[brandonhorst]

It would work fine as long as everyone consuming the shopping list has a reasonable idea what normal things your shopping lists. Things like "kili sike loje" (red round fruit) are ambiguous but are no doubt close enough to jog your memory enough to work.

The toughest part that comes to mind would be particular spices. You would probably need to start borrowing words to distinguish between things like thyme and rosemary ("namako Tin", "namako Loseli")

[dsr_]

One key characteristic of natural languages is that when they don't work, people invent and share new words.

kili sike loje isn't enough to distinguish cherries from cherry tomatoes, red grapes, cranberries, red currants, red plums or red apples -- every one of which is a perfectly reasonable thing for me to put on a shopping list.

And so you'll note that we have the words tomato, grape, cranberry, currant, plum and apple.

Now, French has a language academy to decree what is proper, and English --

"We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary." -- James Davis Nicoll

A language which isn't useful will either change or be abandoned. Natural languages almost always change.

[int_19h]

Languages often invent terms by combining existing words, though, and then some combinations become standard. Indeed, your own list has "red grapes" and "red currants"! For some other prominent examples, consider "pineapple" or "pomodoro" ("pomi d'oro").