pi

pi

pi is a word that only groups other words. Imagine that you want to translate the sentence "a very tall person":

jan lamo mute → a lot of tall persons

This is not what we wanted! But let's analyze what is happening here. The noun of the phrase is jan, "person". Then, lamo modifies jan, giving jan lamo, "tall person". But then mute modifies the whole group jan lamo, so it is "a lot of tall persons". But we wanted mute to modify only lamo! Well, to do this we use pi. Let's say that pi is a way of breaking the chain of modifiers, or kind of a verbal bracket:

jan pi lamo mute → a very tall person

In this case, as pi is breaking the chain, let's start with lamo, "tall". Then, mute modifies lamo, giving lamo mute, "very tall". And this finishes the pi-phrase. Then, jan, "person", is modified by the whole group pi lamo mute, giving the meaning we wanted.

Two words of caution about pi: First, it is sometimes translated as "of", but be careful because that is not necessarily true. Watch again both of the examples before: only without "of" in the translation has pi!. Remember that pi does not have a translation into English and it is only a way of grouping modifiers. And second, and related with the first, as it groups modifiers, it can never have only one word after it. Sometimes people think of it as "of" and try to translate things like "in front of me" as *sinpin pi mi. This is not correct! The correct translation is simply sinpin mi.

Let's see some more examples of pi in action. Imagine that you want to say "a group (kulupu) of soldiers". If we say:

kulupu jan utala → fighting group of people

Because utala modifies kulupu jan. But if we say:

kulupu pi jan utala → group of soldiers

In this case, utala modifies only jan, and pi jan utala modifies kulupu, which is what we wanted.

Or let's try to say "my sibling's car". If we say:

kali pata mi → my fraternal car

...well, I'm not sure I want to know what a "fraternal car" is, but pata is modifying kali and that's what we get. But if we say:

kali pi pata mi → my sibling's car

Or you want to say, very poetically , "silent land". In toki ma there is no word for silence, only for sound: kalama. So if you want to say silence, you have to negate it, kalama ala:

ma kalama ala → not soundland

ma pi kalama ala → silent land

pi can group any type of modifiers, not only adjetives. For example:

mi tawa pi wiki mute → I'm going very fast

wiki mute, very fast, is an adverb modifying tawa. The sentence without the pi would no make much sense (*"very going fast").

Or:

mi toki pi toki ma → I am speaking about toki ma

Notice that this does not mean "I am speaking in toki ma", which would use the preposition kan:

mi toki kan toki ma → I am speaking in toki ma

Multiple pi are allowed, but be aware that it may cause ambiguities:

kali pi mama pi jan utala → the soldier's mother's car

Vocabulary - Colors

There are seven basic colors (kule) in toki ma:

walo → white

jelo → yellow

laso → blue

peta → green

kapesi → brown

loje → red

pimeja → black

But what about other colors? You can mix those seven! For example, if you want to say orange, this is "a reddish shade of yellow" or "a yellowish shade of red":

loje jelo → orange

jelo loje → orange

Or if you want to say pink, thats a whitish shade of red, of a reddish shade of white:

loje walo → pink

walo loje → pink

Of course there is a subtle difference in each of those pairs (lajo walo is primarily lajo, while walo lajo is primarily walo), but for most people they are the same.

And if you want, you can combine more than two colors... but that kind of goes against the simple nature of toki ma. But if it is really necessary, of course you can!

Here you have a visual chart with most of the possible colors made with one or two words (except for gray, walo pimeja or pimeja walo, which would have broken the symmetry of the graph - note that in any case the dictionary also lists kapesi as gray -, and some of the combinations that probably do not make sense, like laso jelo, which already has its own word, peta):