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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 th
by 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 agoSet 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 agoI 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 agoThe first time my ~3 yo daughter saw the sea she exclaimed 'POOL!' Make of this what you wish ;)
- Brian_K_White 3y agoI have a convertible. My nephew in law? (Wife's brothers son, now I wonder how you express that in Toki, you don't bother, he's just young relative maybe?) had seen that car when I visit several times over the course of a few years, and it just happened that in his entire short life up to then, he had never seen it with the top up. One day we show up with the top up. We're inside and he comes in to tell his parents my car has "a cover or shield" I don't know why but we all love this.
- argiopetech 3y agoThat's just a newphew, in the same way that my brother in law is my daughter's uncle.
- uxamanda 3y agoNice example of when a typo expresses the idea better. :-D
- esperent 3y agoHow would you differentiate between black tea and coffee in toki pona?
- reverius42 3y agoNot a Toki Pona speaker (yet), but I'd guess some variation/inclusion of "liquid from leaf" vs. "liquid from bean".
- esperent 3y agoThere's no specific word or term for either leaf or bean though.
- worldsayshi 3y agoCould you add a phrase for beans in there?
- traverseda 3y agoNo word for beans but "kasi" means (leaf, herb, wood, plant), or maybe you have a green tea, "jelo" mean (yellow, light green).
- Brian_K_White 3y agoI think the idea is you don't bother to unless it actually matters in a given situation, and when it does, you just add more words. Probably writers get this more easily. I think they are trained and edited constantly to avoid unnecessary fluff, and identify what is pointful atmospheric detail and what it pointless detail. Does the story actually change depending on what drink dad enjoyed with his morning paper? Maybe if it was spiked, or if it was a pointed aspect of his character that he drank chocolate which others find childish, and he knows it and doesn't care. So it could, but in 99% of scenes I don't think it does matter, it only matters that it's a common thing that people do, and a common setting prop. If the language were not English and the standard way to say "morning coffee" was something else instead of specifically coffee, the scenes and stories all function exactly the same.
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- tgv 3y agoSame goes for accents. Any group will develop an accent, and it will be dominated by the group's native accent. Toki Pona won't be able to escape those, not even at small scale. I also predict the inclusion of loan words, should the language ever go beyond purists.
- brabel 3y agoWhen you ask for "a cup of coffee" in different countries, you may also get pretty surprised at what you get (it may be a tiny cup, or a large glass, sugary or bitter, with milk or without...).
- kwhitefoot 3y agoBut you probably will get coffee.
- Xorakios 3y agonot even just countries - my family from California visited NYC and kept getting frustrated when they said just wanted a "regular coffee," until someone finally realized they meant "black coffee" and it was racist to say black, so they had to order "plain coffee, no milk or sugar"
- alyandon 3y agoliquid of no sleep I shall now never be able to think of coffee and also not immediately think of this discussion and that particular phrase. Thanks. :)
- troupo 3y agoThat... is exactly how a language is expanded, "set phrases" are established and dialects are born. If Toki Pona was used as an actual language in an everyday setting in a community, it would quickly get set, established terms and phrases for things, and essentially expand the vocabulary.
- masklinn 3y agoOr the community would literally just expand the vocabulary directly, unless toki pona has mechanisms to preempt this which doesn’t seem to be the case. Except for the scripts, which both seem to be ideographic, but even then nothing precludes creating new ideographs.
- troupo 3y agoAnd inevitably at one point something like "hot brown water" will become a single term for coffee. And then it will be contracted into something like "hobrow" because the original term was too long :)
- bobboies 3y agoYeah folks should probably be looking at something like Latin for comparison. Latin vs English, Italian, French, etc. And a good thought experiment—if one spoke Latin only, how would modern concepts or words be constructed as Latin and not one of its descendants.
- kwhitefoot 3y agoThe Roman Catholic church uses Latin for official definitive documents so they presumably have ways of expressing at least some modern concepts. "Reginald Foster, a former plumber’s apprentice from Milwaukee who, in four decades as an official Latinist of the Vatican, dreamed in Latin, cursed in Latin, banked in Latin and ultimately tweeted in Latin, died on Friday at a nursing home in Milwaukee. He was LXXXI. " https://web.archive.org/web/20201227172007/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/27/obituaries/reginald-foster-vatican-latinist-who-tweeted-in-the-language-dies-at-81.html https://web.archive.org/web/20201227172007/https://www.nytim...
- petters 3y agoSeems it could take some explanation to ask a guest whether they wanted coffee or tea. But a language with 200 words necessarily becomes verbose I suppose
- josu 3y ago>Seems it could take some explanation to ask a guest whether they wanted coffee or tea. Green or black liquid?
- agnosticmantis 3y agoNow we have a word for green too? /s Looking it up, it seems like there are only five words for colors: pimeja (black), walo (white), loje (red), jelo (yellow), and laso (blue and green)
- josu 3y agoInteresting. I asked GPT4 if it can translate and it responded a very confident Yes. Below is the translation. In Toki Pona, the translation for "Would you like coffee or tea?" would be: "sina wile e kafe anu telo nasa?" Here's a breakdown: "sina" = you "wile" = want/need "e" = direct object marker "kafe" = coffee (borrowed word) "anu" = or "telo nasa" = literally "intoxicating liquid", often used to mean "tea" or "alcohol" (there's no specific word for "tea" in Toki Pona, but in some contexts, "telo nasa" can be used to mean tea) It's worth noting that because Toki Pona has such a limited vocabulary, some words and concepts may be represented differently than in other languages.
- MagicMoonlight 3y agoLmao that is awful. Do you want a laso dress or a laso dress?
- saaaaaam 3y agoNo, easy! Laso or jelo laso. Loje laso walo = mauve I guess.
- ithkuil 3y agoThere are real languages that kinda sorta work that way already. For example in Tok Pisin helicopter is called "mixmaster bilong Jesus Christ" (Jesus Christ's food blender) or piano: bigpela bokis he got whitepela teeth hegot blackpela teeth sappos you hittim him he cry out (big box with white and black keys that cries out when you hit it)
- leeoniya 3y agoyou're not John Quijada, by chance, are you? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ithkuil https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ithkuil https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8180493 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8180493
- ithkuil 3y agono, I'm just a fan
- lproven 3y agoEmi fulup gud dei. Emi fulup gud dei, yumi 2 fela, tekim sol-water 1-eye fela, put im long postofis letahol blong praya-fela pasta-man, tel im: "Sky islan twinky-twink planty-fela ia!" This is from Ken Campbell, the UK's greatest populariser of what he called "wol wontok". https://ianlouisharris.com/tag/piotr-baumann/ https://ianlouisharris.com/tag/piotr-baumann/ It's a Ken Dodd joke, in pidgin. Original: https://twitter.com/profdanslater/status/973184442566172678 https://twitter.com/profdanslater/status/973184442566172678
- bitcharmer 3y agoIf I need to use 16 words to say "piano" then it's not a very practical language, IMO
- dalore 3y agoThis is rubbish. We had a piano and it was never called that, neither were helicopters. Tok pisin was my first language, left with the babysitter when growing up.
- MagicMoonlight 3y agoYou say that because you’re 1st gen. If this language went anywhere then the people in the 2nd gen will start adding complex words and structures that you never taught them. This has all been observed before and is inevitable. You want them to call it “telo pi lape ala” but that’s shit so they’ll call it tala or lapela or something. That will then become the word for it.