What is "rendaku"

n. (context linguistics English) In the Japanese language, a phenomenon which governs the voicing of the initial consonant of the non-initial portion of a compound or prefixed word. An example is 時々 (ときどき, tokidoki), where the second element "-toki" becomes "-doki" and 折り紙 (おりがみ, origami) where the word 紙 (かみ, kami; paper) becomes "gami".

is a phenomenon in Japanese morphophonology that governs the voicing of the initial consonant of the 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, they are marked in kana with dakuten (voicing mark).