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I love Toki Pona and have been using it for a little while. You can check my YouTube channel if you wish to see/hear it live in action: https://www.youtube.com/

I love Toki Pona and have been using it for a little while. You can check my YouTube channel if you wish to see/hear it live in action: https://www.youtube.com/@janPolijan https://www.youtube.com/@janPolijan Toki Pona gives you the fun part of using a foreign language, but it skips the boring part of having to learn a ton a grammar and vocabulary. And the phonology is delightfully simple, so you won't have a bad accent. There's a growing and very active community around it and people write and share novels and songs. But it's also useful just as a personal language because it's really like a game for your mind. After a while, you reach proficiency and then fluency and it gets even better. It is absolutely possible to explain fairly complex things if you continue to push it. You obviously wouldn't want to do engineering in Toki Pona, but explaining quite complex topics is absolutely possible if you really desire (for example, someone has put a YouTube video explaining non-euclidean geometry in Toki Pona). One final thing: contrary to popular belief, Toki Pona is not designed to be as minimal as possible (the "tuki tiki" conlang with only 39 words modifies Toki Pona and pushes towards true minimalism). Toki Pona sure is tiny, but it's mostly designed to be fun and retain expressiveness.

ghayes 3y ago
I guess my question is: as you invent new phrases to describe more complex words, aren’t you effectively expanding the size of the language, even if this is “implicit”? Snowman in English is counted as a word, for instance. The advantage here of compound words is that you can easily get a gist without knowing exactly the meaning, similar to characters in Chinese that have a phonetic and meaning radical both present.
- chris_st 3y ago
  Just like in English: "Show up" is, ostensibly, two words, but it's a phrase with a different meaning that either "show" or "up". So yes, pretty much. But "Blue Sky" is two words indicating a single thing, but that thing is both "blue" and "sky", so no, you're not really expanding the language. That said, I don't speak Tiki Pona, so I don't know how the language is used by the various communities that actually speak it.
  - brabel 3y ago
    This kind of phrase usually has a historical origin. I tried to find out what it is for "show up" but apparently, this is a very recent one and originally meant something else entirely: "verbal phrase, by 1826 as "to disgrace through exposure;" It then changed to the current meaning only in around 1888, just ~135 years ago: "The meaning "to put in an appearance, be (merely) present" is by 1888." Unfortunately, I couldn't find any explanation based on historical use of the phrase (phrasal verb, to be accurate), but given it's a quite recent one, it probably originated from people just trying to emphasize "completion" of the "show" action by adding "up", like with most other phrasal verbs. Source: https://www.etymonline.com/word/show%20up https://www.etymonline.com/word/show%20up
    - chris_st 3y ago
      Thanks! Yes, I remember reading older novels (Austen, maybe?) where the "disgrace through exposure" sense was used... it was obvious what was meant, but surprising.
      - IIsi50MHz 3y ago
        "disgrace through superior performance" is a current meaning. AA does a thing, and then (especially if AA appears to be getting praise for it or appears proud of it), BB either does it better or does something more difficult (usually accompanied by a derisive remark about AA or AA's work).
- florianist 3y ago
  There are common forms for certains words of course, but no lexicalisation. In Toki Pona, you're not adding words, set phrases, to the language's lexicon. So there are no compound words that would be set in stone and things can and do change depending on the situation. Let's take an example: coffee. The word "telo" is some form liquid or water, so coffee could simply be just telo (if you're in context where it's clear), but you may just add it's the dark/black liquid ("telo pimeja"), or the strong hot drink ("telo wawa seli"), or the liquid of no sleep ("telo pi lape ala"), or there are many other possibilities depending on what's the important aspect you emphasize and how brief or precise you want/need to be (if you need a lot of precision, you'll end up doing several sentences, but you'll get there).
  - jprete 3y ago
    Set phrases aren’t consciously created, they’re the accumulated contextual/cultural meaning that people remember for the phrase, until people no longer use it to point at the literal meaning. If some group always drinks coffee and never tea, then eventually “strong hot drink” means “coffee”, and an outsider who asks for their own group’s “strong hot drink” (always meaning tea) is going to get a bitter surprise.
    - Brian_K_White 3y ago
      I don't think they would be surprised, since anyone having used the language enough to get to that point would know how it works, and they would know that they are not in their usual context. It's like leaving out units of measure. We sometimes omit them, but we practically never lose track of when it makes sense to or have to consciously think about it.
      - baq 3y ago
        The first time my ~3 yo daughter saw the sea she exclaimed 'POOL!' Make of this what you wish ;)
        Brian_K_White 3y ago
- jahnu 3y ago
  The equi-complexity hypothesis states that all languages are equally complex and just trade off complexity in one area for simplicity in another. However, it is not yet accepted and highly disputed. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_complexity https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_complexity
  - worldsayshi 3y ago
    Languages seem to often have a lot of accidental complexity though, that doesn't seem to add anything and just makes it harder to learn. Like irregularities. Seem to come from a lack of design.
- asoneth 3y ago
  > aren’t you effectively expanding the size of the language, even if this is “implicit”? Yes, this is how Toki Pona dictionaries work. For example, there is a surprisingly thick two-way English - Toki Pona dictionary, "ku", which includes more than 11k entries such as "tomo tawa" for "car" or "ilo kalama" for a radio. See https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51n8JCdFlQL.jpg https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51n8JCdFlQL.jpg or other images from https://www.amazon.com/dp/0978292367/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/0978292367/ Note that as it is descriptive rather than proscriptive, each translation has a superscript indicating what fraction of English-speaking Toki Pona speakers used that particular translation when the book was written. I don't have my copy on hand but I recall that there was a community survey and Sonia Lang used some kind of scale such as 4 for a universally accepted meaning down to 1 or 1/2 as a highly idiosyncratic/fanciful translation only used by a small number of people. I suspect if the language evolves some people may compress these further so that "tomo tawa" becomes "tomo-tawa" becomes "tomotawa" which may help with parsing written text. Perhaps fluent speakers do not have this problem, but I typically have to read a sentence more than once to parse it correctly.
- isykt 3y ago
  > Snowman in English is counted as a word, for instance. Note that for linguists, the definition of “word” is so slippery as to not have much use. It boils down to “because it’s written that way,” and even that is a stretch, because this definition is different for other languages. And of course, not every language is written. To use your Chinese / Mandarin example, Mandarin does something very similar to Toki Pona in terms of inventing new phrases to describe more complex concepts (here I avoid using “words” in this context because it’s not a useful concept for our use): chéngyǔ are four character idiom phrases that are not words, but references to much longer cultural stories. They have a distinct meaning, but they are not considered words.
yieldcrv 3y ago
to save everyone time and ad gambles, here is a video from that channel of him actually speaking it https://youtu.be/LHBIAum58QI https://youtu.be/LHBIAum58QI
- florianist 3y ago
  I don't have ads, so you can safely check the whole channel. If one wishes to preview one single video, check rather this one as it's shorter and has actually better spoken toki pona, plus subtitles are available in English (and other langs): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGx_gjTqEyU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGx_gjTqEyU
  - yieldcrv 3y ago
    Ads appeared when I used your/that channel before the video started, sometimes, there are some that you dont have control over
frankzander 3y ago
> but it skips the boring part of having to learn a ton a grammar and vocabulary. you haven't do it that way if don't want. It's just the school way and how many people can speak or even understanding fluently after leaving school?
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
slushh 3y ago
To see its utility, could you translate the beginning of your comment into Toki Pona, please?
- mattdesl 3y ago
  ChatGPT seems to do an ok job, although I have no idea how accurate it is. Here’s one translation of the comment: > mi olin e toki pona. mi toki kepeken ona tan tenpo lili. sina ken lukin e tomo tawa mi lon lipu "https://www.youtube.com/@janPolijan https://www.youtube.com/@janPolijan". toki pona li pona tawa toki musi, taso ona li jo ala e toki mute e nasin toki mute. kalama ona li pona li lili. kulupu pi toki pona li suli e toki. jan li toki e toki mute e toki musi. taso, toki pona li pona tawa toki insa tan ona li musi tawa lawa. tenpo kama la, sina ken toki pona mute. sina ken toki e toki suli. taso, sina wile ala toki e toki pi ilo tawa kepeken toki pona. jan li toki e toki pi ilo sona suli lon tomo tawa lipu. toki pona li lili, taso ona li musi li ken toki e toki mute. Re-translated back to English in a new chat: > "I love Toki Pona. I've been speaking it for a short time. You can see my channel at "https://www.youtube.com/@janPolijan https://www.youtube.com/@janPolijan". Toki Pona is good for playful conversation, but it doesn't have many words or complex grammar. Its sound is pleasant but minimal. The Toki Pona community enhances the language. People speak many fun conversations. However, Toki Pona is great for introspective conversation because it's fun for the mind. In the future, you might speak a lot of Toki Pona. You can have long conversations. However, you might not want to discuss technology using Toki Pona. People discuss technological topics in great depth on channels. Toki Pona is small, but it's fun and can express many things."
  - tbodt 3y ago
    Lots of little mistakes, here's an accurate back translation I love Toki Pona. I've been speaking it from a short time. You can see my vehicle at https://www.youtube.com/@janPolijan https://www.youtube.com/@janPolijan. Toki Pona is good for fun conversation, but it doesn't have a lot of talking or ways of talking. Its sounds are nice and few. The toki pona community is growing the language. People do a lot of talking and have fun conversations. But toki pona is good for thinking in because of it and is fun for the mind. You'll be able to talk a lot in Toki Pona in the future. You'll be able to say large things. But you won't want to talk about transportation technology in Toki Pona. People talk in about big knowledge gadgets in book vehicles. [lol] Toki Pona is small, but it's fun and can say a lot of things.
jan_Sate 3y ago
toki a! mi sona e sitelen tawa sina. ona li musi mute tawa mi. :)
- florianist 3y ago
  a! toki sina la, mi pilin pona.
gsuuon 3y ago
I've always thought it was interesting that in English there are lots of different words which mean the same thing but a different scale - like pebble / rock / boulder. It could easily just be little rock, rock, big rock. In a lot of cases the distinction does matter though, because what we can _do_ with a thing changes at different scales. We can throw a pebble without really hurting someone, a rock would be mean, and a boulder would mean you're a giant.
billy_bitchtits 3y ago
how many hours do you think an average person would need to gain fluency?

ghayes 3y ago

I guess my question is: as you invent new phrases to describe more complex words, aren’t you effectively expanding the size of the language, even if this is “implicit”? Snowman in English is counted as a word, for instance. The advantage here of compound words is that you can easily get a gist without knowing exactly the meaning, similar to characters in Chinese that have a phonetic and meaning radical both present.

chris_st 3y ago
Just like in English: "Show up" is, ostensibly, two words, but it's a phrase with a different meaning that either "show" or "up". So yes, pretty much. But "Blue Sky" is two words indicating a single thing, but that thing is both "blue" and "sky", so no, you're not really expanding the language. That said, I don't speak Tiki Pona, so I don't know how the language is used by the various communities that actually speak it.
- brabel 3y ago
  This kind of phrase usually has a historical origin. I tried to find out what it is for "show up" but apparently, this is a very recent one and originally meant something else entirely: "verbal phrase, by 1826 as "to disgrace through exposure;" It then changed to the current meaning only in around 1888, just ~135 years ago: "The meaning "to put in an appearance, be (merely) present" is by 1888." Unfortunately, I couldn't find any explanation based on historical use of the phrase (phrasal verb, to be accurate), but given it's a quite recent one, it probably originated from people just trying to emphasize "completion" of the "show" action by adding "up", like with most other phrasal verbs. Source: https://www.etymonline.com/word/show%20up https://www.etymonline.com/word/show%20up
  - chris_st 3y ago
    Thanks! Yes, I remember reading older novels (Austen, maybe?) where the "disgrace through exposure" sense was used... it was obvious what was meant, but surprising.
    - IIsi50MHz 3y ago
      "disgrace through superior performance" is a current meaning. AA does a thing, and then (especially if AA appears to be getting praise for it or appears proud of it), BB either does it better or does something more difficult (usually accompanied by a derisive remark about AA or AA's work).
florianist 3y ago
There are common forms for certains words of course, but no lexicalisation. In Toki Pona, you're not adding words, set phrases, to the language's lexicon. So there are no compound words that would be set in stone and things can and do change depending on the situation. Let's take an example: coffee. The word "telo" is some form liquid or water, so coffee could simply be just telo (if you're in context where it's clear), but you may just add it's the dark/black liquid ("telo pimeja"), or the strong hot drink ("telo wawa seli"), or the liquid of no sleep ("telo pi lape ala"), or there are many other possibilities depending on what's the important aspect you emphasize and how brief or precise you want/need to be (if you need a lot of precision, you'll end up doing several sentences, but you'll get there).
- jprete 3y ago
  Set phrases aren’t consciously created, they’re the accumulated contextual/cultural meaning that people remember for the phrase, until people no longer use it to point at the literal meaning. If some group always drinks coffee and never tea, then eventually “strong hot drink” means “coffee”, and an outsider who asks for their own group’s “strong hot drink” (always meaning tea) is going to get a bitter surprise.
  - Brian_K_White 3y ago
    I don't think they would be surprised, since anyone having used the language enough to get to that point would know how it works, and they would know that they are not in their usual context. It's like leaving out units of measure. We sometimes omit them, but we practically never lose track of when it makes sense to or have to consciously think about it.
    - baq 3y ago
      The first time my ~3 yo daughter saw the sea she exclaimed 'POOL!' Make of this what you wish ;)
      - Brian_K_White 3y ago
jahnu 3y ago
The equi-complexity hypothesis states that all languages are equally complex and just trade off complexity in one area for simplicity in another. However, it is not yet accepted and highly disputed. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_complexity https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_complexity
- worldsayshi 3y ago
  Languages seem to often have a lot of accidental complexity though, that doesn't seem to add anything and just makes it harder to learn. Like irregularities. Seem to come from a lack of design.
asoneth 3y ago
> aren’t you effectively expanding the size of the language, even if this is “implicit”? Yes, this is how Toki Pona dictionaries work. For example, there is a surprisingly thick two-way English - Toki Pona dictionary, "ku", which includes more than 11k entries such as "tomo tawa" for "car" or "ilo kalama" for a radio. See https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51n8JCdFlQL.jpg https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51n8JCdFlQL.jpg or other images from https://www.amazon.com/dp/0978292367/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/0978292367/ Note that as it is descriptive rather than proscriptive, each translation has a superscript indicating what fraction of English-speaking Toki Pona speakers used that particular translation when the book was written. I don't have my copy on hand but I recall that there was a community survey and Sonia Lang used some kind of scale such as 4 for a universally accepted meaning down to 1 or 1/2 as a highly idiosyncratic/fanciful translation only used by a small number of people. I suspect if the language evolves some people may compress these further so that "tomo tawa" becomes "tomo-tawa" becomes "tomotawa" which may help with parsing written text. Perhaps fluent speakers do not have this problem, but I typically have to read a sentence more than once to parse it correctly.
isykt 3y ago
> Snowman in English is counted as a word, for instance. Note that for linguists, the definition of “word” is so slippery as to not have much use. It boils down to “because it’s written that way,” and even that is a stretch, because this definition is different for other languages. And of course, not every language is written. To use your Chinese / Mandarin example, Mandarin does something very similar to Toki Pona in terms of inventing new phrases to describe more complex concepts (here I avoid using “words” in this context because it’s not a useful concept for our use): chéngyǔ are four character idiom phrases that are not words, but references to much longer cultural stories. They have a distinct meaning, but they are not considered words.

yieldcrv 3y ago

to save everyone time and ad gambles, here is a video from that channel of him actually speaking it https://youtu.be/LHBIAum58QI https://youtu.be/LHBIAum58QI

florianist 3y ago
I don't have ads, so you can safely check the whole channel. If one wishes to preview one single video, check rather this one as it's shorter and has actually better spoken toki pona, plus subtitles are available in English (and other langs): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGx_gjTqEyU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGx_gjTqEyU
- yieldcrv 3y ago
  Ads appeared when I used your/that channel before the video started, sometimes, there are some that you dont have control over

frankzander 3y ago

> but it skips the boring part of having to learn a ton a grammar and vocabulary. you haven't do it that way if don't want. It's just the school way and how many people can speak or even understanding fluently after leaving school?

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

slushh 3y ago

To see its utility, could you translate the beginning of your comment into Toki Pona, please?

mattdesl 3y ago
ChatGPT seems to do an ok job, although I have no idea how accurate it is. Here’s one translation of the comment: > mi olin e toki pona. mi toki kepeken ona tan tenpo lili. sina ken lukin e tomo tawa mi lon lipu "https://www.youtube.com/@janPolijan https://www.youtube.com/@janPolijan". toki pona li pona tawa toki musi, taso ona li jo ala e toki mute e nasin toki mute. kalama ona li pona li lili. kulupu pi toki pona li suli e toki. jan li toki e toki mute e toki musi. taso, toki pona li pona tawa toki insa tan ona li musi tawa lawa. tenpo kama la, sina ken toki pona mute. sina ken toki e toki suli. taso, sina wile ala toki e toki pi ilo tawa kepeken toki pona. jan li toki e toki pi ilo sona suli lon tomo tawa lipu. toki pona li lili, taso ona li musi li ken toki e toki mute. Re-translated back to English in a new chat: > "I love Toki Pona. I've been speaking it for a short time. You can see my channel at "https://www.youtube.com/@janPolijan https://www.youtube.com/@janPolijan". Toki Pona is good for playful conversation, but it doesn't have many words or complex grammar. Its sound is pleasant but minimal. The Toki Pona community enhances the language. People speak many fun conversations. However, Toki Pona is great for introspective conversation because it's fun for the mind. In the future, you might speak a lot of Toki Pona. You can have long conversations. However, you might not want to discuss technology using Toki Pona. People discuss technological topics in great depth on channels. Toki Pona is small, but it's fun and can express many things."
- tbodt 3y ago
  Lots of little mistakes, here's an accurate back translation I love Toki Pona. I've been speaking it from a short time. You can see my vehicle at https://www.youtube.com/@janPolijan https://www.youtube.com/@janPolijan. Toki Pona is good for fun conversation, but it doesn't have a lot of talking or ways of talking. Its sounds are nice and few. The toki pona community is growing the language. People do a lot of talking and have fun conversations. But toki pona is good for thinking in because of it and is fun for the mind. You'll be able to talk a lot in Toki Pona in the future. You'll be able to say large things. But you won't want to talk about transportation technology in Toki Pona. People talk in about big knowledge gadgets in book vehicles. [lol] Toki Pona is small, but it's fun and can say a lot of things.

jan_Sate 3y ago

toki a! mi sona e sitelen tawa sina. ona li musi mute tawa mi. :)

florianist 3y ago
a! toki sina la, mi pilin pona.

gsuuon 3y ago

I've always thought it was interesting that in English there are lots of different words which mean the same thing but a different scale - like pebble / rock / boulder. It could easily just be little rock, rock, big rock. In a lot of cases the distinction does matter though, because what we can _do_ with a thing changes at different scales. We can throw a pebble without really hurting someone, a rock would be mean, and a boulder would mean you're a giant.

billy_bitchtits 3y ago

how many hours do you think an average person would need to gain fluency?