On July 19th, 2021, Sonja Lang has released an additional official toki pona book, “Toki Pona Dictionary” (also known as “ku” or “lipu ku”). This book provides translations from English to toki pona and vice versa for a whole lot of words, compiled from a community poll ran on the toki pona community in 2020-2021, and documents 61 additional words used in the language for a total of 181 “nimi ku”. While most of these words are rarely used in the community, there are 17 extra “nimi ku suli” words that have been deemed frequent and important enough to be listed separately. This page shall cover these new words.
| word | meaning |
|---|---|
| namako | spice, additional |
| kin | also, too |
| oko | eye |
| kipisi | to cut, to divide |
| leko | square, block, (stairs) |
| monsuta | fear, monster, scary |
| misikeke | medicine, cure |
| tonsi | non-binary, gender non-confirming, (transgender) |
| jasima | mirror, reflect, reverse, opposite |
| soko | mushroom, fungus |
| meso | average, medium |
| epiku | epic, awesome |
| kokosila | to speak not in toki pona while in a toki pona group |
| lanpan | seize, steal, get |
| n | um…, hmm….. |
| kijetesantakalu | raccoon or other musteloid |
| ku | (to interact with) the Toki Pona Dictionary |
The words “namako”, “kin” and “oko” were listed as synonyms for “sin”, “a” and “lukin” respectively in lipu pu. However, in the community, these words have somewhat different meanings:
“sin” typically means “new”, “namako” typically means “additional” or “extra”.
“kin” is used at the end of sentences for “also” or “too”. “a” does not have such a specific usage.
“oko” specifically means “eye”, while “lukin” also means “vision” and “to see”.
The words “kipisi”, “leko”, “monsuta” and “misikeke” were early words invented before lipu pu’s publishing, and they are still used in the community today. Some of these words were invented by Sonja Lang herself, such as “kijetesantakalu” and “misikeke” (the former as a joke word, which ended up being well-received by the toki pona community).
The rest are specifically newly-added words. Specifically, the word “ku” was invented by Sonja Lang as an counterpart to “pu” to describe interacting with the second official toki pona book.
You may choose to use these words or to avoid them. I personally prefer using only the vocabulary defined in the lipu pu, and only use additional words when absolutely necessary. But it’s always helpful to learn the most common additional words and to know what they mean (See also: extra page 1).
Exercises
Now, try to figure out the meaning of these sentences.
- kijetesantakalu li soweli epiku.
- kulupu tonsi li pilin monsuta ala.
- jan pi pona sijelo li pana e misikeke tawa mi.
- sina wile suli e sona sina la o ku.
- sitelen tawa ni li meso.
And try to translate the following sentences into toki pona. (The answers page will provide both nimi pu and nimi ku answers.)
- Fire scares me.
- Why aren’t you speaking in toki pona?
- Wear goggles, so that you don’t damage your eyes.
- Please pass me the sugar (“white sweet spice”).
- How would you want me to cut the pizza (“bread circle”)?