toki pona: five new words
toki! ante li kama
The toki pona language has upgraded from 118 to 123 words. The five new words are:
- alasa: to hunt. I see the use for that word, although you could describe it with tawa.
- esun: fair, trading place, market, shop. This word can also be combined with tenpo to mean “the period of a week” since markets are typically held weekly. I wonder if the word can also be used as a verb (to trade) like most toki pona words. A really useful new word.
- kipisi: to cut (in the sense of cutting hair: kipisi e linja). Wouldn’t it mean the same thing if you would tu e linja?
- namako: useless, needless. I wonder why this word is needed since kepeken means “use” and ala means “no, none”–so you could use (pi) kepeken ala to mean the same thing.
- pan: cereal, grain, bread, pasta, rice. Here it is unclear to me why moku kasi (food from plants) wouldn’t be sufficient, although it is nice to have a new word that is easy to remember, at least if you are familiar with a Roman language.
- pu: it is yet unknown what this word means. At this moment, it appears in the official word list without any further explanation. Apparently, we will have to wait for the book Sonja Elen Kisa is finishing…
ali li pona
