a

This article is about the Toki Pona word. For the English word "a(n)", see Articles.

a
'The Scream' painting
Pronunciation	⁠/a/⁠
Usage	2026: Core (97% ↘︎ )2025: Core (99% ↘︎ )2024: Core (100% ↗︎ )2023: Core (99% → )2022: Core (99%)
Book and era	nimi pu ("synonym" in pu)
Part of speech	Particle
Codepoint	󱤀 U+F1900

a is a particle used to indicate emphasis and emotion.

Etymology

The word a is derived a priori from sound symbolism or onomatopoeia. It was coined by Sonja Lang as of 8 August 2001.

Function

a is used to add emotion or emphasis to a word, phrase, or sentence. It may also be used alone as an interjection, meaning "ah", "oh", "uhm", among other words.

a　 ni li pona tawa mi

a! ni li pona tawa mi.

Ooh! I like this.
lit.literal translation 'Aah! This is good in the opinion of me.'

It is uniquely pragmatic, lacking clear semantic meaning and grammar-marking function, whereas the other words in Toki Pona have one or both. When used as an intensifier, the word a is like a verbalization of emphasis, and can clarify where prosodic stress is meant to affect how the speaker's message is interpreted. While the content words mute and suli are used similarly, they inherently specify quantity and amount, whereas a just directs focus.

o sona a e ni

o sona a e ni.

lit.literal translation 'Understand this.'
Idiomatically: 'I need you to get this.'

When a is reduplicated, it is used to express laughter.

a4

a a a!

Hahaha!

Marking emphasis

The word a can be used either at the end of a sentence, adding emphasis (or emotion) to the entire sentence, or after a specific word or phrase to emphasize only that part of the sentence. When used at the end to emphasize the entire sentence, it can be seen as similar to using an exclamation mark in English.

Here are examples of a adding emphasis to different parts of the same sentence:

ona a li pali e tomo

ona a li pali e tomo.

She builds a house.

ona li pali a e tomo

ona li pali a e tomo.

She builds a house.

ona li pali e tomo a

ona li pali e tomo a.

She builds a house.

In the final sentence, the a can also be seen as emphasizing the entire sentence, depending on context. Some people prefer to only use a at the end of a sentence, and don't make the distinctions in the examples above.

Interaction with li and pi

When the subject of a sentence is mi a or sina a, there is no consensus on whether the particle li is needed afterward or can be dropped. As an argument for including li, the phrase mi a is similar to mi kin and mi taso, which both require li in most speakers' style of speech. Others feel that dropping li is more natural, as a adds no semantic or grammatical information, and is arguably more of a spoken prosody marker than a morpheme. Both methods are used in practice.

Rarely, pi phrases have been used to isolate a to a specific modifier (for example, jan pi lili a, equivalent to jan lili a but with only lili emphasized). Despite being consistent with the mi a li style, this method is much less common, and is sometimes seen as nonstandard or even ungrammatical.

Overall, there is no consensus on whether a triggers particles that depend on whether modifiers are present in a phrase.

Dictionary entries

pu

In the "Official Toki Pona Dictionary" section, the book Toki Pona: The Language of Good defines a as:

PARTICLE  (emphasis, emotion or confirmation)

Notably, the book only shows examples of a as an interjection or at the end of a sentence. The word isn't shown emphasizing a specific part of a sentence.

ku

For Toki Pona Dictionary, respondents in ma pona pi toki pona translated these English words as a:

ah⁵81–100% of respondents, oh⁵81–100% of respondents, ha⁵81–100% of respondents, ooh⁴61–80% of respondents, uh⁴61–80% of respondents, gosh⁴61–80% of respondents, whoa⁴61–80% of respondents, wow⁴61–80% of respondents, um³41–60% of respondents, huh³41–60% of respondents, uh-huh²21–40% of respondents, quite²21–40% of respondents, gasp²21–40% of respondents, really²21–40% of respondents, mm-hmm²21–40% of respondents, hmm²21–40% of respondents, sigh²21–40% of respondents

History

In pre-pu sources, a was only used as an emotion word and for laughter, not to mark emphasis. Instead, kin was used to mark emphasis. The word a was also only added at the end of a sentence, not in the middle.

In the 2014 book Toki Pona: The Language of Good, Sonja Lang attempted to merge a and kin into one word, adding "emphasis" to a's definition. The two words were not fully merged in community usage, but the meaning and usage of a did shift as a result of this. a is now widely used as an emphasis marker, and it can be used in the middle of a sentence, unlike pre-pu usage of a but similar to pre-pu usage of kin.

sitelen pona

The sitelen pona glyph for a ⟨󱤀⟩ is composed of the stem of an exclamation mark and the lowercase Latin letter A in place of the dot. The letter at the bottom is typically drawn in its single-story form ⟨ɑ⟩, usually resembling the Latin letter's handwritten forms more than in type.

Compare the glyphs for kin ⟨kinkin⟩, n ⟨nn⟩, and o ⟨oo⟩.

Variants

The letter A is occasionally written as its double-story form ⟨a⟩, or as the lower case Greek letter alpha ⟨α⟩, which often resembles a mirrored kala ⟨kalakala⟩. The punctuation stem can be drawn upright ⟨aa⟩ or at a diagonal ⟨aa⟩.

The stem of the glyph is sometimes altered to other punctuation marks.

• A double or triple exclamation-mark stem ⟨a3a3⟩, ⟨a4a4⟩ typically represents the same number of repetitions of a, chiefly as in multiple bursts of laughter. This is attested as early as December 2021. The three-stem variant is specified with a03 in the ASCII Input Standard.
• A question-mark or interrobang stem, e.g. ⟨a5a5⟩, may indicate a questioning tone or the phrase seme a?.

The glyph can be elongated from the spur of the a: ⟨a(　)a(　)⟩, equivalent to aaa.

sitelen sitelen

The sitelen sitelen word glyph for a ⟨aa⟩ is a rounded shape with a flat bottom that includes a phonetic a radical ⟨AA⟩ and an uta radical ⟨utauta⟩ seen also in akesi ⟨akesiakesi⟩ and toki ⟨tokitoki⟩.

Like with any monosyllabic word, the word a may also optionally be written as a syllable glyph ⟨AA⟩.

Further reading

Resources

• Toki Pona: The Language of Good: Lesson 10
• jan Kekan San: Interjections
• jan Lentan: Lesson 7
• soweli Sika: Lesson 10
• nasin toki pona: the emoticle a
• Jonathan Gabel: Interjections and Commands

Dictionaries

• "a" on lipu Linku
• "a" on lipu Wikipesija
• "a" on English Wiktionary