noka vs. anpa
The difference between anpa ("lowly") and noka ("foot, leg"), when used inside prepositional phrases, varies between idiolects.
In the section "Lesson 15: Spatial Nouns" of the book Toki Pona: The Language of Good (2014), noka is introduced for the sense of "below".[1] In jan Pije's lessons, the word anpa is instead used.[2][3] As of the publishing of Toki Pona Dictionary (2021), the latter style is more common.[4]
pipi li lon noka mipipi li lon noka mi.
The bug is underneath me. (jan Sonja's style)
pipi li lon anpa mipipi li lon anpa mi.
The bug is underneath me. (jan Pije's style)
Some speakers use lon anpa to mean "directly underneath", and lon noka for "at the foot (of)", that is, next to the lowest part, as seen in the image above.
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ Lang, Sonja (2014). Toki Pona: The Language of Good. Tawhid. ISBN 978-0978292300. OCLC 921253340. p. 54.
- ↑ jan Pije. Updated jan Pije's lessons: Lesson 7: Prepositions 2: Other prepositions. Wikibooks. Retrieved 2 November 2023.
- ↑ jan Tepan [stefichjo] (2020).Traditional Toki Pona (Pije). GitHub. Retrieved 2 November 2023.
- ↑ Lang, Sonja (2021). Toki Pona Dictionary. Illustrated by Vacon Sartirani. Tawhid. ISBN 978-0978292362. p. 10.
The pu book introduces an oddity with how noka has traditionally been used. It is much more common to use noka as ‘leg, foot’ and anpa as ‘area below or under’.