Vietnamese music has had a rather long history. Since ancient times, the Vietnamese have had a strong inclination for music.

For the Vietnamese, music is considered to be an essential need; therefore, numerous musical instruments and genres intended for various purposes have been developed. Vietnamese people music to express their innermost feelings, to encourage themselves while working and fighting, to educate their children in good traditions and national sentiment, to communicate with the invisible, and to sublimate their aspirations for a happy life.

The simple and primitive instruments, as well as the more sophisticated ones, have been preserved to form a rich musical treasure. Numerous forms of songs and music have also been created and retained. They include lullabies, children’s songs, ritual songs, festivity songs, various work songs, courtship songs, riddle songs, melodies, and poem narration. There are also songs and music for groups, as well as for traditional theatre.

Vietnamese traditional music is diverse due to the various genres that took shape during different periods of history. Songs of the same genre often differ very much in melody and expression from ethnicity to ethnicity. As a result, lullabies, for example, of the Kinh differ from those of the Muong.

Traditional music has played an important role in the lives of the Vietnamese. Currently, music still occupies a considerable position in the spiritual lives of the Vietnamese. Some genres of music still exist in rural areas, while others were brought to the stage to meet the demands of the population. 

Vietnamese architecture arises from the Kings Hung dynasty.

Before the 10th century, villages and hamlets appeared in this period according to several tales of Linh Nam. The ancient Vietnamese used wood to build houses to protect themselves from tigers and wolves. Two kinds of houses were depicted on the bronze drums; one in the shape of a boat and the other in a shape similar to a turtle shell.

Due to dense lakes, swamps, rivers, and highly humid tropical climate, the most appropriate building material is bamboo and wood to up houses on low stilts. At the end of the 19th century, houses on stilts remained in mountainous areas, midlands, and plains throughout the country.

In order to be suitable with the rugged terrain, Co Loa Citadel was made out of clay during Thuc Phan Dynasty in the 3rd century BC. The architecture during the Chinese sovereignty, from the 2nd century BC to the 9th century, consisted of various structures like ramparts, royal tombs, citadels, folk-houses, and pagodas.

Nguyen Dynasty

The development of Bac Ha region at the beginning of the 19th century was slowed down, after the capital was moved to Hue by the Nguyen Dynasty. At the same time, development in Thang Long increased and citadels, cultural structures, temples, and new residential areas were built.

The center of the significant development was in Hue where imposing citadels, palaces, and tombs were built. The Vietnamese culture in Hue was influenced by the gardened-type houses which is quite different from the tubular type of houses in Hanoi.

Hue’s architecture was considered as a collection of traditional influences which relied on flat surfaces, citadel and urban centers, interior decoration, and scenery structures.

Ly Dynasty

During the 11th century while a united-feudal state was developing, the Ly Dynasty initiated a new phase in architectural development.

Generally, the architecture of Ly Dynasty, 11th and 12th centuries, had five orthodox styles: citadels, palaces, castles, pagodas, and houses.

Thang Long Citadel had a complex of palaces, many of which were 3-4 floor temples. At that time, the Thang Long culture deeply reflected the cultural characteristic of the tower-pagoda. The architectural characteristics of the Ly Dynasty were residential complexes, more ornamental roofs, doors, door-steps, banisters, and rounded statues, all in a suitable design for the climate and traditional customs of Vietnam. Streets, markets, ground and stilt houses in popular architectural design developed simultaneously as royal palaces.

Le Dynasty

In the turn of the 15th century, under Le Dynasty, orthodox architecture had two dominant styles: the imperial palace and the royal tomb. From the 16th to 17th century, religious architecture gained a lot of popularity in architectural development.

But Thap Pagoda in Bac Ninh Province is famous for its structure and for the techniques used to build the tower and carve and paint the statues. When feudalism lost popularity, folk-art continued to be reflected in carvings and paintings describing active scenes of rowing, hunting, sloughing, wrestling, and cutting.

The pagoda and temple construction techniques achieved progress during the 18th century.

Tran Dynasty

Under the Tran Dynasty, the dominant architecture models were the royal palace, pagoda, house, temple, and citadel. These styles were deeply and significantly illustrated in the Binh Son Tower in Vinh Phu Province, the Pho Minh Pagoda in Nam Dinh Province, and the Thai Lac Pagoda in Hung Yen Province.

The complexity and structure of Pho Minh Pagoda is an outstanding example of the architectural style of the Tran Dynasty period and of the following centuries. The structure was designed in 3 main sections: the lobby, main hall, and sanctuary.

The inside yard, or interior garden, played an important role in the traditional architectural style and reflected the concept of oriental space. The contemporary architecture of royal palaces was designed with upper floors and systems of consecutive corridors in an open-air space, which was very convenient for living in a warm climate. In spite of the crowded development, the majority of construction materials were still bamboo and wood.

Even though the Ho Dynasty lasted for only 7 years, it left an outstanding architectural heritage such as the Tay Do Citadel in Thanh Hoa Province. The splendid doors of the citadel still remain.

Modern and Contemporary Architecture

At the end of the 19th century, architectural characteristics were influenced by new construction style brought by European urban planning and the interaction between French and Oriental cultures. Since the reunification in 1975, Vietnam’s architecture has been impressively developing.

Many new urban and residential areas, industrial zones, and new villages with major architectural works have brought high artistic value to regional development. Nowadays, architectural development consists of 5 main domains: interior design, architectural design, environmental design, urban planning, and regional planning. Also, issues on spontaneous development of urban area, protection of architectural relics, and house-building strategies are problems that need urgent solutions. 

The Vietnamese language belongs to a language group which was established a long time ago in East Asia. Changes in material conditions over many centuries and the increasing demands of cultural life have influenced the Vietnamese language.

While adopting many elements of the Chinese language, the Vietnamese people changed many Chinese words, gradually creating Han-Viet (Chinese-Vietnamese) which incorporated purely Vietnamese words. "Vietnamization" not only applied to the Chinese language, but also to French and other language groups, creating a diverse vocabulary for the Vietnamese language.

Written

When the multi-ethnic Vietnamese nation was taking shape, a great monarchy was established in the North, and it began a southward expansion. The Vietnamese nation underwent thousands of years of Northern domination. This was why Chinese was used for a long time as the official written language. Local mandarins of various levels were allowed to sit for examinations in the Northern Court (China), and were recruited into the administrative machinery of foreign invaders.

Based on Chinese characters, the Vietnamese worked out a unique writing system of their own called Chu Nom. In Chu Nom, two Chinese characters were usually combined, one of which indicated the meaning of the Vietnamese word, while the other indicated pronunciation. Chu Nom was welcomed and widely used by the masses in their daily life, as well as in transcribing their national history and literature. According to researchers, Chu Nom probably originated around the end of the Northern domination period and early in the 10th century (the independence period). The oldest evidence of Chu Nom currently available is a stele in the Bao An Pagoda in Yen Lang, Vinh Phu province, dating back to 1209 AD (Ly Dynasty). It was not until the 13th century under the Tarn dynasty that Chu Nom was systematized and used in literature.

Nguyen Thuyen (alias Han Thuyen) and Nguyen Si Co wrote poems in Chu Nom. Ho Quy Ly (1400 AD) made Chinese textbooks which translated the Vietnamese language using the Chu Nom writing system. He also used Chu Nom to write royal proclamations and ordinances. In the 15th century, Nguyen Trai, a national hero, used Chu Nom to write 250 poems in Quoc Am Thi Tap (Collection of Poems in the National Language). The Chu Nom literature continued to be developed from the 16th century onwards and totally dominated national literary circles. Ba Huyen Thanh Quan (the wife of the Chief of Thanh Quan district), Cao Ba Quat and Kieu Story of Nguyen Du, and the translation of Chinh Phu Ngam (Lament of a Wife Whose Husband has Gone to War) by Doan Thi Diem were quite noteworthy poems.

In conjunction with the development of the nation, the Vietnamese language was constantly developed and improved. Around the 17th century, western missionaries came to Vietnam and learned Vietnamese in order to disseminate Catholicism. They developed a romanced script to represent the Quoc Ngu (meaning national language) in order to translate prayer books and catechisms. A number of Portuguese and Italian missionaries used Quoc Ngu to compile catechisms and Portuguese-Vietnamese and Vietnamese-Portuguese dictionaries. Based on these works, in 1651, Alexandre de Rhodes, a French Jesuit missionary, published the Vietnamese Portuguese-Latin dictionary in Rome. After Alexandre de Rhodes, Quoc Ngu was further improved by foreign missionaries and Vietnamese scholars.

In 1867, some colonial schools began to teach Quoc Ngu. It was not until early in the 20th century that Quoc Ngu became widely used in the local primary educational system. The introduction of Quoc Ngu constituted a new step in the development of the Vietnamese language. While romanization received a reserved welcome in other Asian countries, it recorded extraordinary success in Vietnam, creating favorable conditions for cultural and intellectual development.

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