7 ms·

If you want to pick up a new language purely for fun, I wholeheartedly recommend toki pona[1]. Its small vocabulary (<200 words) and simple grammar force you to

If you want to pick up a new language purely for fun, I wholeheartedly recommend toki pona[1]. Its small vocabulary (<200 words) and simple grammar force you to break down complex thoughts into simple ideas. This feels limiting at first, but because there isn't a prescribed way to express certain ideas, it can provide an interesting look at how you see the world compared to others. As a quick example, there is no word for "child" in toki pona, many speakers say "jan lili" (small person), while others choose to say "jan sin" (new person). It's shockingly easy to learn and one can become pretty proficient in very little time. There's a great community to learn from on Discord[2], along with plenty of great online resources like /dev/urandom's toki pona page[3]. [1]: https://tokipona.org https://tokipona.org [2]: https://discord.gg/nbgXCC6 https://discord.gg/nbgXCC6 [3]: https://devurandom.xyz/tokipona/ https://devurandom.xyz/tokipona/

poulpy123 4y ago
But a child is neither a small person nor a new person...
- kangalioo 4y ago
  Child is used in many contexts, and not all of them are covered by "small person" or "new person", true. But I think the point is that you can come up with a precise alternative term for"child" in most contexts.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
nmz 4y ago
I don't like toki pona. if you're going to have 200 words, why make them long or random? hell, you could have a consonant and a vowel or 2 and you'd have have all of your words and now they could easily be composable together. votgil[1] is basically this but with a single vowel, I haven't dived too deep but it gets close to what it should be. There's also the fact that if you're going to go the toki pona way, you need to go even deeper into the fundamentals of life in order to achieve the right composability. (Think math but for objects). Blyss symbolics also seems to be a better option. Nevertheless it was fun to learn toki pona. and I probably would not have heard of interlingua,blyss, votgil, lojban without it. [1] http://www.ostracodfiles.com/votgil/main.html http://www.ostracodfiles.com/votgil/main.html
- jazzyjackson 4y ago
  > why make them long or random? To decrease their similarity, make it more difficult to confuse/conflate one word with another.
  - bmacho 4y ago
    But then use the theory of Shannon and Hamming distance to make the words as different as they can be
    - foxyv 4y ago
      Word cadence is also important. We tend to add length to short words and shorten long words naturally until we reach a certain cadence. Longer words can sometimes be easier to say than short ones. If you look at tongue twisters they tend to use short, similar words. By making every word short, you could make an entire language of tongue twisters! Edit: Also I think Toki Pona uses a reduced character set https://jansa-tp.github.io/tpcheatsheet/Toki%20Pona%20Cheat%20Sheet%20v2.pdf https://jansa-tp.github.io/tpcheatsheet/Toki%20Pona%20Cheat%...
      - harpiaharpyja 4y ago
        Toki Pona definitely has fewer phonemes than English (which IIRC has an above-average number of phonemes compared to other natural languages). Having fewer phonemes is important for a language like Toki Pona because it makes pronunciation much more forgiving.
- gerdesj 4y ago
  A language should be complicated but only complicate enough to convey the concept in mind. A 200 word limit will render a language too shallow to even discuss the concept of shallow. Assertion: no proof. [soz, lol etc]
  - karencarits 4y ago
    Yes, I guess (never heard about toki pona before) you would have to rethink how to communicate. Maybe shallow could be presented as "lukin ala" (nothing to examine), "taso sele" (only a surface) or "kote muli" (hearing something dead) I am more surprised that you would spend one of your 137 words on "sex, to have sexual relations" as almost every language has countless ways of referring to sex without using the word itself

poulpy123 4y ago

But a child is neither a small person nor a new person...

kangalioo 4y ago
Child is used in many contexts, and not all of them are covered by "small person" or "new person", true. But I think the point is that you can come up with a precise alternative term for"child" in most contexts.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

nmz 4y ago

I don't like toki pona. if you're going to have 200 words, why make them long or random? hell, you could have a consonant and a vowel or 2 and you'd have have all of your words and now they could easily be composable together. votgil[1] is basically this but with a single vowel, I haven't dived too deep but it gets close to what it should be. There's also the fact that if you're going to go the toki pona way, you need to go even deeper into the fundamentals of life in order to achieve the right composability. (Think math but for objects). Blyss symbolics also seems to be a better option. Nevertheless it was fun to learn toki pona. and I probably would not have heard of interlingua,blyss, votgil, lojban without it. [1] http://www.ostracodfiles.com/votgil/main.html http://www.ostracodfiles.com/votgil/main.html

jazzyjackson 4y ago
> why make them long or random? To decrease their similarity, make it more difficult to confuse/conflate one word with another.
- bmacho 4y ago
  But then use the theory of Shannon and Hamming distance to make the words as different as they can be
  - foxyv 4y ago
    Word cadence is also important. We tend to add length to short words and shorten long words naturally until we reach a certain cadence. Longer words can sometimes be easier to say than short ones. If you look at tongue twisters they tend to use short, similar words. By making every word short, you could make an entire language of tongue twisters! Edit: Also I think Toki Pona uses a reduced character set https://jansa-tp.github.io/tpcheatsheet/Toki%20Pona%20Cheat%20Sheet%20v2.pdf https://jansa-tp.github.io/tpcheatsheet/Toki%20Pona%20Cheat%...
    - harpiaharpyja 4y ago
      Toki Pona definitely has fewer phonemes than English (which IIRC has an above-average number of phonemes compared to other natural languages). Having fewer phonemes is important for a language like Toki Pona because it makes pronunciation much more forgiving.
gerdesj 4y ago
A language should be complicated but only complicate enough to convey the concept in mind. A 200 word limit will render a language too shallow to even discuss the concept of shallow. Assertion: no proof. [soz, lol etc]
- karencarits 4y ago
  Yes, I guess (never heard about toki pona before) you would have to rethink how to communicate. Maybe shallow could be presented as "lukin ala" (nothing to examine), "taso sele" (only a surface) or "kote muli" (hearing something dead) I am more surprised that you would spend one of your 137 words on "sex, to have sexual relations" as almost every language has countless ways of referring to sex without using the word itself