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Toki Pona (rendered as ''toki pona'' and often translated as 'the language of good'; ; ) is a
philosophical Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
artistic Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wh ...
constructed language A constructed language (sometimes called a conlang) is a language whose phonology, grammar, and vocabulary, instead of having developed naturally, are consciously devised for some purpose, which may include being devised for a work of fiction. ...
(philosophical artlang) known for its small vocabulary, simplicity, and ease of acquisition. It was created by
Sonja Lang Sonja Lang (previously known as Sonja Elen Kisa, 1978) is a Canadian linguist and translator. She is best known for her creation of Toki Pona, a minimalist constructed language. Biography Lang was born and raised in Moncton, New Brunswick. ...
, a Canadian
linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Lingu ...
and
translator Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transl ...
, to simplify thoughts and communication. The first drafts were published online in 2001, while the complete form was published in the book ''Toki Pona: The Language of Good'' in 2014. Lang also released a supplementary dictionary, the ''Toki Pona Dictionary'', in July 2021, based on community usage. Toki Pona is an
isolating language An isolating language is a type of language with a morpheme per word ratio close to one, and with no inflectional morphology whatsoever. In the extreme case, each word contains a single morpheme. Examples of widely spoken isolating language ...
with only 14
phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...
s and an underlying feature of
minimalism In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Do ...
. It focuses on simple, near-universal concepts to maximize expression from very few words. In ''Toki Pona: The Language of Good'', Lang presents around 120 words, while the later ''Toki Pona Dictionary'' lists 137 "essential" words and a number of less-used ones. Its words are easy to pronounce across language backgrounds, which allows it to serve as a bridge of sorts for people of different cultures. However, it was not created as an
international auxiliary language An international auxiliary language (sometimes acronymized as IAL or contracted as auxlang) is a language meant for communication between people from all different nations, who do not share a common first language. An auxiliary language is primaril ...
. Partly inspired by Taoist philosophy, the language is designed to help users concentrate on basic things and to promote positive thinking, in accordance with the
Sapir–Whorf hypothesis The hypothesis of linguistic relativity, also known as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis , the Whorf hypothesis, or Whorfianism, is a principle suggesting that the structure of a language affects its speakers' worldview or cognition, and thus people' ...
. Despite the small vocabulary, speakers can understand and communicate, mainly relying on context and combinations of words to express more specific meanings. After its initial creation, a small community of speakers developed in the early 2000s. While activity mainly takes place online in chat rooms, on
social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social me ...
, and in other online groups, there were a few organized in-person meetings during the 2000s and 2010s.


Etymology

The name of the language has two parts – ('language'), derived from
Tok Pisin Tok Pisin (,Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student’s Handbook'', Edinburgh ; Tok Pisin ), often referred to by English speakers as "New Guinea Pidgin" or simply Pidgin, is a creole language spoken throughout Papua New Guinea. It is an ...
, which itself comes from
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...
''talk''; and ('good/simple'), from
Esperanto Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international communic ...
, from
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
. The name ''toki pona'' therefore means both 'good language' and 'simple language', emphasising that the language encourages speakers to find joy in simplicity.


Purpose

Canadian linguist
Sonja Lang Sonja Lang (previously known as Sonja Elen Kisa, 1978) is a Canadian linguist and translator. She is best known for her creation of Toki Pona, a minimalist constructed language. Biography Lang was born and raised in Moncton, New Brunswick. ...
started developing Toki Pona as a way of simplifying her thoughts during periods of depression. One of the language's main goals is a focus on minimalism. It is designed to express maximal meaning with minimal complexity. Like a
pidgin A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified means of communication that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn from s ...
, it focuses on simple concepts and elements that are near-universal among cultures. It has a minimal vocabulary and 14 phonemes devised to be easy to pronounce for speakers of various language backgrounds. Partly inspired by Taoist philosophy, another goal of Toki Pona is to help its speakers focus on the essentials by reducing complex concepts to basic elements. From these simple notions, more complex ideas can be built up by simple combining. This allows the users to see the fundamental nature and effect of the ideas expressed. In accordance with the
Sapir–Whorf hypothesis The hypothesis of linguistic relativity, also known as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis , the Whorf hypothesis, or Whorfianism, is a principle suggesting that the structure of a language affects its speakers' worldview or cognition, and thus people' ...
, which states that a language influences the way its speakers think and behave, Toki Pona was designed to induce positive thinking. Another aim of the language is for the speakers to become aware of the present moment and pay more attention to the surroundings and the words people use. According to its author, it is meant to be "fun and cute". Although it was not intended as an international auxiliary language, a world-wide online community uses it for communication.


History

An early version of the language was published online in 2001 by Sonja Lang, and it quickly gained popularity. Early activity took place in a
Yahoo! group Yahoo! Groups was a free-to-use system of electronic mailing lists offered by Yahoo!. Prior to February 2020, Yahoo! Groups was one of the world's largest collections of online discussion boards. It allowed members to subscribe to various grou ...
. Members of the group discussed the language with one another in English, Toki Pona, and Esperanto, proposed changes, and talked about the resources on the ' site. At its peak member count, the group had a little over 500 members. Messages in the group were archived in the Toki Pona forum using
phpBB phpBB is an Internet forum package written in the PHP scripting language. The name "phpBB" is an abbreviation of ''PHP Bulletin Board''. Available under the GNU General Public License, phpBB is free and open-source. Features of phpBB includ ...
. In 2014, Lang released her first book on the language, ''Toki Pona: The Language of Good'', which features one hundred and twenty words plus three synonyms and provides a completed form of the language based on how Lang used the language at the time. In 2016, the book was also published in French. In 2008 an application for an
ISO 639-3 ISO 639-3:2007, ''Codes for the representation of names of languages – Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages'', is an international standard for language codes in the ISO 639 series. It defines three-letter codes for ...
code was rejected, with a statement that the language was too young. Another request was rejected in 2018 as the language "does not appear to be used in a variety of domains nor for communication within a community which includes all ages". A third request was filed in August 2021, which resulted in the ISO 639-3 code "" being adopted in January 2022. Toki Pona was the subject of some scientific works, and it has also been used for
artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech ...
and software tools, as well as a therapeutic method for eliminating negative thinking by having patients keep track of their thoughts in the language. In 2010 it was chosen for the first version of the vocabulary for the ROILA project. The purpose of the study was to investigate the use of an
artificial language Artificial languages are languages of a typically very limited size which emerge either in computer simulations between artificial agents, robot interactions or controlled psychological experiments with humans. They are different from both constr ...
on the accuracy of machine speech recognition, and it was revealed that the modified vocabulary of Toki Pona significantly outperformed English. In 2015, YouTuber jan Misali uploaded a series titled ''12 days of'' , which proved influential and was recommended as a learning tool by creator Jonathan Gabel.
In 2021, Lang released her second book, ''Toki Pona Dictionary'', a comprehensive two-way Toki Pona–English dictionary including more than 11,000 entries detailing the use of the language as she gathered from polls conducted in the
Discord Discord is a VoIP and instant messaging social platform. Users have the ability to communicate with voice calls, video calls, text messaging, media and files in private chats or as part of communities called "servers".The developer documenta ...
server over a few months. The book presents the original 120 words plus 16 (major dictionary words) as gathered from at least over 40% of respondents. It also contains 45 words given by 40% or less of respondents, referred to as (minor dictionary words).


Phonology and phonotactics


Inventory

Toki Pona has nine
consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced w ...
s () and five
vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (len ...
s (), shown here with the
International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standardized representation ...
symbols.
Stress Stress may refer to: Science and medicine * Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition * Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phrase ...
falls on the initial syllable of a word, and it is marked by an increase in loudness, length, and pitch. There are no
diphthong A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech ...
s, contrasting
vowel length In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration. In some languages vowel length is an important phonemic factor, meaning vowel length can change the meaning of the word ...
,
consonant cluster In linguistics, a consonant cluster, consonant sequence or consonant compound, is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word ''splits''. In the education fie ...
s (except those starting with the nasal coda), or tones. Both its sound inventory and
phonotactics Phonotactics (from Ancient Greek "voice, sound" and "having to do with arranging") is a branch of phonology that deals with restrictions in a language on the permissible combinations of phonemes. Phonotactics defines permissible syllable struc ...
are compatible with the majority of human languages, and are therefore readily accessible.


Distribution

The statistical vowel spread is fairly typical when compared with other languages. Counting each root once, 32% of vowels are , 25% are , with and a bit over 15% each, and 10% are . The usage frequency in a 10kB sample of texts was slightly more skewed: 34% , 30% , 15% each and , and 6% . Of the syllable-initial consonants, is the most common, at 20% total; are over 10%, then the nasals (not counting final N), with the least common, at little more than 5% each, being . The high frequency of and low frequency of is somewhat unusual among the world's languages.


Syllable structure

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


Phonotactics

The following sequences are not allowed: *, nor may a syllable's final nasal occur before or in the same root. 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 and John becomes .


Allophony

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 before , or , as an before or , as an before , and as an before . Because of its small phoneme inventory, Toki Pona allows for extensive
allophonic In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in ' ...
variation. For example, may be pronounced as well as , as or as well as , as as well as , and vowels may be either long or short.


Writing systems

Fourteen
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
letters, ''a e i j k l m n o p s t u w'', are used to write the language. They have the same values as in the
International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standardized representation ...
: ''j'' sounds like English ''y'' (as in many Germanic and
Slavic languages The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic, spoken during the ...
) and the vowels are like those of Spanish,
Modern Greek Modern Greek (, , or , ''Kiní Neoellinikí Glóssa''), generally referred to by speakers simply as Greek (, ), refers collectively to the dialects of the Greek language spoken in the modern era, including the official standardized form of the ...
, or
Modern Hebrew Modern Hebrew ( he, עברית חדשה, ''ʿivrít ḥadašá ', , '' lit.'' "Modern Hebrew" or "New Hebrew"), also known as Israeli Hebrew or Israeli, and generally referred to by speakers simply as Hebrew ( ), is the standard form of the He ...
. Capital initials are used to mark
proper noun A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity (''Africa'', ''Jupiter'', '' Sarah'', ''Microsoft)'' as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a class of entities (''continent, ...
s, while Toki Pona roots are always written with lowercase letters, even when they start a sentence. Besides the Latin alphabet, which is the most common way of writing the language, many alternative writing systems have been developed for and adapted to Toki Pona. Most successful and widespread are two
logographic In a written language, a logogram, logograph, or lexigraph is a written character that represents a word or morpheme. Chinese characters (pronounced '' hanzi'' in Mandarin, '' kanji'' in Japanese, '' hanja'' in Korean) are generally logograms ...
writing systems, and . Both were included in the book ''Toki Pona: The Language of Good''.


''sitelen pona''

The ('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. 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". Proper names are written inside a
cartouche In Egyptian hieroglyphs, a cartouche is an oval with a line at one end tangent to it, indicating that the text enclosed is a royal name. The first examples of the cartouche are associated with pharaohs at the end of the Third Dynasty, but the f ...
-like symbol using a series of symbols, where each symbol represents the first letter of its word. Symbols representing a single
adjective In linguistics, an adjective ( abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the ...
may be written inside or above the symbol for the preceding word that they modify. The symbol of the language is written in , with the symbol () written inside the symbol (). In August 2021 was proposed for inclusion on the
Under-ConScript Unicode Registry The ConScript Unicode Registry is a discontinued volunteer project to coordinate the assignment of code points in the Unicode Private Use Areas (PUA) for the encoding of artificial scripts including those for constructed languages. It was founded by ...
for allocation in the U+F1900..U+F1AFF location.


''sitelen sitelen''

The ('drawn writing') writing system, also known as ('cute writing'), was created by Jonathan Gabel. This more elaborate non-linear system uses two separate methods to form words:
logogram In a written language, a logogram, logograph, or lexigraph is a written character that represents a word or morpheme. Chinese characters (pronounced '' hanzi'' in Mandarin, ''kanji'' in Japanese, ''hanja'' in Korean) are generally logograms, ...
s representing words and an
alphasyllabary An abugida (, from Ge'ez: ), sometimes known as alphasyllabary, neosyllabary or pseudo-alphabet, is a segmental writing system in which consonant-vowel sequences are written as units; each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel n ...
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. 's overall aesthetics are inspired by US west-coast comix artists such as Jim Woodring and US east-coast
graffiti Graffiti (plural; singular ''graffiti'' or ''graffito'', the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from s ...
artists such as
Kenny Scharf Kenny Scharf (born November 23, 1958) is an American painter known for his participation in New York City's interdisciplinary East Village art scene during the 1980s, alongside Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. Scharf's do-it-yourself pract ...
. The designs of many individual characters are inspired by characters and principles from various other writing systems, including
Egyptian hieroglyphs Egyptian hieroglyphs (, ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt, used for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with some 1,000 distinct characters.There were about 1, ...
,
Chinese characters Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as ''kanji ...
,
Maya script Maya script, also known as Maya glyphs, is historically the native writing system of the Maya civilization of Mesoamerica and is the only Mesoamerican writing system that has been substantially deciphered. The earliest inscriptions found which ...
, Miꞌkmaw hieroglyphic writing,
Dongba symbols The Dongba, Tomba or Tompa or Mo-so symbols are a system of pictographic glyphs used by the '' ²dto¹mba'' (Bon priests) of the Naxi people in southern China. In the Naxi language it is called ''²ss ³dgyu'' 'wood records' or ''²lv ³dgyu'' ' ...
, as well as early
Pagan Paganism (from classical Latin ''pāgānus'' "rural", "rustic", later "civilian") is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, or ethnic religions other than Judaism. I ...
and
Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι� ...
signs and symbols.


Grammar

Toki Pona's
word order In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how different languages employ different orders. C ...
is subject–verb–object. The word introduces
predicate Predicate or predication may refer to: * Predicate (grammar), in linguistics * Predication (philosophy) * several closely related uses in mathematics and formal logic: **Predicate (mathematical logic) **Propositional function **Finitary relation, o ...
s, introduces
direct object In linguistics, an object is any of several types of arguments. In subject-prominent, nominative-accusative languages such as English, a transitive verb typically distinguishes between its subject and any of its objects, which can include b ...
s,
prepositional phrase An adpositional phrase, in linguistics, is a syntactic category that includes ''prepositional phrases'', ''postpositional phrases'', and ''circumpositional phrases''. Adpositional phrases contain an adposition (preposition, postposition, or ci ...
s follow the
objects Object may refer to: General meanings * Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept ** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place ** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter * Goal, an ai ...
, and phrases come before the subject to add additional context. Some
roots A root is the part of a plant, generally underground, that anchors the plant body, and absorbs and stores water and nutrients. Root or roots may also refer to: Art, entertainment, and media * ''The Root'' (magazine), an online magazine focusing ...
are grammatical particles, while others have lexical meanings. The lexical roots do not fall into well defined
parts of speech In grammar, a part of speech or part-of-speech (abbreviated as POS or PoS, also known as word class or grammatical category) is a category of words (or, more generally, of lexical items) that have similar grammatical properties. Words that are as ...
; rather, they may be used generally as nouns, verbs, modifiers, or
interjection An interjection is a word or expression that occurs as an utterance on its own and expresses a spontaneous feeling or reaction. It is a diverse category, encompassing many different parts of speech, such as exclamations ''(ouch!'', ''wow!''), curse ...
s depending on context or their position in a phrase. For example, may mean "they ate" or "it is food".


Sentence structures

A sentence may be an interjection, statement, wish/command, or question. For example, interjections such as , , , , , , , , , etc. can stand alone as a sentence. Statements follow the normal structure of ''subject-predicate'' with an optional phrase at the beginning. The word always precedes the predicate unless the subject is a or . The direct object marker comes before direct objects. More and markers can present new predicates or direct objects. Vocative phrases come before the main sentence and are marked with at the end of the phrase, after the addressee. In commands, the word comes before a verb to express a second person command. It can also replace , or come after the subjects or , to express wishes. There are two ways to form
yes–no question In linguistics, a yes–no question, also known as a binary question, a polar question, or a general question is a question whose expected answer is one of two choices, one that provides an affirmative answer to the question versus one that provid ...
s in Toki Pona. The first method is to use the "verb verb" construction in which comes in between a duplicated verb, auxiliary verb, or other predicators. Another way to form a yes–no question is to put () 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 An interrogative word or question word is a function word used to ask a question, such as ''what, which'', ''when'', ''where'', '' who, whom, whose'', ''why'', ''whether'' and ''how''. They are sometimes called wh-words, because in English most ...
.


Pronouns

Toki Pona has three basic pronouns: (first person), (second person), and (third person). The pronouns do not specify number or gender. Therefore, can mean 'he', 'she', 'it', 'they', or other third person pronouns. Whenever the subject of a sentence is either of the unmodified pronouns or , then is not used to separate the subject and predicate.


Nouns

With such a small root-word vocabulary, Toki Pona relies heavily on
noun phrase In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently oc ...
s, where a noun is modified by a following root, to make more complex meanings. A typical example is combining ('person') with ('to fight') to make ('fighter, soldier, warrior'). Nouns do not decline according to number. can mean 'person', 'people', 'humanity', or 'somebody', depending on context. 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. () or ().


Modifiers

Phrase In syntax and grammar, a phrase is a group of words or singular word acting as a grammatical unit. For instance, the English expression "the very happy squirrel" is a noun phrase which contains the adjective phrase "very happy". Phrases can consi ...
s in Toki Pona are head-initial; modifiers always come after the word that they modify. Therefore, , , can be a 'fighting animal', whereas , , can mean 'animal war'. When a second modifier is added to a phrase, for example , it modifies all that comes before it, so (() ) can be 'friend watching', rather than ( ()), which can be 'person good-looking'. The particle 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 can be ( ()), 'good-looking person'. In this case, modifies and as a whole modifies .
Demonstrative Demonstratives ( abbreviated ) are words, such as ''this'' and ''that'', used to indicate which entities are being referred to and to distinguish those entities from others. They are typically deictic; their meaning depending on a particular fram ...
s, numerals, and
possessive A possessive or ktetic form ( abbreviated or ; from la, possessivus; grc, κτητικός, translit=ktētikós) is a word or grammatical construction used to indicate a relationship of possession in a broad sense. This can include strict ow ...
pronouns come after the head like other modifiers.


Verbs

Toki Pona does not inflect verbs according to person, tense, mood, or voice, as the language features no
inflection In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and ...
whatsoever. Person is indicated by the subject of the verb; time is indicated through context or by a temporal adverb in the sentence. Prepositions are used in the predicate in place of a regular verb.


Vocabulary

Toki Pona has around 120 to 137 words. Each is polysemous and covers a range of similar concepts, so not only means 'big' or 'long', but also 'important'. Their use relies heavily on context. To express more complex thoughts, the roots can be combined. For example, can mean 'friend', although it translates to , and , , could be understood to mean 'alcohol' or 'alcoholic beverage' depending on the context. The verb ''to teach'' can be expressed by , . Essentially identical concepts can be described by different words as the choice relies on the speaker's perception and experience.


Colors

Toki Pona has five words for colors: (black), (white), (red), (yellow), and (
blue Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when ...
). 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 and . The phrase means "a reddish shade of blue" and means "a bluish shade of red".


Numbers

Toki Pona has words for one (), two (), and many (). In addition, can mean 'zero', although its meaning is , and '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 which means 'many'. A more complex system expresses larger numbers additively by using phrases such as for three, for four, and so on. This feature purposely makes it impractical to communicate large numbers. This system, described in Lang's book, also uses () to signify 'five', () to signify 'twenty' and () to signify 'hundred'. For example, using this structure would mean '102' and would signify '78'.


Roots history

Some words have obsolete
synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are al ...
s. For example, replaced (protuberance) early in the language's development for unknown reasons. Later, the pronoun replaced ('he, she, it, they'), which was sometimes confused with ('bad'). Similarly, was added as an alternative to ('all') to avoid confusion with ('no, not') among people who reduce unstressed vowels, though both forms are still used. Originally, meant 'eye' and was used as a verb 'see'. In the book, the meanings were later merged into , being the alternative''.'' Words that were simply removed from the lexicon include ('block, stairs'), ('monster, fear'), ('old'), ('to cut'), and ('sibling'). These words were considered outdated because they were not included in the official book. However, , , , , and retained enough usage in the community that they were re-included in the lexicon as in ''Toki Pona Dictionary''. Besides and , which replaced existing roots, a few roots were added to the original 118: ('grain, bread, pasta, rice'), ('market, shop, trade'), ('hunt, gather'), and ('extra, additional, spice'), another word for ('new, fresh').


Provenance

Most Toki Pona roots come from English,
Tok Pisin Tok Pisin (,Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student’s Handbook'', Edinburgh ; Tok Pisin ), often referred to by English speakers as "New Guinea Pidgin" or simply Pidgin, is a creole language spoken throughout Papua New Guinea. It is an ...
, Finnish, Georgian,
Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...
,
Acadian French Acadian French (french: français acadien, acadjonne) is a variety of French spoken by Acadians, mostly in the region of Acadia, Canada. Acadian French has 7 regional accents, including chiac and brayon. Phonology Since there was relatively li ...
,
Esperanto Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international communic ...
, and
Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian () – also called Serbo-Croat (), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia an ...
, with a few from Chinese ( Mandarin and
Cantonese Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding a ...
). Many of these derivations are transparent. For example, ('speech, language') is similar to
Tok Pisin Tok Pisin (,Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student’s Handbook'', Edinburgh ; Tok Pisin ), often referred to by English speakers as "New Guinea Pidgin" or simply Pidgin, is a creole language spoken throughout Papua New Guinea. It is an ...
and its English source ''talk'', while ('good, positive'), from Esperanto , reflects generic Romance '','' , 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 ('to sleep, to rest'), for example, comes from
Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...
and is cognate with English ''sleep''; ('to use') is somewhat distorted from Dutch , and from ('lizard') is scarcely recognizable. ecause ''*ti'' is an illegal syllable in Toki Pona, Dutch ''di'' becomes ''si.''ref name=":21" /> 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 Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...
, 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 ).


Signed Toki Pona and Luka Pona

Signed Toki Pona, or , is a manually coded form of Toki Pona. Each word and letter has its own
sign A sign is an object, quality, event, or entity whose presence or occurrence indicates the probable presence or occurrence of something else. A natural sign bears a causal relation to its object—for instance, thunder is a sign of storm, or ...
, 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. A more naturalistic constructed sign language called also exists, and is more widely used in the Toki Pona community than '. It is a separate language with its own grammar, but has a vocabulary that generally parallels Toki Pona. 's signs have increased
iconicity In functional- cognitive linguistics, as well as in semiotics, iconicity is the conceived similarity or analogy between the form of a sign (linguistic or otherwise) and its meaning, as opposed to arbitrariness (which is typically assumed in ...
as compared to ', 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. In ''Toki Pona Dictionary'', Sonja Lang recommends learning ' instead of ''.''


Community

The language is fairly well known among Esperantists, who often offer courses and conversation groups at their meetings. In 2007, Lang reportedly said that at least 100 people speak Toki Pona fluently and estimated that a few hundred have a basic knowledge of the language. One-hour courses of Toki Pona were taught on various occasions by the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of th ...
during their Independent Activities Period. The language is used mainly online on social media, in forums, and other online groups. Users of the language are spread out across multiple platforms. A
Yahoo! group Yahoo! Groups was a free-to-use system of electronic mailing lists offered by Yahoo!. Prior to February 2020, Yahoo! Groups was one of the world's largest collections of online discussion boards. It allowed members to subscribe to various grou ...
existed from about 2002 to 2009, when it moved to a forum on a
phpBB phpBB is an Internet forum package written in the PHP scripting language. The name "phpBB" is an abbreviation of ''PHP Bulletin Board''. Available under the GNU General Public License, phpBB is free and open-source. Features of phpBB includ ...
site. For a short time there was a Wikipedia written in Toki Pona (called ). It was closed in 2005 and moved to Wikia/Fandom, and then moved from Fandom to an independent website on 23 April 2021. The largest groups exist on
Reddit Reddit (; stylized in all lowercase as reddit) is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and discussion website. Registered users (commonly referred to as "Redditors") submit content to the site such as links, text posts, imag ...
,
Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dust ...
, and
Discord Discord is a VoIP and instant messaging social platform. Users have the ability to communicate with voice calls, video calls, text messaging, media and files in private chats or as part of communities called "servers".The developer documenta ...
. Two large groups exist on Facebook—one designated for conversation in Toki Pona and English, and the other for conversation in only Toki Pona. The most subscribed Facebook group, in which members communicate in both English and Toki Pona, has over 5,800 total members . The largest community on Reddit has over 12,900 members . The largest
Discord Discord is a VoIP and instant messaging social platform. Users have the ability to communicate with voice calls, video calls, text messaging, media and files in private chats or as part of communities called "servers".The developer documenta ...
group has over 11,500 members . In November 2021, the language was added as an interface language for the video game
Minecraft ''Minecraft'' is a sandbox game developed by Mojang Studios. The game was created by Markus "Notch" Persson in the Java programming language. Following several early private testing versions, it was first made public in May 2009 before b ...
.


Literature

There are a few published books and many other works in Toki Pona. Most of the published works are language-learning books for beginners like and . Many other works are translations of original literature in other languages. Starting in 2020, a group has been working on and publishing a
zine A zine ( ; short for '' magazine'' or '' fanzine'') is a small-circulation self-published work of original or appropriated texts and images, usually reproduced via a copy machine. Zines are the product of either a single person or of a very s ...
in Toki Pona called (), and it is officially registered as a zine in the United Kingdom.


Sample texts


The Lord's Prayer

(A translation of The
Lord's Prayer The Lord's Prayer, also called the Our Father or Pater Noster, is a central Christian prayer which Jesus taught as the way to pray. Two versions of this prayer are recorded in the gospels: a longer form within the Sermon on the Mount in the Gosp ...
, by jan Kasape, 2022) Our holy parent (an English translation)


Hail Mary

(
Ave Maria The Hail Mary ( la, Ave Maria) is a traditional Christian prayer addressing Mary, the mother of Jesus. The prayer is based on two biblical passages featured in the Gospel of Luke: the Angel Gabriel's visit to Mary (the Annunciation) and Mary's ...
, translated by Tobias Merkle, 2020)


Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights


The Tower of Babel

(The
Tower of Babel The Tower of Babel ( he, , ''Mīgdal Bāḇel'') narrative in Genesis 11:1–9 is an origin myth meant to explain why the world's peoples speak different languages. According to the story, a united human race speaking a single language and mi ...
story, translated by Bryant J. Knight, 2005)


Poem

wan taso (2003)
ijo li moku e mi.
mi wile pakala.
pimeja li tawa insa kon mi.
jan ala li ken sona e pilin ike mi.
toki musi o, sina jan pona mi wan taso.
telo pimeja ni li telo loje mi, li ale mi.
tenpo ale la pimeja li lon.
Alone (translation of wan taso)
I am devoured.
I must destroy.
Darkness fills my soul.
No one can understand my suffering.
O poetry! My only friend.
This ink is my blood, is my life.
And Darkness shall reign forevermore.


See also

* Alphabet of human thought *
Hyponymy and hypernymy In linguistics, semantics, general semantics, and ontologies, hyponymy () is a semantic relation between a hyponym denoting a subtype and a hypernym or hyperonym (sometimes called umbrella term or blanket term) denoting a supertype. In other ...
*
Philosophical language A philosophical language is any constructed language that is constructed from first principles. It is considered a type of engineered language. Philosophical languages were popular in Early Modern times, partly motivated by the goal of revising n ...
*
Pirahã language Pirahã (also spelled ''Pirahá, Pirahán''), or Múra-Pirahã, is the indigenous language of the isolated Pirahã people of Amazonas, Brazil. The Pirahã live along the Maici River, a tributary of the Amazon River. Pirahã is the only survivi ...


Notes


References


Publications

* **This book was translated as: **This book was translated as: * * * * **This book was translated as:


External links

* – The creator's website.
Toki Pona dictionarylipu sona pona (toki pona course)Video lessons by jan Misali
on YouTube
updated video lessons by jan Misali
(as of yet unfinished video series)
, wiki-based encyclopedia in Toki Pona

Where is Toki Pona used?
– A page with many links to Toki Pona related websites. {{Constructed languages, state=collapsed 2001 introductions Constructed languages Constructed languages introduced in the 2000s Analytic languages Engineered languages Artistic languages Isolating languages Taoism in popular culture