Phrase guide

tone sandhi

noun · 1 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

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1

noun

Meaning 1

The change of tone that occurs in some tonal languages when certain tones are pronounced successively.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: uncountable

Topics: human-sciences, linguistics, phonology, sciences

Examples

  • The most frequent occurrence of tone sandhi in Mandarin Chinese occurs in the third tone.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

History

Etymology

From tone + sandhi.

Across languages

Translations

18 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Chinese Cantonese: 變調 /变调 (bin3 diu6) — change of tone
  • Chinese Mandarin: 變調 /变调 (biàndiào) — change of tone
  • Finnish: toonisandhi — change of tone
  • French: sandhi tonal — change of tone
  • German: Tonsandhi — change of tone
  • Hungarian: tónusszandhi — change of tone
  • Japanese: 声調変化 (seichō henka) — change of tone
  • Japanese: 変調 (henchō) — change of tone
  • Korean: 변조 (byeonjo) — change of tone
  • Punjabi: سُر سندھی (sur saṅdhī) — change of tone
  • Russian: то́новое са́ндхи (tónovoje sándxi) — change of tone
  • Russian: измене́ние то́на (izmenénije tóna) — change of tone
  • Spanish: sandhi tonal — change of tone
  • Swedish: tonsandhi — change of tone
  • Thai: เสียงสนธิ (sĭang sŏntí) — change of tone
  • Vietnamese: biến thanh — change of tone
  • Zhuang: bendiu — change of tone
  • Zhuang: bienqdiuh — change of tone