Solmization is a system of attributing a distinct syllable to each note in a musical scale. Various forms of solmization are in use and have been used throughout the world.
In Europe and North America, solfège is the convention used most often. The seven syllables normally used for this practice in English-speaking countries are: do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, and ti (with a chromatic scale of ascending di, ri, fi, si, li and descending te, le, se, me, ra). The syllables are derived from The Hymn of St. John written by Paulus Diaconus in the 8th century.
An alternative theory on the origins of solfège proposes that it may have also had Arabic musical origins. It has been argued that the solfège syllables (do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti) may have been derived from the syllables of the Arabic solmization system درر مفصّلات Durar Mufaṣṣalāt ("Separated Pearls") (dāl, rā', mīm, fā', ṣād, lām, tā') during the Islamic contributions to Medieval Europe. This origin theory was first proposed by Meninski in his Thesaurus Linguarum Orientalum (1680) and then by Laborde in his Essai sur la Musique Ancienne et Moderne (1780).[1][2].
In India, the origin of solmization was to be found in Vedic texts like the Upanishads, which discuss a musical system of seven notes, realized ultimately in what is known as sargam. In Indian classical music, the notes in order are: sa, re, ga, ma, pa, dha, and ni.
Byzantine music uses syllables derived from the greek alphabet to name notes: starting with A, the notes are pa (alpha), vu' (beta), ga (gamma), di (delta), ke (epsilon), zo (zeta), ni (eta).
In South China, the words used to name notes are (from fa to mi): 上 (siong or shang4), 尺 (cei or chi3), 工 (gong), 凡 (huan or fan2), 六 (liuo or liu4), 五 (ngou or wu3), 乙 (yik or yi3). The system is used for teaching sight-singing.
In Japanese music, the first line of Iroha, an ancient poem used as an "ABC" of traditional kana, is used for solmization. The syllables representing the notes A, B, C, D, E, F, G are i, ro, ha, ni, ho, he, to respectively. Shakuhachi musical notation uses another solmization system beginning "Fu Ho U".
In Indonesia, Javanese musicians derive syllables from numbers; ji-ro-lu-[pi]-ma-nem (siji, loro, telu, [papat, normally skipped in pentatonic scales], lima, enem).
In Scotland, Canntaireachd was used as a means of communicating bagpipe music verbally.
Other systems invented for teaching sight-singing are: