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Concept
Rendaku
Summary
is a phenomenon in Japanese morphophonology that governs the voicing of the initial consonant of a non-initial portion of a compound or prefixed word. In modern Japanese, rendaku is common but at times unpredictable, with certain words unaffected by it.
While kanji do not indicate rendaku, it is marked in kana with dakuten (voicing mark).
Rendaku was initially an automatic and predictable process in Japanese. One theory states that rendaku was originally a way to distinguish compound words from saying a word twice when comparing two words or listing things (compare ひとびと hitobito "people" – with rendaku – versus ひと、ひと hito hito "one person, another person" – without rendaku). Native Japanese words never begin with a voiced obstruent or sibilant (b, d, g, z, etc.), so rendaku was merely an allophonic detail that did not create ambiguity. However, after the 4th century, Japan started borrowing words and characters from China, which caused the once regular process of rendaku to become less predictable. Since many Chinese words begin with voiced consonants, applying rendaku to those words would cause ambiguity (compare 試験 shiken "examination" with 事件 jiken "incident"). Therefore, compound words consisting of purely Chinese words tend not to exhibit rendaku while compounds consisting of native Japanese words do exhibit rendaku, with many exceptions.
Rendaku can be seen in the following words:
ひと + ひと → ひと-びと (人々) (iteration)
hito + hito → hitobito ("person" + "person" → "people")
いけ (from verb 生ける (いける)) + はな → いけばな
ike + hana → ikebana ("keep alive" + "flower" → "flower arrangement")
とき + とき → とき-どき (時々) (iteration, reduplication)
toki + toki → tokidoki ("time" + "time" → "sometimes")
て + かみ → て-がみ
te + kami → tegami ("hand" + "paper" → "letter")
おり + かみ → おり-がみ
ori + kami → origami ("fold" + "paper" → "paperfolding")
はな + ひ → はな-び
hana + hi → hanabi ("flower" + "fire" → "firework")
はな + ち → はな-ぢ
hana + chi → hanaji ("nose" + "blood" → "nosebleed")
まき + すし → まき-ずし
maki + sushi → makizushi ("roll" + "sushi" → "nori-wrapped sushi") (Rendaku is prevalent with words that end in sushi.
Official source
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