nimi ku
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| Toki Pona: The Language of Good (2014) pu · nimi pu · meli Sonko · sitelen sitelen · toki pona luka · sitelen pona · Place names · Language names · Phrase book · Dictionary
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| Toki Pona Dictionary (2021) |
| lipu su |
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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.
Relevance[edit | edit source]
As of 2022, nimi ku suli is considered a less helpful category, as the words range from 89% to 25% usage according to the Linku survey. The least popular nimi ku suli, kokosila, is used less than 2 nimi ku lili, majuna and linluwi.
The Linku usage categories, which have been updated annually, are increasingly used for similar purposes as the nimi ku suli classification.
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.
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.
nimi ku lili[edit | edit source]
nimi ku lili means "minor Dictionary words". This term was introduced and popularized by nimi ale pona. However, in the Toki Pona Dictionary itself, they are named nimi ku pi suli ala ("non-important Dictionary words"), but this term is rarely used in the Toki Pona community. There are 41 uncontroversially nimi ku lili.
Words with marginal phonology[edit | edit source]
1 word disregards the wuwojiti rule of phonotactics.
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.
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.
On 3 February 2024, su was announced as a series of story books.
Typos[edit | edit source]
jan Sonja made 2 spelling mistakes while entering data into ku. They are generally agreed not to be words. They were included in Linku to track whether they would gain any usage, and are slated for removal due to the lack thereof.
See also[edit | edit source]
Notes[edit | edit source]
- ↑ This word technically is not a nimi ku suli, as it has no frequency index given and was not listed at the start of the book as one.
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ Lang, Sonja. (18 July 2021). Toki Pona Dictionary. Illustrated by Vacon Sartirani. Tawhid. ISBN 978-0978292362. p. 256.
ku interact with Toki Pona Dictionary [this book!]
- ↑ ku, p. 235.
- ↑ ku, p. 275.
- ↑ ku, p. 304.
- ↑ ku, p. 351.
- ↑ ku, p. 381.