kijetesantakalu

kijetesantakalu
Pronunciation	/ˈki.je.te.san.ta.ka.lu/ (listen)/j/ sounds like English Y, as in "fjord" or "hallelujah".
Usage	2023: Widespread (75% ↗ ) 2022: Widespread (73%)
Book and era	nimi ku suli (pre-pu)
Part of speech	Content word
Codepoint	󱦀 U+F1980

kijetesantakalu is a widespread pre-pu word and nimi ku suli describing raccoons and other procyonid animals. It was coined by Sonja Lang as an April Fools' joke in 2009. It is by far the longest Toki Pona word currently in use. Due to the word's length, it is often pronounced with secondary stress on the syllable ta, or more rarely ka or san.

Etymology

The word kijetesantakalu is derived from Finnish kierteishäntäkarhu meaning "kinkajou", from kierteinen ("helical"), häntä ("tail"), and karhu ("bear").

Semantic space

Sonja Lang originally defined kijetesantakalu as "any animal from the Procyonidae family, such as raccoons, coatis, kinkajous, olingos, ringtails and cacomistles".

As of announcing the word, Lang was undecided on whether to include red pandas as kijetesantakalu. She resurfaced the issue on ma pona pi toki pona in 2021, suggesting that the semantic space expand to cover the Musteloidea superfamily, which also includes weasels, otters, martens, badgers, and skunks.

Reconstruction of Sinosauropteryx, a dinosaur likened to present-day kijetesantakalu

Some speakers expand the semantic space of kijetesantakalu further to include other animals, such as the Japanese raccoon dog, and Sinosauropteryx, a small, chestnut-colored dinosaur with feather patterns of a bandit-like mask and a striped tail.

Rarely, kijetesantakalu is used in relation to April Fools' Day and practical jokes, referencing the word's origins.

ku

For Toki Pona Dictionary, respondents in ma pona pi toki pona translated these English words as kijetesantakalu:

procyonid³41–60% of respondents, Musteloidea²21–40% of respondents

Earnestness

kijetesantakalu was originally a joke word. The word is now used for other reasons as well, be it as a symbol of identity or simply liking the sitelen pona glyph. These speakers sometimes shorten it to kijete or kije, especially to use it as a headnoun. See Abbreviations § kijetesantakalu. Opinions on the word's seriousness vary between speakers.

sitelen pona

Glyph designed by jan Same, used in linja pona

The most recognized sitelen pona glyph for kijetesantakalu (󱦀) was designed by jan Same in 2019. It won a glyph design contest for the font linja pona, and spread from there. The glyph is featured in the Esperanto edition of Toki Pona: The Language of Good.

Other glyphs which may be in use by a small minority of users include the ones below:

• 

  Glyph variant designed by Jack Humbert, used in sitelen pona pona

• 

  Glyph proposal by Elemenopi

• 

  Glyph proposal by Heresdevking

sitelen sitelen

The current sitelen sitelen glyph for kijetensatakalu was designed by jan Saki in 2021. jan Pensa and palisa jelo Natan have also created proposals for a full-body variant, inspired by the sitelen pona glyph.

• 

  Full-body glyph proposal by jan Pensa in 2021

• 

  Close up and full-body and designs proposals by palisa jelo Natan

nasin kijetesantakalu

This subject is nonstandard and may not be understood by most speakers.

nasin kijetesantakalu was a proposed analysis of Toki Pona's syntax made by Sonja Lang as an April Fools' joke in 2021. In her post on the ma pona pi toki pona Discord server, she wrote:

On this blessed anniversary of kijetesantakalu, I would like to formally clarify that en is a subject marker that is omitted at the beginning of a sentence. The default and recommended word order in Toki Pona has always been subject–verb–object, but other structures are possible for stylistic effect.

She provided examples of the six possible word orders.

• SVO: mi moku e kili.
• SOV: mi e kili li moku.
• VSO: li moku en mi e kili.
• VOS: li moku e kili en mi.
• OVS: e kili li moku en mi. kili li kama moku tan mi.
• OSV: e kili en mi moku. kili la mi moku e ona.

nasin kijetesantakalu is generally not used among speakers. However, some have adopted it in their own nasin.

Number system

The subject of this article is just for fun. It is not meant or recommended for serious use.

Main article: nasin nanpa ali ike § nasin nanpa kijetesantakalu

nasin nanpa kijetesantakalu is a joke number system created by soweli nata and featured in the Toki Pona Dictionary. It consists of the word kijetesantakalu with a different stressed syllable. The stress is not written in the orthography, making all digits indistinguishable in writing.

Digit	Pronunciation
0	[kijetesantakaˈlu]
1	[kijetesantaˈkalu]
2	[kijetesanˈtakalu]
3	[kijeteˈsantakalu]
4	[kijeˈtesantakalu]
5	[kiˈjetesantakalu]

kijetesantakalu kijetesantakalu

kijetesantakalu kijetesantakalu

[kiˈjetesantakalu kijetesantakaˈlu]
$50_{6}=5\cdot 6^{1}+0\cdot 6^{0}=30$
thirty

See also

• sutopatikuna

Further reading

English Wikipedia has an article on
kijetesantakalu.

• "kijetesantakalu" on lipu Linku
• "kijetesantakalu" on lipu Wikipesija
• "kijetesantakalu" on English Wiktionary