Toki Pona

Toki Pona has nine consonants (/p, t, k, s, m, n, l, j, w/) and five vowels (/a, e, i, o, u/),[1][4] shown here with the International Phonetic Alphabet symbols. Stress falls on the initial syllable of a word, and it is marked by an increase in loudness, length, and pitch.[24] There are no diphthongs, contrasting vowel length, consonant clusters (except those starting with the nasal coda), or tones.[1] Both its sound inventory and phonotactics are compatible with the majority of human languages, and are therefore readily accessible.[5]

The statistical vowel spread is fairly typical when compared with other languages.[1] Counting each root once, 32% of vowels are /a/, 25% are /i/, with /e/ and /o/ a bit over 15% each, and 10% are /u/.[1] The usage frequency in a 10kB sample of texts was slightly more skewed: 34% /a/, 30% /i/, 15% each /e/ and /o/, and 6% /u/.[25]

Of the syllable-initial consonants, /l/ is the most common, at 20% total; /k, s, p/ are over 10%, then the nasals /m, n/ (not counting final N), with the least common, at little more than 5% each, being /t, w, j/. The high frequency of /l/ and low frequency of /t/ is somewhat unusual among the world's languages.[1]

Syllables are of the form (C)V(N), i.e. optional consonant + vowel + optional final nasal, or V, CV, VN, CVN. The consonant is obligatory in syllables that are not word-initial.[17] As in most languages, CV is the most common syllable type, at 75% (counting each root once). V and CVN syllables are each around 10%, while only 5 words have VN syllables (for 2% of syllables).[1]

Most roots (70%) are disyllabic; about 20% are monosyllables and 10% trisyllables. This is a common distribution, and similar to Polynesian.[1]

The following sequences are not allowed: */ji, wu, wo, ti/, nor may a syllable's final nasal occur before /m/ or /n/ in the same root.[1][17]

Proper nouns are usually converted into Toki Pona proper adjectives using a set of guidelines. The native, or even colloquial, pronunciation is used as the basis for the subsequent sound conversion. Thus, England or English become Inli and John becomes San.[26]

The nasal at the end of a syllable can be pronounced as any nasal stop, though it is normally assimilated to the following consonant. That is, it typically occurs as an [n] before /t/, /s/ or /l/, as an [m] before /p/ or /w/, as an [ŋ] before /k/, and as an [ɲ] before /j/.[1]

Because of its small phoneme inventory, Toki Pona allows for extensive allophonic variation. For example, /p t k/ may be pronounced [b d ɡ] as well as [p t k], /s/ as [z] or [ʃ] as well as [s], /l/ as [ɾ] as well as [l], and vowels may be either long or short.[1]

sitelen pona hieroglyphs from Toki Pona: The Language of Good by Sonja Lang

The sitelen pona ('good/simple writing/drawing') writing system was devised as an alternative writing system by Lang herself, and first published in her book Toki Pona: The Language of Good in 2014.[6] In it each word is represented by its own symbol. It has been described as "a hieroglyphic-like script that makes use of squiggles and other childlike shapes".[27] Proper names are written inside a cartouche-like symbol using a series of symbols, where each symbol represents the first letter of its word. Symbols representing a single adjective may be written inside or above the symbol for the preceding word that they modify. The symbol of the language is written in sitelen pona,[27] with the symbol (pona) written inside the symbol (toki).

As of 2021 sitelen pona is widely used in the Toki Pona community. In a 2021 census of about 800 people in the Toki Pona community, 61% of respondents reported knowing sitelen pona, and 43% reported using it. Among the roughly 90 people who responded to the survey in Toki Pona (who are more likely to be advanced or fluent speakers), 81% reported knowing the writing system, 59% reported using it, and 28% claimed it was a preferred writing system to them.[28]

In August 2021 sitelen pona was proposed for inclusion on the Under-ConScript Unicode Registry for allocation in the U+F1900..U+F1AFF location.[29][30]

Modified symbols in sitelen pona

The word symbols and punctuation of sitelen sitelen

The sitelen sitelen ('drawn writing') writing system, also known as sitelen suwi ('cute writing'),[31] was created by Jonathan Gabel. This more elaborate non-linear system uses two separate methods to form words: logograms representing words and an alphasyllabary for writing the syllables (especially for proper names). The complex artful designs of the glyphs are chosen to help people who use this writing system to slow down and explore how not only the language but also the method of communication can influence their thinking.[6][31]

sitelen sitelen's overall aesthetics are inspired by US west-coast comix artists such as Jim Woodring and US east-coast graffiti artists such as Kenny Scharf. The designs of many individual characters are inspired by characters and principles from various other writing systems, including Egyptian hieroglyphs, Chinese characters, Maya script, Miꞌkmaw hieroglyphic writing, Dongba symbols, as well as early Pagan and Christian signs and symbols.[32]

As of 2021 only a minority of the Toki Pona community actively uses sitelen sitelen. In a 2021 census of about 800 people in the Toki Pona community, 31% of respondents reported knowing it, and 11% reported using it.[28]

A sentence may be an interjection, statement, wish/command, or question.

For example, interjections such as a, ala, ike, jaki, mu, o, pakala, pona, toki, etc. can stand alone as a sentence.[14]

Statements follow the normal structure of subject-predicate with an optional la phrase at the beginning. The word li always precedes the predicate unless the subject is a mi or sina. The direct object marker e comes before direct objects. More li and e markers can present new predicates or direct objects. Vocative phrases come before the main sentence and are marked with o at the end of the phrase, after the addressee.[14][17]

In commands, the word o comes before a verb to express a second person command. It can also replace li, or come after the subjects mi or sina, to express wishes.

There are two ways to form yes–no questions in Toki Pona. The first method is to use the "verb ala verb" construction in which ala comes in between a duplicated verb, auxiliary verb, or other predicators.[14] Another way to form a yes–no question is to put anu seme? (lit. 'or what?') at the end of a sentence. Questions cannot be made by just putting a question mark at the end of a sentence.

Non-polar questions are formed by replacing the unknown information with the interrogative word seme.[17]

Toki Pona has three basic pronouns: mi (first person), sina (second person), and ona (third person).[34]

The pronouns do not specify number or gender. Therefore, ona can mean 'he', 'she', 'it', 'they', or other third person pronouns.

Whenever the subject of a sentence is either of the unmodified pronouns mi or sina, then li is not used to separate the subject and predicate.[17]

With such a small root-word vocabulary, Toki Pona relies heavily on noun phrases, where a noun is modified by a following root, to make more complex meanings.[13] A typical example is combining jan ('person') with utala ('to fight') to make jan utala ('fighter, soldier, warrior'). (see § Modifiers)

Nouns do not decline according to number. jan can mean 'person', 'people', 'humanity', or 'somebody', depending on context.[1]

Toki Pona does not use isolated proper nouns; instead, they must modify a preceding noun. For this reason, they may be called "proper adjectives" or simply "proper words" instead of "proper nouns". For example, names of people and places are used as modifiers of the common roots for "person" and "place", e.g. ma Kanata (lit. 'Canada land') or jan Lisa (lit. 'Lisa person').[1]

Phrases in Toki Pona are head-initial; modifiers always come after the word that they modify.[14] Therefore, soweli utala, lit. 'animal of fighting', can be a 'fighting animal', whereas utala soweli, lit. 'fighting of animal', can mean 'animal war'.[1]

When a second modifier is added to a phrase, for example jan pona lukin, it modifies all that comes before it, so ((jan pona) lukin) can be 'friend watching', rather than (jan (pona lukin)), which can be 'person good-looking'.[1]

The particle pi is placed after the head and before the modifiers, to group the modifiers into another phrase that functions as a unit to modify the head, so jan pi pona lukin can be (jan pi (pona lukin)), 'good-looking person'. In this case, lukin modifies pona and pona lukin as a whole modifies jan.[1][17]

Demonstratives, numerals, and possessive pronouns come after the head like other modifiers.[1]

Toki Pona does not inflect verbs according to person, tense, mood, or voice, as the language features no inflection whatsoever. Person is indicated by the subject of the verb; time is indicated through context or by a temporal adverb in the sentence.[1]

Prepositions are used in the predicate in place of a regular verb.[6][33]

Many colors can be expressed by using subtractive colors

Toki Pona has five words for colors: pimeja (black), walo (white), loje (red), jelo (yellow), and laso (grue).[3][1] Although the simplified conceptualization of colors tends to exclude a number of colors that are commonly expressed in Western languages, speakers sometimes may combine these five words to make more specific descriptions of certain colors. For instance, "purple" may be represented by combining laso and loje. The phrase laso loje means "a reddish shade of blue" and loje laso means "a bluish shade of red".[1]

Toki Pona has words for one (wan), two (tu), and many (mute). In addition, ala can mean 'zero', although its meaning is lit. 'no' or 'none', and ale 'all' can express an infinite or immense amount.

The simplest number system uses these five roots to express any amount necessary. For numbers larger than two, speakers would use mute which means 'many'.[35]

A more complex system expresses larger numbers additively by using phrases such as tu wan for three, tu tu for four, and so on. This feature purposely makes it impractical to communicate large numbers.[35][36] This system, described in Lang's book, also uses luka (lit. 'hand') to signify 'five', mute (lit. 'many') to signify 'twenty' and ale (lit. 'all') to signify 'hundred'. For example, using this structure ale tu would mean '102' and mute mute mute luka luka luka tu wan would signify '78'.[37]

Body parts in Toki Pona. The words oko, uta, lawa, luka and noka have Slavic (Serbo-Croatian) roots.

Some words have obsolete synonyms. For example, nena replaced kapa (protuberance) early in the language's development for unknown reasons.[38] Later, the pronoun ona replaced iki ('he, she, it, they'), which was sometimes confused with ike ('bad').[36]

Similarly, ali was added as an alternative to ale ('all') to avoid confusion with ala ('no, not') among people who reduce unstressed vowels, though both forms are still used.

Originally, oko meant 'eye' and lukin was used as a verb 'see'. In the book, the meanings were later merged into lukin, oko being the alternative.[6][17]

Words that were simply removed from the lexicon include leko ('block, stairs'), monsuta ('monster, fear'), majuna ('old'), kipisi ('to cut'), and pata ('sibling').[38] These words were considered outdated because they were not included in the official book.[38] However, oko, leko, monsuta, majuna, and kipisi retained enough usage in the community that they were re-included in the lexicon as nimi ku suli in Toki Pona Dictionary.[39]

Besides nena and ona, which replaced existing roots, a few roots were added to the original 118: pan ('grain, bread, pasta, rice'), esun ('market, shop, trade'), alasa ('hunt, gather'), and namako ('extra, additional, spice'), another word for sin ('new, fresh').[7]

Origin of the Toki Pona roots by language. Obsolete roots are not included

Most Toki Pona roots come from English, Tok Pisin, Finnish, Georgian, Dutch, Acadian French, Esperanto, and Serbo-Croatian, with a few from Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese).[12][2]

Many of these derivations are transparent. For example, toki ('speech, language') is similar to Tok Pisin tok and its English source talk, while pona ('good, positive'), from Esperanto bona, reflects generic Romance bon, buona, English bonus, etc. However, the changes in pronunciation required by the simple phonetic system often make the origins of other words more difficult to see. The word lape ('to sleep, to rest'), for example, comes from Dutch slapen and is cognate with English sleep; kepeken ('to use') is somewhat distorted from Dutch gebruiken, and akesi from hagedis ('lizard') is scarcely recognizable. [Because *ti is an illegal syllable in Toki Pona, Dutch di becomes si.][12]

Although only 14 roots (12%) are listed as derived from English, a large number of the Tok Pisin, Esperanto, and other roots are transparently cognate with English, raising the English-friendly portion of the vocabulary to about 30%. The portions of the lexicon from other languages are 15% Tok Pisin, 14% Finnish, 14% Esperanto, 12% Serbo-Croatian, 10% Acadian French, 9% Dutch, 8% Georgian, 5% Mandarin, 3% Cantonese; one root each from Welsh, Tongan (an English borrowing), Akan, and an uncertain language (apparently Swahili); four phonesthetic roots (two which are found in English, one from Japanese, and one which was made up); and one other made-up root (the grammatical particle e).[12]

Hand shapes of Signed Toki Pona and Luka Pona

Signed Toki Pona, or toki pona luka, is a manually coded form of Toki Pona. Each word and letter has its own sign, which is distinguished by the hand shape, location of the hand on the body, palm or finger orientation, and the usage of one or both hands. Most signs are performed with the right hand at the required location. A few signs, however, are performed with both hands in a symmetrical way. To form a sentence, each of the signs is performed using the grammar and word order of Toki Pona.[6]

A more naturalistic constructed sign language called luka pona also exists, and is more widely used in the Toki Pona community than toki pona luka. It is a separate language with its own grammar, but has a vocabulary that generally parallels Toki Pona. luka pona's signs have increased iconicity as compared to toki pona luka, and many signs are loan-words from natural sign languages. Its grammar is subject-object-verb, and, like natural sign languages, it makes use of classifier constructions and signing space.[40][41] In Toki Pona Dictionary, Sonja Lang recommends learning luka pona instead of toki pona luka.[42]

mama pi mi mute[1][2] (The Creator of Us All a.k.a. The Lord's Prayer, an *edited translation by Bryant J. Knight, 2005)

mama pi mi mute o, sina lon sewi kon.
nimi sina li sewi.
ma sina o kama.
jan o pali e wile sina lon sewi kon lon ma.
o pana e moku pi tenpo suno ni tawa mi mute.
o weka e pali ike mi. sama la mi weka e pali ike pi jan ante.
o lawa ala e mi tawa ike.
o lawa e mi tan ike.
tenpo ali la sina jo e ma e wawa e pona.
*awen.

jan Meli o[65] (Ave Maria, translated by Tobias Merkle, 2020)

jan Meli o,
kon sewi li suli insa sina.
wan sewi li poka sina.
lon meli la, wan sewi li pona e sina.
kili pona pi insa sina li sewi Jesu.
jan Meli sewi o!
mama pi jan sewi o!
tenpo ni la, tenpo pi moli mi mute la,
o toki tawa wan sewi tan mi mute jan ike.
awen.

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights[66]

jan ali li kama lon nasin ni: ona li ken tawa li ken pali. jan ali li kama lon sama. jan ali li jo e ken pi pilin suli. jan ali li ken pali e wile pona ona. jan ali li jo e ken pi sona pona e ken pi pali pona. jan ali li wile pali nasin ni: ona li jan pona pi ante.

ma tomo Pape[67] (The Tower of Babel story, translated by Bryant J. Knight, 2005)

jan ali li kepeken e toki sama. jan li kama tan nasin pi kama suno li kama tawa ma Sinale li awen lon ni. jan li toki e ni: "o kama! mi mute o pali e kiwen. o seli e ona". jan mute li toki e ni: "o kama! mi mute o pali e tomo mute e tomo palisa suli. sewi pi tomo palisa li lon sewi kon. nimi pi mi mute o kama suli! mi wile ala e ni: mi mute li lon ma ante mute". jan sewi Jawe li kama anpa li lukin e ma tomo e tomo palisa. jan sewi Jawe li toki e ni: "jan li lon ma wan li kepeken e toki sama li pali e tomo palisa. tenpo ni la ona li ken pali e ijo ike mute. mi wile tawa anpa li wile pakala e toki pi jan mute ni. mi wile e ni: jan li sona ala e toki pi jan ante". jan sewi Jawe li kama e ni: jan li lon ma mute li ken ala pali e tomo. nimi pi ma tomo ni li Pape tan ni: jan sewi Jawe li pakala e toki pi jan ali. jan sewi Jawe li tawa e jan tawa ma mute tan ma tomo Pape.