Comparison of Korean and Thai Final Consonants Pronunciation 韓語、泰語尾音發音比較
This article is written in both English and Chinese. You can scroll down to read in either language. 本篇文章有英文和中文版本。可下滑看任一語言版本。
[EN]
The aim of this article is to compile and compare the pronunciation of Korean and Thai final consonants as they share some remarkable similarities.
Korean final consonants are known as 받침 (batchim) whereas Thai final consonants are called ตัวสะกด (can be romanized as dtuasagod or tuasakod).
To show the compilation more clearly, I break them down in two parts.
The first part is for the final sounds of [g], [b] and [d]; the second part for the final sounds of [l], [n], [i (y)], [m], [ŋ (ng)] and [o]. (They are separated by a narrow gap in the table below.)
Please note for the final sounds of [g], [b], [d] in both Korean and Thai, they’re not pronounced out loud as in English. Rather, these are unreleased stop/plosive consonants, or known as applosive consonants (a stop with no audible release).
For a quick rundown, for the [g] final sound, these 3 Korean final consonants — g: ㄱ, gg: ㄲ and k: ㅋ — end up being pronounced [g] when appearing at the end of a word; and these 4 Thai consonants — g: ก and k: ข, ค, ฆ — end up with the [g] sound when at the end of a word.
Similarly, when the consonants b: ㅂ and p: ㅍ in Korean and b: บ, bp: ป, p: พ, ภ, f: ฟ in Thai appear at the end, they all make the [b] sound, regardless of the fact that when in other positions of a word, these letters are pronounced according to their letter names as indicated in their Romanization.
For the [d] final sound, it’s where things get really interesting for both Korean and Thai. For Korean, d: ㄷ and t: ㅌ end in [d] sound, and so do s: ㅅ, ss: ㅆ, j: ㅈ, ch: ㅊ and h: ㅎ. As for Thai, d: ด, ฎ, dt: ต, ฏ, t: ถ, ฐ, ท, ฑ, ฒ, ธ as well as s: ส, ศ, ษ, ซ, j: จ, ch: ช all end in [d] sound. The fact that the corresponding s, j and ch letters in both Korean and Thai are pronounced as [d] at the end (again with no audible release) is pretty interesting, isn’t it?
Also noteworthy is that for the [n] final sound, in Thai, besides the obvious n: น, ณ letters that produce [n] sound at the end, the letters l: ล, ฬ and r: ร when at the end are also pronounced as [n]. And one of the y letters — y: ญ — also ends with the [n] sound. However, the other y letter — y: ย — ends in the usual [i/y] sound.
To illustrate, here are two tables for more reference.
— Chinese Version Starts Below —
[中文]
本篇文章主要目的在於彙整和比較韓語中和泰語中的尾音發音，因兩者有諸多相似之處。
韓語的尾音又稱做收音、收尾音或是終聲，在韓文中稱作받침 (batchim)。而泰語的尾音在泰文中則稱作ตัวสะกด (羅馬化發音為dtuasagod或tuasakod)。
為了更清楚的呈現兩者尾音的彙整和比較，我把它們分作兩部分，在表格內以一小塊空白隔開。
第一部分列出了韓語和泰語中尾音發音為[g]、[b]、[d]的字母，第二部分則列出了尾音發音為[l]、[n]、[i (y)]、[m]、[ŋ (ng)]和[o]的字母。
須要注意的是尾音發音為[g]、[b]、[d]在韓語和泰語中並非像英語中那樣須把音發出來，而是以促音或硬音的方式發音，即只做口型但不將音發出來，在語言學中將此語音現象稱作無聲除阻（no audible release或unreleased stop）。
總結歸納一下，尾音發音爲[g]的這組，當在字尾時，這三個韓語子音g: ㄱ、gg: ㄲ、k: ㅋ會發[g]的音；這四個泰語子音 g: ก、k: ข, ค, ฆ也發[g]的音。
同樣地，在字尾時，韓語的子音b: ㅂ、p: ㅍ和泰語的子音b: บ、bp: ป、p: พ, ภ, f: ฟ皆發[b]。這些子音不在字尾時，會發他們本身的音（也就是羅馬拼音所標註的音）；但在字尾時，一律發[b]。
尾音發音為[d]的這組，是韓語和泰語裡很特別也最相像的地方之一了。當在字尾時，韓語的子音除了d: ㄷ和t: ㅌ會發[d]的音外，這些子音s: ㅅ、ss: ㅆ、j: ㅈ、ch: ㅊ、h: ㅎ也都發[d]的音。泰語的話，這些子音d: ด, ฎ、dt: ต, ฏ、t: ถ, ฐ, ท, ฑ, ฒ, ธ以及s: ส, ศ, ษ, ซ、j: จ、ch: ช也都發[d]的音。如同所看到的，發音對應於韓語和泰語s、j和ch的子音在字尾時，所發的尾音皆為[d]，有這相似的發音規則，蠻有趣的可不是嗎？（注意：[g]、[b]、[d]這三組尾音發音上只做嘴型，不會真的發出聲來，屬於無聲除阻（no audible release或unreleased stop）的語音現象。）
另也值得一提的是，尾音為[n]音的部分，在泰語裡，除了這兩個代表n的子音n: น, ณ很明顯地會發[n]的音之外，分別代表l和r的這些子音l: ล, ฬ和r: ร在字尾時也發[n]的音。另外，泰語其中一個代表y的字母y: ญ，在字尾時也發[n]的音。然而，另一個也代表y的字母y: ย，則是如同字母本身的發音，發[i/y]的音。
也附上兩張圖表，來做細部比較。
