User:Wooewoo

The Theory of the Hexatave is developed by Mr. Edward PH Woo. This theory relates to tones of languages all ove the World.

1.It is possible to simplify the process for any one of us as a foreigner to a new language to learn to speak a new language in the correct tone. Throughout my years of research, I have developed a concept, which I call it The Theory of the HexataveItalic text. I discover that the tones of all the languages of the World are confines to a band within which there are 6 tones. The fact that there are different tones in our speech is universally known and scientifically proven, but I claim that there are six tones in all and I want to explain what they are.

2.In music, an Octave defines a range of music notes in a scale. The sound produced when people sing would correspond with the musical notes in an Octave. It is not suggested that the Octave is the only scale we can use, but it is the most commonly used. It is globally adopted. We could use it to demonstrate the point I am making.

3.We can safely say that practically everyone knows that the Octave in music is demonstrated by: do-re-mee-fa-soh-la-ti-do. A question remains: Is there something in speech similar to the Octave in music? I suspected that there must be. Hence, I started to do research in this area. Over the years, and I have come up with the Theory of the Hexatave.

What is the Theory?

4.The Octave is a scale of musical notes. There are 8 notes and they are demonstrated by: do-re-mee-fa-soh-la-ti-do.

In speech, based on empirical experience, I say that human beings speak in 6 tones.

5.The Octave and the Hexatave exist side by side. The Octave deals with the tonal level of music, the Hexatave deals with the tonal level in speech. Although they exist side by side, there is no direct co-relationship between them.

6.The tones used in the speech of human beings would not go beyond the six tones of the Hexatave.

7.Among the different languages and dialects spoken around the world, one language or dialect may use only some of these six tones, another one may use some others, whilst a third one may use all six. I will come back to explain on a case-by-case basis the tones used by different languages on how they relate to the tones in the Hexatave. I am sure you will find it interesting.

8.Many features are similar between the Octave and the Hexatave. For example, one Octave follows another. So is the Hexatave.

9.It is possible to borrow a note from one Octave higher and incorporate that note into a song. When we do that, the melody of that song may appear to be relatively lively.

Let us look at Figure 1.

We see that there are two Hexataves one higher than the other. The six tones in the lower Hexataves are: si1-si2-mi3-fa3-ho5-ti6 or si1-si2-si3-si4-si5-si6 or ba1-ba2-ba3-ba4-ba5-ba6.

When I say ba6-ba1-ba^, I have covered two Hexataves. The first ba6-ba1 is said in tones of one Hexatave. The second ba6-ba1 is said in tones from a higher Hexatave.

10.It is interesting that note that the tones of a dialect, e.g. Cantonese, as well as Mandarin, are sometimes made up of tones from both of these two Hexataves. I say this because in Cantonese, there are 6 tones from a lower Hexatave and 1 tone from a higher Hexatave.

Mandarin is another dialect, which uses tones from two Hexatave. I will come back to explain the Mandarin situation.

11.What good is there to know the Hexatave? It could help us to learn to speak a new language, especially the so-called tonal languages.

12.Let’s suppose I have some English students and they want to learn to speak Cantonese. How would I teach them? I would first teach them the six tones of the Hexatave. How would I demonstrate these six tones? I would deliberately choose words or sound familiar to the English ear.

13.The words I have chosen to help them remember the tones are:

Sea, as in the deep blue sea (this tone being represented by the phonetic symbol si1), remember si1,

See, as in the exclamation: ‘You see, here he comes!’ (represented by the phonetic symbol si2), remember si1-si2,

Mee, as in ‘do-re-mee’ (represented by the phonetic symbol mi3), remember si1-si2-mi3,

Far, as in ‘Far, a long, long way to run’ taken from the musical, the Sound of Music (represented by the phonetic symbol fa4), remember si1-si2-mi3-fa4, and

Ho, as in hotel (represented by the phonetic symbol ho5), remember si1-si2-mi3-fa4-ho5, and

Ti, as in city (represented by the phonetic symbol ti6), remember si1-si2-mi3-fa4-ho5-ti6.

The 6 tones are: si1-si2-mee3-fa4-ho5-ti6. The tonal pattern is: bo1-bo2-bo3-bo4-bo5-bo6, or ba1-ba2-ba3-ba4-ba5-ba6, etc., etc. This tonal pattern is a magic jingle which every student must learn.

14.From the above, one can see that the tones within a Hexatave are denoted by the figures 1 to 6 in a scale running from high to low with the figure 1 representing the highest tone and the figure 6 representing the lowest.

15.I expect student to recite the six tones of the Hexatave (or I would call it the Hexatones) by saying in the first place: si1-si2-mi3-fa4-ho5-ti6. After that he should convert si1-si2-mee3 etc into other tonal patterns as I have demonstrated. A student must accurately master this tonal pattern. This is the inevitable first step.

16.If a student could master this tonal pattern, he would be able to apply it to any word in any language, and he could pronounce that word in the correct tone. This is the basic value of the Hexatave.

I would like to demonstrate how knowledge of the Hexatave could help us speak English correctly and speak with confidence. Take the words origin, original and originality, origin is 1-6-6, original is 5-1-6-6 and originality is 5-5-5-1-6-6.

Once we are sure of the tonal level of a given word, we have the confidence to speak up. Confidence is what we need to learn to speak a new language.

17.You will recall that I have said that all the tones of all languages around the world use the six tones in the Hexatave. Cantonese is known to be difficult. Therefore, all the tones of Cantonese must be covered. Indeed they are. Take any sentence in Cantonese, and I can identify each word with a tone in the Hexatave.

18.We have representatives from different countries especially from the Asean countries attending this conference today. The phrase in Cantonese I have chosen to demonstrate the Cantonese tones covers the names of different countries in this region:

Sing1-gong2-tai3-ma4-yat5-hon6

meaning Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, Japan and Korea. How do I manage to pronounce these words? We all know how to read out the letter as though they are English words. But to speak in Cantonese, we need to apply all the tones of the Hexatave to each of the words we want to say, and then choose the right tone.

Look at Figure 2.

I would say: sing1-sing2-sing3-sing4-sing5-sing6. The first word is sing1. I say it as I would say in English. No problem.

Then gong1-gong2. I would stop at gong2. Remember sing1-gong2.

And then tai1-tai2-tai3, I would stop at tai3. Remember sing1-gong2-tai3.

For ma4: ma1-ma2-ma3-ma4, I would stop at ma4. Remember sing1-gong2-tai3-ma4.

For yat5: yat1-yat2-yat3-yat4-yat5, I would stop at yat5. Remember sing1-gong2-tai3-ma4-yat5.

Lastly for hon6: I would say hon1-hon2-hon3-hon4-hon5-hon6. I would stop at hon6. Remember sing1-gong2-tai3-ma4-yat5-hon6.

So how would I learn to say “Malaysia” in Cantonese?

Look at Figure 3.

I could start by saying: ma1-ma2-ma3-ma4. Stop at ma4. Then loi1-loi2-loi3-loi4-loi5-loi6.

Stop at loi6. Remember ma4-loi6.

Sai1, the highest tone, so remember ma4-loi6-sai1.

And then a1-a2-a3. Stop at 3. So I have ma4-loi6-sai-a3, and I have said it right!

19.What about the English language? Is it possible to classify the tones of English based on the Hexatave Theory? Yes. English is spoken in three tones with an additional 4th tone sparingly used. Tones 1, 5 and 6 are commonly used. The 2nd tone is sometimes (but rarely) used.

Let us use some English words to demonstrate: Morning, 1-6 ; coffee, 1-6 ; hotel, 5-1; education, 1-1-1-6 ; Malaysia, 5-1-6-6; Mediterranean 5-5-5-1-6-6; Really? 6-2.

20.Many English teachers use the application of ‘stress’ to explain what we perceive as a difference in tones. In my view, tones and stress are separate and distinct. Any student learning English must of course appreciate the importance of stress. Take the words (a) ‘Poland’ (b) ‘potential’ and (c) ‘simple’ by way of demonstration. The sound ‘po’ is clearly said in three different tones. Poland is 1. Potential is 5. Simple is 6. Yet, many people, including English teachers, do not share the view that there are tones in English. 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’ one 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 languages, failure to use the correct tone would not work at all.

Another advantage of knowing the theory of the Hexatave is this: Suppose you are taught how to say Malaysia in Cantonese today, once you have the phonetic symbol recorded, after a long lapse of time, say five years up from today, you could look at the phonetic symbol and you will be able to say it in the perfect tone. It will never go wrong.

21.Let me demonstrate an advantage of knowing the Hexatave when we learn to speak in English. We know that people in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore are accustomed to speaking English with some special characteristics in their tones. English teachers would say that they speak with the accent of a non-native speaker. Based on our understanding of the Hexatave, we can be more specific in analyzing the situation. Tone No.3 of the Hexatave is widely used in Malay. If we count from 1 to 10 in Malay, we will notice that the 3rd tone in the Hexatave is the first syllable used in all cases. So popular is Tone No.3 that people in South East Asia subconsciously speak English using the 3rd tone. This is why they say “koh3 fi1” instead of coffee (koh1 fi6), and “haai3 est1” instead of highest. So, we can identify what went wrong, why it went wrong, and what can be done to rectify the imperfections.

22.I would now go through various languages and dialects to demonstrate how the Hexatave Theory could help us speak a new language:

23.Cantonese. I have already used sing1-gong2-tai3-ma4-yat5-hon6 to demonstrate the tones.

Look at Figure 4.

The same flow in the tones is formed in a sentence when I say that there is no problem about the quality of goods produced in Hong Kong, heung1-gong2-foh3-mo4-man5-tai6.

24.Shanghainese. Figure 5 explains how I could speak in Shanghainese. The sentence a3-la1-fat5-dung2-shang6-he1-he6-oh2 means that I don’t speak the dialect. Understanding the Hexatave theory could help us pronounce words in a new dialect, but the Hexatave will not be able to help us understand what is the meaning of the message.

Look at Figure 5.

25.Mandarin: Note that there are said to be 4 tones in Mandarin. They are ma^ ma2 ma6,4 ma1. These four tones were found among the tones in the Hexatave. Figure 6 explains what they are.



26.Thai: Thai is known to be a difficult language to speak, but once you know the Hexatave Theory, it is simple. Please look at the figure shown on the screen. Look at Figure 7. Let’s see how I could say it in Thai.



27.Vietnamese: The six tones of Vietnamese are covered by ba1 ba5 ba3-2 ba6 ba2 bag5 as shown in Figure 8.



28.English: I have already explained how we use tones 1, 5 and 6. Look at the tonal level when I say “There is potential in Poland but it’s not so simple.”

The languages used in other European countries and English are to my knowledge similar except that in German, the 2nd tone is commonly used, e.g. German is said as doich2 len6.

Look at Figure 9.

29.Malay: The tones are similar to English except that some local element is incorporated as explained earlier on.

For counting from 1 to 5, I would say sa3 doo1, doo3 a1, ti3 ga1, am3 bat1, and li3 ma1.

Look at Figure 10.