Sandhi is the set of euphonic-combination rules inherited from Sanskrit by which sounds at the junction of words or morphemes merge or change. For example अ plus आ combines to आ, and इ plus अ yields य. Hindi keeps many of these in tatsama (Sanskrit-derived) vocabulary.

What are the main categories of sandhi?

The three classical categories are swar sandhi (vowel junctions), vyanjan sandhi (consonant junctions), and visarga sandhi (changes affecting the visarga ः). This tool flags candidate sites for each by examining the characters on either side of a junction.

Why are these only candidates?

Whether sandhi actually applies depends on word origin and meaning, which a surface scan cannot fully determine. Tadbhava and foreign-origin words may share the same letter sequences without undergoing sandhi, so each flag should be confirmed by an editor.

Does it split or join words for me?

No. The tool only highlights where sandhi rules commonly operate and names the relevant category. It does not perform sandhi-viccheda (splitting) or sandhi formation automatically, since both require lexical knowledge of the underlying words.

What is the Hindi Sandhi Junction Identifier?

Flags word boundaries and internal positions where common Sanskrit and Hindi sandhi rules — vowel coalescence, visarga, and consonant junctions — may apply, to assist editors and learners. Runs entirely in your browser. It runs free in your browser on Gera Tools, with nothing uploaded.

Hindi Sandhi Junction Identifier

Name: Hindi Sandhi Junction Identifier
Creator: Gera Tools
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

The Hindi Sandhi Junction Identifier highlights places in Devanagari text where Sanskrit-derived sandhi rules commonly apply. It is an editing aid for spotting vowel coalescence, visarga changes, and consonant junctions in tatsama vocabulary.

How it works

The scanner walks the text and inspects the characters on either side of each junction — both between words and at internal morpheme seams — testing them against the three classical categories:

swar sandhi    vowel meets vowel        अ+आ → आ,  इ+अ → य,  उ+अ → व
visarga sandhi visarga ः before sound    निः+चल → निश्चल,  मनः+रथ → मनोरथ
vyanjan sandhi consonant junctions      त्+च → च्च,  म्+anusvara before stop

For each match the tool records the position and the rule category. Junctions at word boundaries are checked by combining the final sound of one word with the initial sound of the next; internal positions are checked against known clustering patterns.

Tips and notes

Treat every highlight as a candidate, not a certainty. Sandhi only operates in Sanskrit-derived (tatsama) material, so a sequence such as इ followed by अ may be a genuine swar-sandhi site in one word and an accidental adjacency in a borrowed word. Use the named category to decide which rule to apply, and confirm against the meaning and origin of the words involved. The tool deliberately does not rewrite your text, because both forming and splitting sandhi require knowing the underlying lexemes.

The three sandhi categories in detail

Swar sandhi (vowel sandhi)

When two vowels meet at a junction, they often merge or change. The classical rules give outcomes like these:

अ / आ + अ / आ → आ (for example राम + अवतार → रामावतार)
अ / आ + इ / ई → ए (for example सुर + इंद्र → सुरेंद्र)
अ / आ + उ / ऊ → ओ (for example पर + उपकार → परोपकार)
इ / ई + any unlike vowel → य (for example अति + अधिक → अत्यधिक)
उ / ऊ + any unlike vowel → व (for example मधु + आचार → मध्वाचार, less common)

These mergers are what make Sanskrit-heavy Hindi writing compact — a full compound can be written as a single uninterrupted string.

Visarga sandhi

The visarga (:) at the end of Sanskrit words is particularly variable. Its output depends on what follows:

Before a voiceless consonant: stays or becomes श / ष / स by place (निः + चल → निश्चल)
Before a voiced consonant or vowel: becomes a vowel or र (मनः + रथ → मनोरथ)
Before the same vowel: the visarga is dropped (निः + आश → निराश)

Many common Hindi words contain frozen sandhi from Sanskrit origins — recognizing the pattern helps with spelling and vocabulary.

Vyanjan sandhi (consonant sandhi)

Consonant-level changes are more constrained in Hindi than in classical Sanskrit but still appear in tatsama compounds:

A final nasal assimilates in place to the next stop (सम् + बंध → संबंध)
A final stop may voice or assimilate before a voiced initial (vag + devi → vagdevi in transliteration, वाग्देवी)
The anusvara serves as a catch-all nasal before stops

Who uses this tool

Editors working on formal Hindi prose or Sanskrit-Hindi compound vocabulary often need to check whether two elements should be joined with sandhi or kept separate with a hyphen or space. Grammar students learning classical sandhi rules use the flagged positions to practice applying them. Lexicographers and NLP researchers use it to pre-annotate compounds before further morphological analysis.