Thai is a Tonal language
 
 
it has five tones and according to Dr Woo, a Chinese linguist, there is no language with more than six tones. If they appear to have more it's because they mix two of the six basic tones.
Dr Woo, more about him later, says the six basic tones are all found in Cantonese. Starting from there Dr Woo gives us something he calls "The Musical approach". He has put the six tones into a tone scale, he calls it the Hexatave (in Music we have the Octave with eight steps. (Perhaps you have heard the "do-re-mee-fa-soh-la-ti-do"-scale).
For a Farang who wants to learn Thai, or any other Tonal language, this is an interesting way of doing it. We should arrange the tones in a logical sequence so that we can remember them easily.
Dr Woo has helped us by giving us the sounds using English words;
Note that it moves from high to low.
 
1. Sea  (Si1) as in "deep blue sea"
 
2. See (Si2) as in "you see, here he comes"
 
3. Mee (mi3) as when you are singing "do-re-mee"
 
4. Far (fa4) as when singing ”far, far away" from
the Sound of Music "Far, a long, long way to run".
 
5. Ho (ho5) as in "hotel"
 
6. Ti (ti6) as in city
 
An example; to say the first ten numbers in Thai, we say;
 
ning6  song 2   saam2  si5  ha1
hook5  jet5  baet3  gaauu1  sip5
 
We have then used tones 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6
 
The system can be used the other way round as well.
For example if you count from 1 to 10 in Malay, we
find that tone No 3 is first syllable in all cases. This
implies that a person speaking Malay rely
heavily on tone 3 and when speaking English,
instead of saying "coffee" in English says "koh3 fi1"
and instead of saying "highest" in English
says "haai3 est1."
The right pronunciation of
"coffee" in English is using tones 1 and 6,
not 3 and 1. Thai speakers are supposed to have

similar problems.
This is a new way of looking at it. I always
heard that English is a flat language and only
got one tone, but according to Dr Woo there are
three tones being used in English language,
1 and 6 and more sparingly tone 5.
Dr Woo puts it this way:
"They say that English is a non-Tonal language.
I respectfully disagree. Indeed, any sound a human
being produces in conversation has to be said in
a certain tone. The tone is there whether or not
we want to acknowledge its presence. The only
difference between a tonal language and a
non-tonal language is that in a so-called non-tonal
language, when a wrong tone is used, the pronunciation
may sound strange but not unintelligible. In the case of
the so-called tonal language, failure to use the correct
tone would not work at all."
One example Dr Woo uses to prove his case is
saying "po" in English.
"Poland", "potential" and "simple" are clearly
said in three different tones, the just mentioned
tones 1, 5 and 6, according to Dr Woo.
 
I started to learn Thai once and my Thai teacher
used the octave to illustrate the idea of the tones
in Thai language, and that was enlightening, but
Dr woo has taken the concept much further, made it
much more elaborate.
However, referring to Sound of Music to get an
idea how to produce tone 4 is a far-fetched idea
to say the least.

To say “I come from Hong Kong” in Thai you say

Pom ma jaak hong kong (if you are the tough and rough gender)

In tones, then, you say: pom2 ma4 jaak5 hong1 gong3

Thus, suddenly you use tone 4 as well…
To be able to learn the Hexatones you have to have
a clear idea what you should learn.
Still, I believe in the concept.

But for the moment I see it as a hypothesis only.

(That there are only six tones in all languages

and if we use the same symbols for them learning

a new language is going to be a piece of a cake).

If anyone reading this has another view, please say so.

Dr Woo is Director at the AIOU,
Asian International open University
in Macau. (Linguistic Department).
www.aiou.edu/cantonese/appraoch.htm

There is a book; Cantonese for English Speakers

by Edward P H  Woo

Novelty Publishers, Hong Kong

You can search "Hexatave" on the net also.