nimi ku
nimi ku are the Toki Pona words used in Toki Pona Dictionary. In popular usage, the term generally excludes the 120 main words used in Toki Pona: The Language of Good.
nimi ku suli[edit | edit source]
nimi ku suli means "major Dictionary words" or "important Dictionary words". It includes words that ku marked as "essential" vocabulary based on usage in ma pona pi toki pona community polls. A frequency index of 3 (41–60% of respondents) qualified words for nimi ku suli status.
The term "nimi ku suli" is generally used to refer to the 17 words that were newly marked as "essential", excluding the 120 words in the nimi pu category. However, it can sometimes also refer to all 137 words with a frequency index of 3 or higher (except for yupekosi), which includes the 120 pu words.
As of 2022, nimi ku suli is considered a less helpful category. These words range from 89% to 25% usage. The least popular, kokosila, is used less than 2 nimi ku lili, majuna and linluwi.
nimi pu[edit | edit source]
The main 120 nimi pu are still present in ku. These could be considered nimi ku suli (as is the case in the introduction of Toki Pona Dictionary itself), but in common usage "nimi ku" and "nimi ku suli" generally exclude the pu words, making the term "nimi pu" mutually exclusive with the other terms, possibly with the exception of the "synonyms":
"Synonyms"[edit | edit source]
The 3 words that pu presented as "synonyms" are considered nimi ku suli, because ku acknowledges their use as separate words with separate meanings.
- kin
- namako
- oko
nimi sin[edit | edit source]
14 nimi sin are nimi ku suli. Some are sin in the sense of "new", coined post-pu, while others are revivals of pre-pu words that are sin in the sense of "additional". n technically violates Toki Pona's phonotactics, but since it is an onomatopoeic filler word, it is less controversial than other such nimi ku.
- epiku
- jasima
- kijetesantakalu
- kipisi
- kokosila
- ku
- lanpan
- leko
- meso
- misikeke
- monsuta
- n
- soko
- tonsi
nimi ku lili[edit | edit source]
nimi ku lili means "minor Dictionary words". They are called nimi ku pi suli ala ("non-important Dictionary words") in the Toki Pona Dictionary itself, but this term is rarely used in the Toki Pona community.
41 words are uncontroversially nimi ku lili.
- apeja
- ete
- ewe
- isipin
- kamalawala
- kan
- kapesi
- ke
- kese
- kiki
- kulijo
- kuntu
- likujo
- linluwi
- loka
- majuna
- misa
- mulapisu
- neja
- oke
- pake
- pata
- peto
- po
- polinpin
- pomotolo
- powe
- samu
- san
- soto
- taki
- te
- teje
- to
- tuli
- umesu
- unu
- usawi
- wa
- waleja
- wasoweli
Words with marginal phonology[edit | edit source]
1 word disregards the wuwojiti rule of phonotactics.
- sutopatikuna
3 other nimi ku lili disregard Toki Pona's consonant phonology and more. Notably, yupekosi has a ku frequency index of 3, but a proofreader advised excluding it from the nimi ku suli. The point of the word is that no one knows how to pronounce the y.
- kalamARR
- Pingo
- yupekosi
Reserved words[edit | edit source]
5 words are reserved for future use by Sonja Lang. While it is unclear whether they count as nimi ku lili, they have no semantic value as of ku, so they might not yet be considered words at all. Presumably they refer to future official books, or other future projects on the same level. These and ku are also the only words that jan Sonja (consciously) coined for Toki Pona Dictionary, instead of compiling them from community polls.
- ju
- lu
- nu
- su
- u
Typos[edit | edit source]
jan Sonja made 2 spelling mistakes while entering data into ku. They are generally agreed not to be words.
- suke
- toma