13 ms·

Toki Pona

89 points by ColinWright 6y ago

bovermyer 6y ago
The really interesting thing about Toki Pona is that it's meant to force you to think about the meaning of your words in a positive light.
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
  Claiming that language limits what you can imagine is the strong version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and it's been pretty thoroughly debunked: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity
  - gliese1337 6y ago
    "It's meant to" and "it does" are different things.
  - quotemstr 6y ago
    Not everyone agrees that it's been "debunked". There's a lot of motivated reasoning in linguistics.
    - canjobear 6y ago
      You can read about the experiments yourself. Strong Sapir-Whorf (the idea that language determines thought) is DOA. Weak Sapir-Whorf (language has some influence on thought) has ok evidence.
codezero 6y ago
Learning the vocabulary is easy, but because the vocabulary is so small, it does become quite difficult to construct meaningful sentences following rules that are very local to a few words, which ultimately spans many words. Most often, it seems, like any language, a ton of the context becomes implied, so it’s super tricky. It’s still a fun weekend or multi weekend exercise in exploring languages though.
anonymfus 6y ago
Conlang Critic is a fan of this language: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLn6LC1RpAo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLn6LC1RpAo I highly recommend watching all episodes of their show if you like an idea of short text based video essays about constructed languages: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuYLhuXt4HrQqnfSceITmv6T_drx1hN84 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuYLhuXt4HrQqnfSceITm...
- lifthrasiir 6y ago
  I second this. If you are new to the series, the recent Lingwa de Planeta episode [1] contains a good introduction to conlangs and especially international auxiliary languages in general. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi1-ZWiqjD8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi1-ZWiqjD8
HeavenBanned 6y ago
I really love how body parts are consolidated so smartly. "noka" meaning thigh, shin and foot is just brilliant.
- gliese1337 6y ago
  You might like Russian, then.
  - therein 6y ago
    Care to elaborate? Genuinely curious.
    - gliese1337 6y ago
      Russian also has a single word for the entire lower limb, leg and foot included: "noga". Also a single word for the combined arm and hand: "ruka".
senorsmile 6y ago
A couple of years ago Memrise had a 48 hour challenge to learn it with a bunch of other people, and to try to speak at the end. I did quite terribly (as usual). Nevertheless, it was a fun challenge.
strogonoff 6y ago
Invented languages are overwhelmingly boring in their likeness to English, Spanish and other Western languages. What if we tried to create, say, a language with a logographic written system that is pure WYSIWYM (as opposed to “what you see is how you pronounce”) and synthetic to boot? Make it use vocal cords differently. Instead of borrowing around, use a random seed in generating a minimum set of unique basic “native” words according to language rules and build on top of that (borrowing for meanings outside of that set). This could be so much more fun!
- oehtXRwMkIs 6y ago
  > What if we tried to create, say, a language with a logographic written system that is pure WYSIWYM (as opposed to “what you see is how you pronounce”) and synthetic to boot? So Hangul?
  - strogonoff 6y ago
    Hangul characters carry no meaning, it is in fact purely pronunciation information. (Also, Korean isn’t a synthetic language, I should’ve been clearer that synthesis I have in mind is regarding language grammar not [just] the writing system.)
    - oehtXRwMkIs 6y ago
      Sorry about that. Just noticed that I misread your comment. It took me a while to realize that you wrote WYSIWYM to mean "what you see is what you mean". I don't get the appeal of logographic scripts though. I personally think an alphabet with strict pronunciation rules is the way to go. It's easy to learn and more predictable. And psychologically speaking it doesn't even matter all that much whether meaning is contained in words or characters. We read scripts by meaning anyways. In reading English for example, we read words, not characters. "It deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe."
schoen 6y ago
Maybe dang or some other public-spirited person could find some of the earlier toki pona threads from HN so people could see some of the earlier discussions? I know I've participated in quite a few of them because I know toki pona well and had various random things to comment on each time it was brought up here. :-) Edit: I guess the majority of these threads can be found with https://hn.algolia.com/?q=toki+pona https://hn.algolia.com/?q=toki+pona (including the recent one on a custom homemade computer with a native toki pona input and display, a project which was then described by its inventor exclusively in toki pona).
- 6510 6y ago
  thanks
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
stewbrew 6y ago
Does the title comply with HN rules? BTW to use an artificial language to understand real life is like asking a Catholic priest for marriage advice.
- lioeters 6y ago
  > [using] an artificial language to understand real life If anything, it seems like the study of an artificial language may lead to a better understanding of the human mind. And the "meaning of life" arguably can only be found in the mind, not in the "real world".
- ColinWright 6y ago
  The original title was carefully chosen, extracted from the pages themselves, to ensure that HN readers would have an idea of what it was supposed to be about, and not just a pair of random words. As such, I thought it did comply, and was helpful. Clearly the mods disagreed.
stanislavb 6y ago
An idea: If one learns to express himself in Toki Pona, would it be possible to communicate "freely" with natives by simply learning the equivalent vocabulary (120 words) of any other language?
dang 6y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22689959 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22689959 See also https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=Toki%20Pona%20comments%3E3&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

89 points by ColinWright 6y ago

The really interesting thing about Toki Pona is that it's meant to force you to think about the meaning of your words in a positive light.

9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
Claiming that language limits what you can imagine is the strong version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and it's been pretty thoroughly debunked: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity
- gliese1337 6y ago
  "It's meant to" and "it does" are different things.
- quotemstr 6y ago
  Not everyone agrees that it's been "debunked". There's a lot of motivated reasoning in linguistics.
  - canjobear 6y ago
    You can read about the experiments yourself. Strong Sapir-Whorf (the idea that language determines thought) is DOA. Weak Sapir-Whorf (language has some influence on thought) has ok evidence.

codezero 6y ago

Learning the vocabulary is easy, but because the vocabulary is so small, it does become quite difficult to construct meaningful sentences following rules that are very local to a few words, which ultimately spans many words. Most often, it seems, like any language, a ton of the context becomes implied, so it’s super tricky. It’s still a fun weekend or multi weekend exercise in exploring languages though.

anonymfus 6y ago

Conlang Critic is a fan of this language: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLn6LC1RpAo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLn6LC1RpAo I highly recommend watching all episodes of their show if you like an idea of short text based video essays about constructed languages: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuYLhuXt4HrQqnfSceITmv6T_drx1hN84 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuYLhuXt4HrQqnfSceITm...

lifthrasiir 6y ago
I second this. If you are new to the series, the recent Lingwa de Planeta episode [1] contains a good introduction to conlangs and especially international auxiliary languages in general. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi1-ZWiqjD8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi1-ZWiqjD8

HeavenBanned 6y ago

I really love how body parts are consolidated so smartly. "noka" meaning thigh, shin and foot is just brilliant.

gliese1337 6y ago
You might like Russian, then.
- therein 6y ago
  Care to elaborate? Genuinely curious.
  - gliese1337 6y ago
    Russian also has a single word for the entire lower limb, leg and foot included: "noga". Also a single word for the combined arm and hand: "ruka".

senorsmile 6y ago

A couple of years ago Memrise had a 48 hour challenge to learn it with a bunch of other people, and to try to speak at the end. I did quite terribly (as usual). Nevertheless, it was a fun challenge.

strogonoff 6y ago

Invented languages are overwhelmingly boring in their likeness to English, Spanish and other Western languages. What if we tried to create, say, a language with a logographic written system that is pure WYSIWYM (as opposed to “what you see is how you pronounce”) and synthetic to boot? Make it use vocal cords differently. Instead of borrowing around, use a random seed in generating a minimum set of unique basic “native” words according to language rules and build on top of that (borrowing for meanings outside of that set). This could be so much more fun!

oehtXRwMkIs 6y ago
> What if we tried to create, say, a language with a logographic written system that is pure WYSIWYM (as opposed to “what you see is how you pronounce”) and synthetic to boot? So Hangul?
- strogonoff 6y ago
  Hangul characters carry no meaning, it is in fact purely pronunciation information. (Also, Korean isn’t a synthetic language, I should’ve been clearer that synthesis I have in mind is regarding language grammar not [just] the writing system.)
  - oehtXRwMkIs 6y ago
    Sorry about that. Just noticed that I misread your comment. It took me a while to realize that you wrote WYSIWYM to mean "what you see is what you mean". I don't get the appeal of logographic scripts though. I personally think an alphabet with strict pronunciation rules is the way to go. It's easy to learn and more predictable. And psychologically speaking it doesn't even matter all that much whether meaning is contained in words or characters. We read scripts by meaning anyways. In reading English for example, we read words, not characters. "It deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe."

schoen 6y ago

Maybe dang or some other public-spirited person could find some of the earlier toki pona threads from HN so people could see some of the earlier discussions? I know I've participated in quite a few of them because I know toki pona well and had various random things to comment on each time it was brought up here. :-) Edit: I guess the majority of these threads can be found with https://hn.algolia.com/?q=toki+pona https://hn.algolia.com/?q=toki+pona (including the recent one on a custom homemade computer with a native toki pona input and display, a project which was then described by its inventor exclusively in toki pona).

6510 6y ago
thanks

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

stewbrew 6y ago

Does the title comply with HN rules? BTW to use an artificial language to understand real life is like asking a Catholic priest for marriage advice.

lioeters 6y ago
> [using] an artificial language to understand real life If anything, it seems like the study of an artificial language may lead to a better understanding of the human mind. And the "meaning of life" arguably can only be found in the mind, not in the "real world".
ColinWright 6y ago
The original title was carefully chosen, extracted from the pages themselves, to ensure that HN readers would have an idea of what it was supposed to be about, and not just a pair of random words. As such, I thought it did comply, and was helpful. Clearly the mods disagreed.

stanislavb 6y ago

An idea: If one learns to express himself in Toki Pona, would it be possible to communicate "freely" with natives by simply learning the equivalent vocabulary (120 words) of any other language?

dang 6y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22689959 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22689959 See also https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=Toki%20Pona%20comments%3E3&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...