Similarities and Differences between English and Indonesian Phonotactics System

Definition

Before I share my thoughts about the similarities and differences between English and Indonesian
Phonotactics system, I took a few definition about phonotactics from experts. And among them,
NICOLE HAHN; (2004) Said that the constraints on sequences of segments are called phonotactic con
-straints or phonotactics of a language. Word phonotactics in English are based on syllable
phonotactics. This means that only clusters which can begin a syllable can begin a word and that a
possible cluster at the end of a syllable can end a word. While later, Richard Nordquist; (2020),
stated that in phonology, phonotactics is the study of the ways in which phonemes are allowed to
combine in a particular language. (A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound capable of conveying a
distinct meaning. One other expert, O'Grady et al. defined phonotactics as a set of constraints on
how the pattern of sequences of sounds (segments) is formed, forming part of phonological abilities
and knowledge possessed by the speakers of that language.

So how a sequence of sounds in a word of a language formed is not random, but has
patterns of sequences depending what language is used, and where. Just like what Linguist, Elizabeth
Zsiga observed, that languages "do not allow random sequences of sounds; rather, the sound
sequences a language allows are a systematic and predictable part of its structure."

From the writings above, I made a conclusion that phonotactics is how every sequence of sounds are
made by the parts of a syllable, influenced by many factors surrounding a particular language and
where it being used. And the parts of a syllable are:
 Nucleus
The core of the syllable made up of a highly sonorous segment, usually a vowel.
 Onset
A less sonorous segment preceding the nucleus.
 Coda
A less sonorous segment following the nucleus.

The similarities are:

1. First similarity is the number of letters used which there are 26 of them.
2. The second one is that the letters used don’t have accent marks like what we found in letters
used in other languages. Such as what we find in a long Latin vowel is indicated by a macron,
which is a line over the vowel, as in these: ā, ē, ī, ō, ū, ȳ. Some books (and Vicipaedia) use an
accent mark, as in á, é, í, ó, ú, ý. These marks were typically not written in Latin, but they are in
this book as an aid to pronunciation.
3. The ways of arranging sentences and paragraphs are similar.

The differences are:

1. Vowels Sound
Basically there are only 5 vocals in Bahasa Indonesia and English (sometimes ‘y’ is counted too in
English). However, if you talk about vowels, the results will be completely different. Let’s break down
one by one.

In Bahasa Indonesia, the vowels are more simple. It has limited variation than the English. For
example, the alphabet ‘a’ only symbolized the sound ‘a’ (except in special occasion/new word such
as ‘slang’, it symbolized the [æ]), while in English it has wide variation, such as [æ], [a], or [ei].
Therefore, it becomes really difficult to Indonesian to understand and memorize all of different
variation of sound by a single letter.

2. Others vowels phonology [aa, ii, oo, ee]

Another main differences in Bahasa Indonesia and English vowels is double vocal. It is different with
the diphtongs because it contains one single type of letter. In English, you may found ‘ee’ or ‘oo’ to
be placed together. Usually the sound will be different than single letter version.

However, it does not happened in Bahasa Indonesia. There is no changing sound of it, and it is
identified as different phonemes (except the word ‘riil’).

In addition, the words mostly derived from Arabic. Instead of pronounce it as a single phoneme, it
has a glottal sound followed by a little bit stop between the two letter. Here are the examples of it.

3. Nasal sound
This is another part of 5 main differences of Indonesian and English phonology. In phonology, there
are four nasal sounds. It is a sound that came from nose. It contains [m], [n], [ŋ], [ñ]. You may not
found the last sound in English. In contrast, the other three sounds of course very familiar.