List of Toki Pona words
This is a list of words in Toki Pona, a philosophical artistic constructed language, which appear in the Toki Pona Dictionary. 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]
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.[3][1][4][5]
In Toki Pona: The Language of Good, language creator Sonja Lang presents around 120 words (referred to as nimi pu), while the later Toki Pona Dictionary lists 137 "essential" words and a number of less-used ones (referred to as nimi ku).[a] While there are many other words in the language, they are mostly archaic or otherwise used by very few speakers.
| Toki Pona word | English meaning | Sitelen Pona | Sitelen Sitelen |
|---|---|---|---|
| a | interjection | ||
| akesi | lizard or reptile | ||
| ala | no, not, zero | ||
| alasa | hunt | ||
| ale | all, 100 | ||
| ali[b] | |||
| anpa | down, lowly | ||
| ante | different, other | ||
| anu | or | ||
| apeja | (uncommon) shame, guilt | ||
| awen | enduring, wait, continue | ||
| e | direct object marker | ||
| en | and (only used between multiple subjects) | ||
| epiku | (humorous) epic | ||
| esun | market, trade | ||
| ijo | thing, object, matter | ||
| ike | bad, superfluous | ||
| ilo | tool, device | ||
| insa | inside, stomach | ||
| jaki | dirty, disgusting | ||
| jan | person, human | ||
| jasima | (uncommon) reflection, mirror | ||
| jelo | yellow, light green | ||
| jo | have, hold | ||
| kala | fish, sea creature | ||
| kalama | sound, noise, recite | ||
| kama | come, become | ||
| kan | (archaic, obscure) with, together | ||
| kapesi | (rare) brown, grey | ||
| kasi | plant | ||
| ken | can, possible | ||
| kepeken | using | ||
| kijetesantakalu | (humorous) raccoon | ||
| kili | fruit, vegetable | ||
| kin | also, too | ||
| kipisi | cut, divide, part | ||
| kiwen | hard, solid, stone | ||
| ko | paste, powder | ||
| kokosila | (uncommon, humorous) speak another language when Toki Pona would be more appropriate | ||
| kon | air, spirit | ||
| ku | relating to Toki Pona Dictionary | ||
| kule | color, painted | ||
| kulupu | group, community | ||
| kute | ear, hear, listen, obey | ||
| la | (context phrase marker) | ||
| lanpan | grab, seize, steal | ||
| lape | sleep, rest | ||
| laso | blue, green | ||
| lawa | head, mind, control, lead | ||
| leko | block, square | ||
| 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 | ||
| lukin | eye, see, look at, try | ||
| lupa | hole, door, orifice, window | ||
| ma | land, earth, country | ||
| majuna | (uncommon) old, ancient | ||
| mama | parent, ancestor, creator, caretaker | ||
| mani | money, wealth, cattle | ||
| meli | woman, female, feminine, wife | ||
| meso | average, medium | ||
| mi | I, me, we, us | ||
| mije | man, male, masculine, husband | ||
| misikeke | medicine, cure | ||
| moku | eat, consume, food | ||
| moli | dead, die, death, kill | ||
| monsi | back, rear | ||
| monsuta | monster, fear, danger, scary | ||
| 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 | ||
| n | um, hmm | ||
| namako | extra, additional, spice, season, embellish | ||
| 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) | ||
| oko | eye | ||
| olin | love, respect | ||
| ona | he, she, it, they | ||
| open | open, begin | ||
| pakala | blunder, accident, mistake, destruction, damage, break | ||
| pake | (uncommon) stop, cease | ||
| 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 | ||
| pata | (archaic, obscure) sibling | ||
| pi | (modifier phrase marker) | ||
| pilin | feelings, emotion, heart | ||
| pimeja | black, dark, shadow | ||
| pini | end, finish, stop, past | ||
| pipi | bug, insect | ||
| po | (archaic, obscure) four | ||
| poka | side, hip, next to, vicinity | ||
| poki | container, box, bowl | ||
| pona | good, simple, useful | ||
| powe | (uncommon) false, fake, deceptive | ||
| 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 | ||
| sewi | high, up, above, sacred | ||
| sijelo | body, physical state, torso | ||
| sike | circle, wheel, ball, year | ||
| san | (archaic, unofficial) three, especially in senary base | ||
| sin | new, fresh, another | ||
| sina | you | ||
| sinpin | front, wall, chest, face | ||
| sitelen | picture, image, write, draw | ||
| soko | mushroom, fungus | ||
| sona | know, information, wisdom | ||
| soweli | animal, (especially) land mammal | ||
| su | relating to the illustrated Toki Pona story book series | ||
| suli | big, tall, long, important, adult | ||
| 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 | ||
| tonsi | non-binary, transgender | ||
| tu | two, halve | ||
| tuli | (archaic, obscure) three | ||
| unpa | sex, sexual | ||
| unu | (rare) purple | ||
| 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, desire, must |
Notes
- ^ Prior to the publication of Toki Pona: The Language of Good, the language grew to 118 words.[6] Between then and the publication of Toki Pona Dictionary, varying counts were given for the number of words in the former (nimi pu, lit. "words of Toki Pona: The Language of Good"), ranging between 120 and 125.[1][3] The Toki Pona Dictionary added 17 new "essential" words (nimi ku suli, lit. "important Dictionary words"),[7] and states on its back cover that there are a total of 137.[8] It also includes several less-used words (nimi ku pi suli ala, lit. "non-important Dictionary words").[7]
- ^ While some sources consider ale and ali separate words,[9] they are just variations of the same word.[10][11][12][13]
References
- ^ a b c d 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 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 2014, p. 134.
- ^ "Classic Word List (Improved!)". tokipona.net. Archived from the original on 2018-10-30. Retrieved 2019-01-07.
- ^ a b Lang 2021, p. 22–23.
- ^ Lang 2021, back cover.
- ^ 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. Archived from the original on 2010-03-08.
- ^ "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.
Publications
- Lang, Sonja (2014). Toki Pona: The Language of Good. Tawhid. ISBN 978-0978292300. OCLC 921253340.
- This book was translated as: Lang, Sonja; Strake, Julius (2021). Toki Pona: Die Sprache des Guten [Toki Pona: The Language of Good] (in German). Independently published (published 2021-12-01). ISBN 979-8770755251. Archived from the original on 2022-07-20. Retrieved 2022-06-26.
- This book was translated as: Lang, Sonja (2016). Toki Pona : la langue du bien (in French). Tawhid. ISBN 978-0978292355.
- Lang, Sonja (2021). Toki Pona Dictionary. Illustrated by Vacon Sartirani. Tawhid. ISBN 978-0978292362.
- Cárdenas, Eliazar Parra (2013). Toki pona en 76 ilustritaj lecionoj [Toki Pona in 76 illustrated lessons] (in Esperanto). Translated by Blahuš, Marek. Partizánske, Slovakia: Espero. ISBN 978-80-89366-20-0.
- Toki Pona Stories: akesi seli lili [The Little Dragon]. 2020. ISBN 979-8637271252.
- Samys, Ret (2021-09-06). ma pi kulupu tu [The Land of Two Peoples] (in German). Berlin, Germany: Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. ISBN 9783754161654. Archived from the original on 2022-06-27. Retrieved 2022-06-27.
- This book was translated as: Samys, Ret (2021-09-06). ma pi kulupu tu [The Land of Two Peoples]. Berlin, Germany: Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. ISBN 9783754161647. Archived from the original on 2022-06-27. Retrieved 2022-06-27.