kili

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meaning

fruit, vegetable, mushroom

see also

kasi, moku, soko

semantic space · lipamanka

kili are fruits and vegetables, i.e. any part of a plant that is edible. These could be fresh. An apple is kili. These could be fermented. Kimchi and pickled onions are kili. These could be preserved through canning. Strawberry jam and dried mango are kili. This could even be a sauce with a primary vegetable component: basil pesto is kili, gespacho is kili, five minced onions are kili. kili can refer to wheat seeds or other grains that haven't been ground up yet, but flour and bread don't fit well into kili's semantic space.

What if a kili is poisonous? Poisonous berries are not edible, but they can still be kili. This is because kili's semantic space pivots towards things that resemble edible parts of plants, even if you can't actually eat them. By using kili, you evoke the image of eating it. This won't encourage toki pona speakers to eat it right away if they don't recognize it. If I used kili for poison ivy a toki pona speaker would think less of it as a shrub what grows on the ground and more as a type of lettuce for making salad. Of course, they wouldn't assume that it would be a good idea to do so, but the way the poison ivy feels in a conceptual semantic space is different.

A minority usage of kili proposed first around 2021 online is a child or product. This borrows a cognative metaphor from a lot of European languages that sees familial relations as trees. While this could work, it is likely to be misunderstood by many speakers unless you build up this before using kili like this.

ku translations

fruit95, vegetable94, apple82, kumquat42, fungus33, bean29, nut29, onion28, tomato27

pu verbatim

NOMEN Frucht, Gemüse, Pilz

usage

core · 100% usage

found in pu

coined pre-pu

origin

Georgian · ხილი xili ‘fruit’

coined by jan Sonja

commentary

In post-ku 2021, metaphorical definitions for kili have been suggested, including but not limited to "offspring" and "product", and are moderately popular. It is not yet clear whether this will remain in use long-term.

sitelen pona

kili

pictogram of a fruit, perhaps an apple

sitelen sitelen

kili sitelen sitelen

sitelen jelo

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sitelen Emosi

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ucsur

U+F191A

audio

kala Asi

jan Lakuse

luka pona

gif · mp4