pi

pi is a particle in toki pona.

It allows you to have modifiers be affected by other modifiers.

How it works

pi is not of, it regroups modifiers.

By default, when you have a string of content words, the way they modify each other is from left to right.

tomo telo nasa = (tomo telo) nasa = strange (water-room) (may be strange restroom)

But when you use pi, you can change the order of the parentheses a little bit

tomo pi telo nasa = tomo (telo nasa) = (strange water) room

Strange water is usually alcohol, so this usually means bar.

If there is only one word that comes after the pi, the pi should not be there, because it is not regrouping anything. After all, if pi meant of, the language of good would be toki pi pona, not toki pona.

Examples

poki kasi kule - (poki kasi) kule : a colorful vase poki pi kasi kule - poki (kasi kule) : a flower vase

jan pona mute - (jan pona) mute : lots of good people jan pi pona mute - jan (pona mute) : a very good person

lipu mi tu - (lipu mi) tu : both of my books lipu pi mi tu - lipu (mi tu) : the book of both of us

akesi jan Kakamu - (akesi jan) Kakamu : the man-lizard Kakamu (a new superhero!) akesi pi jan Kakamu - akesi (jan Kakamu) : Kakamu's lizard (not so exciting...)

sometimes the meaning is basically same with and without pi: insa uta mi - (insa uta) mi : my inside of the mouth insa pi uta mi - insa (uta mi) : the inside of my mouth