A COMPARISON OF CONSONANT SOUNDS OF SOME INDONESIAN AND THAI WORDS

Abstract

The objective of this study was to compare consonant sounds between Indonesian and Thai words collected from Quora and Wikipedia, where out of 171 words in total, 40 words were found in both sources. The research instruments were a table showing all the words collected and an analysis table. The comparison between phonological characteristics of Thai and Indonesian words revealed that the sound correspondence of the two languages in the 40 words could be classified into 7 groups. The most frequently found group was a group of 27 Indonesian words (67.5%) containing more sounds than Thai words, followed by a group of Indonesian words without the final consonant sound while Thai words do (20 words or 50%), and also by words that had the same initial consonant sounds (20 words or 50%). Next below was the group of 14 words (35%) containing different initial consonant sounds in the two languages. It was found that 5 words or (12.5%) had the same final consonant sounds while 3 words or 7.3% had different final consonant sounds. The least frequently found was a group of 2 words or 5% containing different initial and final sounds. These words in the two languages have similar phonological characteristics because they are words of Sanskrit origin.