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> Abstract concepts - The language seems to skate over complex philosophical or scientific ideas. You won't find an easy way to express ideas like "justice" or

> Abstract concepts - The language seems to skate over complex philosophical or scientific ideas. You won't find an easy way to express ideas like "justice" or "quantum". It's a testament to its minimalist design, but it also means some concepts are lost in translation. Justice could be translated as “sama pona” (literally “good sameness”). Quantum could be translated as “wan” (literally “unit”); so a quantum leap in the sense of a non-gradual physical movement would be “tawa wan” (“single movement”), whereas a quantum leap in the sense of a large change would be “ante suli” (“large difference”). You're right that it is very easy to lose nuance in translation. I guess that's true of translating between any two languages that are quite different. > Specific flora/fauna - While you can use terms like "kili", "kala", or "soweli" to describe plants, fish, or mammals, respectively, don't expect to convey specific species such as "maple tree" or "cat". It's a broad brush approach that lacks granularity. The idea is that rather than naming things, you describe them. A maple tree could be “kasi suwi” (“sweet tree”) or “kasi pi ma Kanata” (“Canadian tree”), depending on context. A cat could be “soweli pona” (“friendly animal”) or “soweli utala” (“fighty animal”) or “soweli utala pi luka kiwen” (“hard-clawed fighty animal”) or “soweli kalama” (“noisy animal”) or “soweli pona utala kalama” (“noisy fighty friend animal”), depending on your relationship to the individual. Toki pona forces you to think about which aspects are relevant to your meaning, and state the context explicitly. This is one of the stated intentions of the language, and therefore a feature rather than a bug :) > Idiomatic phrases - A repertoire of idioms or set phrases for common topics would make conversations feel more culturally rich and engaging. There are some of these, for example “jan pona” (“good person”) very commonly means “friend”.

JimDabell 3y ago
> “jan pona” (“good person”) very commonly means “friend”. But “good person” and “friend” are two very different things. I might describe a well-known charitable figure as a good person, but that wouldn’t mean I would be calling them my friend. One is a value judgement and the other is a personal relationship.
- Grimblewald 3y ago
  So call them "my good person" giving the implication of familiarity. Similarly my best person could be your best friend.
- bryanlarsen 3y ago
  That's likely no different than a homonym in English or a word with multiple meanings. Almost always context makes the meaning clear.
- GuB-42 3y ago
  ...in English But English has similar ambiguities. For example, a "girlfriend" is usually not just a girl friend. Other expressions are used when there is no romantic relationship. I don't know toki pona but there is probably another expression for actual good people. Maybe something like "person of high value".
  - themoonisachees 3y ago
    The language is also geared towards expressing ideas in general much more than expressing your own feelings. In this way, a "good person" is someone you would consider a friend even if you've never met, which while not exactly a concept that's entirely sane on the internet, makes a lot of sense in a more thighs knit community (eg: a good person is a friend to the community and therefore a friend to me).
  - tbodt 3y ago
    I have a direct answer: once you get good enough at toki pona to want to distinguish, you do some personal reflection about what a friend is to you and find more specific ways to say that, such as jan poka (accompanying person) or jan mi (my person). You can also specify whether jan li pona tawa mi (good to me) or li pona tawa kulupu (good to the broader community).
- gpgn 3y ago
  "Arm" and "hand" are two very different things (I guess?), but they are the same word (рука) in Russian.
Kwpolska 3y ago
If I ask you "do you have a pet?", and you respond "yes, I have a cat", I can easily imagine the pet you have and be generally right (maybe except the colour). How would you respond in Toki Pona so that an average person would understand you have a cat, not a dog or a guinea pig or fish or a rabbit?
- masklinn 3y ago
  From other comments, you would probably describe the pet’s features (likely with a fair amount of confusion / fuzziness), or some feature-descriptions might be stand-ins for specific animals. For instance imagine that rather than a cat your pet is a chuckwalla, while that name is quite precise, it is almost certainly useless to the average conversation partner because most people have no idea whatsoever what a chuckwalla is (or that there’s something called a chuckwalla in the first place).
  - Kwpolska 3y ago
    If you have an unusual pet, the name is useless, agreed. But everyone knows what an average pet, like a "cat" or a "dog" or a "guinea pig", looks like, and it would be weird to describe what a cat is in response to this question in most non-conlang languages.
ramblerman 3y ago
> Justice could be translated as “sama pona” (literally “good sameness”) But how is that not just a compound word that needs to be learnt? Because I would not guess justice from "good sameness", it might as well mean morality. So now you have to learn these compound words and the idea of a 130 word vocab is a bit dubious.
- bowsamic 3y ago
  Yeah I seem to be noticing a common theme here of claiming that new words are easy to create by putting these simple words together without realising that this doesn't really help anything without people agreeing on which combinations of words mean which things. If everyone starts to use "good sameness" for "justice", you now have a 131 word vocab. Repeat for how many combinations become common. Eventually you will end up with as many words as any other language. It's almost like the proponents of the small vocab of this language don't actually understand what a vocabulary is
- mughinn 3y ago
  The idea of the language is that you describe what you want to say in order for yourself to understand what you mean by each word The commenter thinks justice is good and about equality, do you? It's mostly a challenge in self-discovery, to know how you would describe different things with the limited dictionary It's not really made to communicate, although it is of course possible

JimDabell 3y ago

> “jan pona” (“good person”) very commonly means “friend”. But “good person” and “friend” are two very different things. I might describe a well-known charitable figure as a good person, but that wouldn’t mean I would be calling them my friend. One is a value judgement and the other is a personal relationship.

Grimblewald 3y ago
So call them "my good person" giving the implication of familiarity. Similarly my best person could be your best friend.
bryanlarsen 3y ago
That's likely no different than a homonym in English or a word with multiple meanings. Almost always context makes the meaning clear.
GuB-42 3y ago
...in English But English has similar ambiguities. For example, a "girlfriend" is usually not just a girl friend. Other expressions are used when there is no romantic relationship. I don't know toki pona but there is probably another expression for actual good people. Maybe something like "person of high value".
- themoonisachees 3y ago
  The language is also geared towards expressing ideas in general much more than expressing your own feelings. In this way, a "good person" is someone you would consider a friend even if you've never met, which while not exactly a concept that's entirely sane on the internet, makes a lot of sense in a more thighs knit community (eg: a good person is a friend to the community and therefore a friend to me).
- tbodt 3y ago
  I have a direct answer: once you get good enough at toki pona to want to distinguish, you do some personal reflection about what a friend is to you and find more specific ways to say that, such as jan poka (accompanying person) or jan mi (my person). You can also specify whether jan li pona tawa mi (good to me) or li pona tawa kulupu (good to the broader community).
gpgn 3y ago
"Arm" and "hand" are two very different things (I guess?), but they are the same word (рука) in Russian.

Kwpolska 3y ago

If I ask you "do you have a pet?", and you respond "yes, I have a cat", I can easily imagine the pet you have and be generally right (maybe except the colour). How would you respond in Toki Pona so that an average person would understand you have a cat, not a dog or a guinea pig or fish or a rabbit?

masklinn 3y ago
From other comments, you would probably describe the pet’s features (likely with a fair amount of confusion / fuzziness), or some feature-descriptions might be stand-ins for specific animals. For instance imagine that rather than a cat your pet is a chuckwalla, while that name is quite precise, it is almost certainly useless to the average conversation partner because most people have no idea whatsoever what a chuckwalla is (or that there’s something called a chuckwalla in the first place).
- Kwpolska 3y ago
  If you have an unusual pet, the name is useless, agreed. But everyone knows what an average pet, like a "cat" or a "dog" or a "guinea pig", looks like, and it would be weird to describe what a cat is in response to this question in most non-conlang languages.

ramblerman 3y ago

> Justice could be translated as “sama pona” (literally “good sameness”) But how is that not just a compound word that needs to be learnt? Because I would not guess justice from "good sameness", it might as well mean morality. So now you have to learn these compound words and the idea of a 130 word vocab is a bit dubious.

bowsamic 3y ago
Yeah I seem to be noticing a common theme here of claiming that new words are easy to create by putting these simple words together without realising that this doesn't really help anything without people agreeing on which combinations of words mean which things. If everyone starts to use "good sameness" for "justice", you now have a 131 word vocab. Repeat for how many combinations become common. Eventually you will end up with as many words as any other language. It's almost like the proponents of the small vocab of this language don't actually understand what a vocabulary is
mughinn 3y ago
The idea of the language is that you describe what you want to say in order for yourself to understand what you mean by each word The commenter thinks justice is good and about equality, do you? It's mostly a challenge in self-discovery, to know how you would describe different things with the limited dictionary It's not really made to communicate, although it is of course possible