Talk:Toki Pona/Archive 1

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General discussion of the language

This Toki Pona language seems to have been constructed to do two (related) things:

1. make it difficult to express analytical thought

2. encourage expression of emotional states or attitudes

I think Toki Pona might be good, not as a device for communication, but as a sort of filter: "Can I say this in Toki Pona" for poetry, etc.

I find it rather revealing why it was deliberately made impractical to express numbers in Toki Pona: it is given as a reason that numbers are used to count possessions, and materialism is discouraged. I use large numbers, but not to count possessions: what if I wish to count the footsteps to a place in my neighborhood? I am sure there are more. I think the real reason for not having much in the way of numbers is that numbers are analytical, and Toki Pona is more or less a language of emotion. Let's face it, grunts and gestures would probably be more useful for everyday communication than this Toki Pona. -User:Juuitchan

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Sure, is that good or bad? -Lament

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toki pona has a lot of features found in so-called primitive languages. One of them is the number system, consisting of "1, 2, 5, alot".

Another is that there are only 5 colors: yellow, red, blue, black, and white. Linguists often make a point about languages and cultures making the "blue-green" split, where there become different words for blue and green. In toki pona (as in Japanese!), there's no difference.

Part of the deal with toki pona is to take a break from complexity in language, and deal with things simply (and deal with simple things). It simulates a simpler life. It's fun and challenging and kind of refreshing. -Iwe

I'd like to see more info on the reasons behind the changes to the language, and less about the actual language structures. The language structures are only interesting to those wishing to learn Toki Pona (10-20 worldwide), but the reasons for the language are interesting to those interested in constructed languages generally - rather more people. Martin

What changes are you talking about? Lament

sorry, I don't mean "changes" I mean "differences" or "features". Basically, why did the creator of Toki Pona create Toki Pona? I'm assuming he wanted to make a statement about the world - that statement is, to me, more interesting than arcane details of a language I don't plan to speak... Martin

TP cutback

I have deleted from the following pages each one's only reference to Toki Pona language:

• Green
• Noun

On the following pages, where IMO the reference is reasonable, i added the phrase "the constructed language". (IMO, those 3 words should appear next to TP at its first use in every article. I have not, however, checked that that is the case on pages that seemed unlikely to require removal of their link to it.):

• Grammatical article
• Reductionism

--Jerzy 00:38, 2004 Feb 15 (UTC)

Compression?

I find it difficult to believe the creator of this language has somehow hit upon a linguistic form of universal compression, yet that seems to be what is intended. Given a text in English and its translation in Toki Pona, is it actually possible for a person who has no knowledge of the original text to translate it back? --Eequor 00:17, 23 May 2004 (UTC)

Not necessarily. In June 2003 a challenge was posted to the Toki Pona mailing list: a short text translated from English into Toki Pona, with a challenge to translate it back into English as close to the (unrevealed) original as possible. See [1] and the followups to that message. No one posted a correct retranslation.

But I don't think anyone claims that Toki Pona is as fully expressive as other languages with larger vocabularies. Nor do I see how the article is claiming any form of "universal compression". --Jim Henry 22:40, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

To be fair, correct retranslations are hard even with natural, more "complete" languages. I heard about a test, (although I don't have any source of this) where a short text was gradually translated on a path via several different languages, and then translated back the same path. When the test was completed, there were allegedly significant changes that have occurred. (I think some of these languages where languages such as Chinese and Japanese, where the ways of expression are quite different to Western Indo-European languages.) There was some web page, where a text could be translated on a path back and forth including languages such as Japanese and Chinese, and get back extremely strange. (although machine translation is quite unsophisticated to begin with.)

Programs?

Do the programs to express numbers in Toki Pona really belong in the article? The English text explains the algorithm clearly enough. - Jim Henry

Someone threw the bath water out with the baby. Not only are there no algorithms in the article, there is no text explaning how to do create larger numbers, (assuming it is permitted to do so in the language). Do Toki Ponaians never discuss their age? (Not a bad idea, actually) ;-) func(talk) 21:47, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Number of speakers of Toki Pona

This is primary unverified information, so it really isn't suitable for the article. But I thought it would be of interest to some people. It comes from #wikipedia briefly before the date of my signature. -- Tim Starling 14:04, Sep 11, 2004 (UTC)

<TimStarling> is that Sonjaaa as in Sonja Kisa?
<Sonjaaa> hi TimStarling, how do you know my name?
<TimStarling> we've spoken before, I think
<TimStarling> we were wondering earlier today how many people can speak Toki Pona
<TimStarling> the Wikipedia article doesn't say, and it would be nice to know
<Sonjaaa> TimStarling hmmm maybe a couple dozen speak it proficiently
<TimStarling> ok
<Sonjaaa> i dont know all the speakers
<Sonjaaa> the language has grown

Wikicities Encyclopedia

Maybe we could call the Wikicities site a "Wiki-Style encyclopedia" or something. It's not on Wikipedia, but AFAIK, it still works as a Wiki?

It not only works as a wiki, it is a wiki, in that it runs wiki-software (probably even the same one as Wikipedia uses). You could call the English Wikipedia a "Wiki-Style Encyclopedia", too!

If it is this line that you would like to change in the article:

Toki Pona language encyclopedia (formerly a Wikipedia)

then go right ahead and change it yourself, if you feel that the current wording is poor.

--Verdlanco (talk) 13:28, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Translation challenge

How do you say "I am dying in extreme pain because no-one in my community knows the words which tell you how to make antibiotics" in Toki Pona? Or "the women are sad because no-one can describe how to perform a caesarean section, so both the mother and baby died"? -- The Anome 14:34, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)

Larger Numbers with luka

Sonjaaa reverted the edit describing how larger numbers are formed using luka (literally "hand") to signify "five". She says that the usage is deprecated; but I observe that speakers of Toki Pona are still using this feature. [2] It looks as though the speaker base is large enough and active enough to decide for themselves whether to accept new changes in the language dictated by its creator. --Jim Henry | Talk 28 June 2005 19:33 (UTC)

At the very least, something more needs to be said in the article about TokiPona and numbers. I don't think most people understand how any language can get by without being able to expressing numbers greater than 5. There is this thing about the language not having bad things in it, and Sonia seems to consider numbers, in and of themselves, to be bad. So how, for example, would a happy person gleefully state that they are 32 years old? The numbers section needs more info. 209.92.136.131 28 June 2005 19:44 (UTC)

The message in the Toki Pona Yahoo group that I cited above contains the sentence,

tenpo luka luka luka wan la mi sike e suno.

time five five five one [separator] I circle [acc.] sun

I've circled the sun sixteen times == I'm sixteen years old.

I'm sure if I looked harder in the Yahoo group archives I could find more examples from different speakers; for instance, a quick search turns up [3], "mama pi jan Nini li jo e jan lili luka" ("Nini's mother has five children").

I'll add a couple of sentences to the article about stringing numbers together additively. --Jim Henry | Talk 28 June 2005 20:06 (UTC)

how, for example, would a happy person gleefully state that they are 32 years old? They'd probably consider their exact age irrelevant and merely call themselves "old" or "young".

Official literature?

Aside from the official literature....

What literature is the anonymous user (probably jan Pije, I would guess) referring to as official? --Jim Henry | Talk 5 July 2005 19:05 (UTC)