There was (and still may be) a large Vietnamese population at Holy Rosary in Houston. I always enjoyed their masses because (as it should be) every thing was sung (without books or music!) a capella and without 'cantors' to native chant). It was quite beautiful - all the more so because it was done spontaneously from musical memory. Also, there isn't a word in their mass that is not sung - except for the homily. And a goodly number of our people? Give them music and so-called cantors and they still won't sing.

Characteristic of this music is the frequent 'sliding' of a second or a third. While we would root out such singing in our western choirs, it is characteristic of oriental ones. Nor do they cultivate the refined Western vocal tradition - but in their own native music it makes sense.

One might note that the Orthodox have a similar non-adversion to such sliding in their chant.

Thank you all. I do have a Vietnamese hymnal from OCP but as you have pointed out there is no notation because the spoken language has a natural rhythm and a musical memory is the standard. We have a multilingual liturgy a few times a year and the first reading is usually in Vietnamese. So the thought was to have the choir learn and sing/chant the response in Vietnamese. We did have a Vietnamese choir member/parishioner help us learn the response initially but we need a refresher before each liturgy and that individual is not always available to assist us. I thought that seeing notation, if it was available, would help us to unify our pitch, rhythm, pronunciation, etc. so that we might eventually memorize the response.