that are to be chanted in liturgy. Cantillation includes: * Chant ...

, or the ritual chanting of prayers and responses. To Westerners, this form of prayer can be mistaken for song.

Usage

Within the worldwide

Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

, Vietnamese liturgical practise is distinct in its extensive use of cantillation: all prayers and responses during the

Mass Mass is an Intrinsic and extrinsic properties, intrinsic property of a physical body, body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the physical quantity, quantity of matter in a body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physi ...

are either sung or chanted, but never spoken. Thus, the

Lord's Prayer The Lord's Prayer, also known by its incipit Our Father (, ), is a central Christian prayer attributed to Jesus. It contains petitions to God focused on God’s holiness, will, and kingdom, as well as human needs, with variations across manusc ...

is recited differently during the Mass than in a private setting.

Gregorian chant Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainsong, plainchant, a form of monophony, monophonic, unaccompanied sacred song in Latin (and occasionally Greek language, Greek) of the Roman Catholic Church. Gregorian chant developed main ...

is not used in a Vietnamese-language Mass; it is entirely omitted from Vietnamese translations of the

Roman Missal The Roman Missal () is the book which contains the texts and rubrics for the celebration of the Roman Rite, the most common liturgy and Mass of the Catholic Church. There have been several editions. History Before the Council of Trent (1570) ...

and

Order of Mass Order of Mass is an outline of a Mass celebration, describing how and in what order liturgical texts and rituals are employed to constitute a Mass. The expression Order of Mass is particularly tied to the Roman Rite where the sections under that ...

. It is suspected that cantillation in Lao and

Hmong Hmong may refer to: * Hmong people, an ethnic group living mainly in Southwest China, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand * Hmong cuisine * Hmong customs and culture ** Hmong music ** Hmong textile art * Hmong language, a continuum of closely related ...

Catholic liturgies is due to Vietnamese influence. Cantillation is far from universal among tonal languages, but

Fuzhou Fuzhou is the capital of Fujian, China. The city lies between the Min River (Fujian), Min River estuary to the south and the city of Ningde to the north. Together, Fuzhou and Ningde make up the Eastern Min, Mindong linguistic and cultural regi ...

Catholics in

Fujian Fujian is a provinces of China, province in East China, southeastern China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its capital is Fuzhou and its largest prefe ...

have a similar practise.

Structure

Vietnamese cantillation is neither composed nor improvised; it follows a formula in which each of the

Vietnamese language Vietnamese () is an Austroasiatic languages, Austroasiatic language Speech, spoken primarily in Vietnam where it is the official language. It belongs to the Vietic languages, Vietic subgroup of the Austroasiatic language family. Vietnamese is s ...

's six tones corresponds to a specific note or sequence. Depending on the diocese, tones are organized along a scale of two or three notes ('). The note for is at least as high as the note for , which in turn is higher than the note for and . The and tones are vocalized as a

melisma Melisma (, , ; from , plural: ''melismata''), informally known as a vocal run and sometimes interchanged with the term roulade, is the singing of a single syllable of text while moving between several different notes in succession. Music sung in ...

from a lower note to a higher note. For example: Parishes in the former West Tonkin diocese use the three-note scale of fa- sol- la, so the

incipit The incipit ( ) of a text is the first few words of the text, employed as an identifying label. In a musical composition, an incipit is an initial sequence of Musical note, notes, having the same purpose. The word ''incipit'' comes from Latin an ...

of the

Hail Mary The Hail Mary or Ave Maria (from its first words in Latin), also known as the Angelic or Angelical Salutation, is a traditional Catholic prayer addressing Mary, the mother of Jesus. The prayer is based on two biblical passages featured in the ...

is rendered:

References

External links

Vietnamese Chanting
nbsp;– sample of common Vietnamese Catholic liturgical chants by

Oregon Catholic Press Oregon Catholic Press (OCP, originally the Catholic Truth Society of Oregon) is a publisher of Catholic liturgical music based in Portland, Oregon. It published the newspapers '' Catholic Sentinel'' and ''El Centinela''; both papers have been di ...

Việc Hát Thánh Vịnh Đáp Ca Tiếng Việt Nam
Vietnamese language Catholic music Christian liturgical music Christian chants Catholic Church in Vietnam Vietnamese words and phrases Catholic terminology {{RC-stub

Usage

Structure

See also

References

External links