List of Toki Pona words
This is a list of words in Toki Pona, a philosophical artistic constructed language created by Sonja Lang. These common words are always written in lowercase; capital letters are used only for proper names, such as the names of people.[1][2]
A few Toki Pona words are grammatical particles that are required to indicate sentence structure. The rest are content words with broad lexical meanings. Content words do not fall into well defined parts of speech; rather, they may be used generally as nouns, verbs, modifiers, or interjections depending on context or their position in a phrase. For example, ona li moku may mean "they ate" or "it is food".[1] In 2014, Lang defined each content word as an adjective, noun, or verb, alongside production rules to derive the meaning of a word converted into another syntactic role. The noun role indicates 'something that is verbed', 'the act of verbing', or 'that which is adjective'. The verb role indicates 'to be noun/adjective', or, transitively, 'to cause to be noun/adjective'.[3]
One of the language's main goals is a focus on minimalism. It is designed to express maximal meaning with minimal complexity.[2] Like a pidgin, it focuses on simple concepts and elements that are near-universal among cultures. It has a minimal vocabulary and 14 phonemes devised to be easy to pronounce for speakers of various language backgrounds.[4][1][5][3]
History
Sonja Lang first published Toki Pona online as a draft in 2001 with 118 words. As she developed the language from 2001 to 2014, the word count fluctuated around 120 words from 118 to 123 as Lang replaced, removed, and added words.[6] In 2014, Lang published Toki Pona: The Language of Good, presenting Toki Pona in its "completed form" with 120 words and 3 synonyms (referred to as nimi pu).[3] In 2021, Lang published Toki Pona Dictionary based on surveys conducted in the ma pona pi toki pona Discord server. The dictionary adds an additional 17 words to the previous 120 for a total of 137 "essential" words (referred to as nimi ku suli), and it also lists a number of words that appeared less frequently in the surveys (referred to as nimi ku pi suli ala or nimi ku lili), including words created by the community.[7]
List of words
nimi pu
This list includes words published in Toki Pona: The Language of Good.
| Toki Pona word | English meaning | Sitelen Pona | Sitelen Sitelen |
|---|---|---|---|
| a | (interjection) | ||
| akesi | lizard or reptile | ||
| ala | no, not, zero | ||
| alasa | hunt, try to (preverb) | ||
| ale | all, 100 | ||
| ali[a] | |||
| anpa | down, lowly | ||
| ante | different, other | ||
| anu | or | ||
| awen | enduring, wait, continue | ||
| e | direct object marker | ||
| en | and (only used between multiple subjects) | ||
| esun | market, trade | ||
| ijo | thing, object, matter | ||
| ike | bad, superfluous | ||
| ilo | tool, device | ||
| insa | inside, stomach | ||
| jaki | dirty, disgusting | ||
| jan | person, human | ||
| jelo | yellow, light green | ||
| jo | have, hold, own | ||
| kala | fish, sea creature, swimming creature | ||
| kalama | sound, noise, recite | ||
| kama | come, become | ||
| kasi | plant | ||
| ken | can (preverb), possible | ||
| kepeken | using | ||
| kili | fruit, vegetable | ||
| kiwen | hard, solid, stone | ||
| ko | paste, powder, goo | ||
| kon | air, spirit, soul | ||
| kule | color, painted | ||
| kulupu | group, community | ||
| kute | ear, hear, listen, obey | ||
| la | (context phrase marker) | ||
| lape | sleep, rest | ||
| laso | blue, green | ||
| lawa | head, mind, control, lead, leader | ||
| len | cloth, clothing, cover, privacy | ||
| lete | cold, cool, raw | ||
| li | (predicate marker) | ||
| lili | small, little, young | ||
| linja | line, string, hair | ||
| lipu | flat object, paper, document | ||
| loje | red | ||
| lon | at, in, on, real, true, exist | ||
| luka | hand, arm, five, do | ||
| lukin | eye, see, look at, try | ||
| lupa | hole, door, orifice, window | ||
| ma | land, earth, country | ||
| mama | parent, ancestor, creator, caretaker | ||
| mani | money, wealth, cattle | ||
| meli | woman, female, feminine, wife | ||
| mi | I, me, we, us | ||
| mije | man, male, masculine, husband | ||
| moku | eat, consume, food | ||
| moli | dead, die, death, kill | ||
| monsi | back, rear | ||
| mu | animal onomatopoeia (moo, meow, etc.) | ||
| mun | moon, night sky object | ||
| musi | fun, playing, game, recreation, art, entertainment | ||
| mute | many, very, much, several, a lot, abundant, numerous, more, 20 | ||
| nanpa | number, ordinal indicator | ||
| nasa | strange, silly, drunk, (nonstandard, proscribed) foolish, crazy | ||
| nasin | way, manner, custom, road, path, doctrine, system, method | ||
| nena | bump, hill, mountain, button, nose | ||
| ni | this, that | ||
| nimi | word, name | ||
| noka | leg, foot, organ of locomotion; base | ||
| o | O! (vocative or imperative) | ||
| olin | love, respect | ||
| ona | he, she, it, they | ||
| open | open, begin | ||
| pakala | blunder, accident, mistake, destruction, damage, break | ||
| pali | make, activity, work, deed, project | ||
| palisa | long hard object (e.g. rod, stick, branch) | ||
| pan | grain, cereal, bread, pasta | ||
| pana | give, put, send, place, release, emit | ||
| pi | (modifier phrase marker) | ||
| pilin | feelings, emotion, heart | ||
| pimeja | black, dark, shadow | ||
| pini | end, finish, stop, ended | ||
| pipi | bug, insect | ||
| poka | side, hip, next to, vicinity | ||
| poki | container, box, bowl | ||
| pona | good, simple, useful | ||
| pu | relating to Toki Pona: The Language of Good | ||
| sama | same, similar, equal, like | ||
| seli | fire, warmth, heat | ||
| selo | outside, surface, skin, boundary | ||
| seme | what, which, when | ||
| sewi | high, up, above, sacred, god | ||
| sijelo | body, physical state, torso | ||
| sike | circle, wheel, ball, year, round | ||
| sin | new, fresh, another | ||
| sina | you, your | ||
| sinpin | front, wall, chest, face | ||
| sitelen | picture, image, write, draw | ||
| sona | know, information, wisdom | ||
| soweli | animal, (especially) land mammal | ||
| suli | big, tall, long, important, adult, large | ||
| suno | sun, light | ||
| supa | horizontal supporting surface, platform, furniture, table, chair | ||
| suwi | sweet, cute, sugar | ||
| tan | from, because of, cause | ||
| taso | but, only | ||
| tawa | to, for, move, go | ||
| telo | water, liquid, wet, wash, beverage | ||
| tenpo | time, moment, period, situation | ||
| toki | say, speech, language | ||
| tomo | house, building, room | ||
| tu | two, halve | ||
| unpa | sex, sexual | ||
| uta | mouth, lips, jaw, oral | ||
| utala | conflict, battle, fight, compete | ||
| walo | white, light-colored | ||
| wan | one, unique, unite | ||
| waso | bird, winged animal | ||
| wawa | strong, power, energy | ||
| weka | away, absent, missing | ||
| wile | want, need, must (preverbs), desire |
nimi ku suli
This list includes additional words described as "important" in Toki Pona Dictionary.
| Toki Pona word | English meaning | Sitelen Pona | Sitelen Sitelen |
|---|---|---|---|
| namako | extra, additional, spice, season, embellish | ||
| kin | also, too | ||
| oko | eye | ||
| kipisi | cut, divide, part | ||
| leko | block, square | ||
| monsuta | monster, fear, danger, scary | ||
| tonsi | non-binary, transgender | ||
| jasima | (uncommon) reflection, mirror | ||
| kijetesantakalu | (humorous) raccoon | ||
| soko | mushroom, fungus | ||
| meso | average, medium | ||
| epiku | (humorous) epic | ||
| kokosila | (uncommon, humorous) speak another language when Toki Pona would be more appropriate | ||
| lanpan | grab, seize, steal | ||
| n | um, hmm | ||
| misikeke | medicine, cure | ||
| ku | relating to Toki Pona Dictionary |
Other words
Words not listed above are considered deprecated or obscure. For lists of less common words, see Appendix:Toki Pona#Other words on Wiktionary.
Notes
References
- ^ a b c Blahuš, Marek (November 2011). Fiedler, Sabine (ed.). "Toki Pona: eine minimalistische Plansprache" [Toki Pona: A Minimalistic Planned Language] (PDF). Interlinguistische Informationen (in German). 18. Berlin: 51–55. ISSN 1432-3567. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2021-06-27. Retrieved 2019-01-08.
- ^ a b Rogers, Steven D. (2011). "Part I: Made-Up Languages – Toki pona". A Dictionary of Made-Up Languages. United States of America: Adams Media. ISBN 978-1440528170.
- ^ a b c Lang, Sonja (2014). Toki Pona: The Language of Good (1st ed.). ISBN 978-0-9782923-0-0.
- ^ Morin, Roc (2015-07-15). "How to Say (Almost) Everything in a Hundred-Word Language". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on 2022-07-12. Retrieved 2019-08-01.
- ^ Thomas, Simon (2018-03-27). "Exploring Toki Pona: do we need more than 120 words?". Oxford Dictionaries. Archived from the original on 2019-05-11. Retrieved 2019-02-03.
- ^ Lang, Sonja. "Toki Pona Word List".
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link) - ^ Lang, Sonja (2021). Toki Pona Dictionary. ISBN 978-0-9782923-6-2.
- ^ Fabbri, Renato (July 2018). "Basic concepts and tools for the Toki Pona minimal and constructed language". ACM Transactions on Asian and Low-Resource Language Information Processing. arXiv:1712.09359.
- ^ "Toki Pona word origins". tokipona.org. 2009-09-28.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link) - ^ "nimi ale pona (2nd ed.)". 2020-10-08. Retrieved 2024-11-18.
- ^ Tomaszewski, Zach (2012-12-11). "A Formal Grammar for Toki Pona" (PDF). University of Hawai‘i. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2019-11-01. Retrieved 2019-09-21.
- ^ Yerrick, Damian (2002-10-23). "Toki Pona li pona ala pona? A review of Sonja Kisa's constructed language Toki Pona". Pin Eight. Archived from the original on 2007-09-28. Retrieved 2007-07-20.
External links
- lipu Linku, a community-run dictionary for Toki Pona
- Toki Pona Appendix on Wiktionary
- Toki Pona–language Wikipedia