Welcome to the Toki Pona Language Learning Group here on the discourse!
Goal
We, as a group, will learn the language of Toki Pona!
Toki Pona was constructed in 2001 by Sonja Lang. With only 120 words and 14 phonemes, the language is very simple, yet surprisingly complete. One on the goals of Sonja Lang was to create a zen-like thought process for the speakers of this language. By using a simple language with simple terms, it may help calm the mind when thinking in Toki Pona.
Plan
We should start by working our way through the online lessons by jan Lope. Completing them one at a time with a week to learn each lesson. We are following the pdf version, NOT the html version.
We are currently on lessons 1.5 & 1.6
Toki Pona even has itās own logo! Which language can say that (pun intended ^^) for itself?
Fortunately for me (being German), most of these constructed pronunciations basically use the German rules, so after shortly looking over the rules, I can already say that I know the pronunciation already. ^^
Cool =D
Itās really frustrating for me (native english speaker) when a constructed language (such as lojban or klingon) uses a sound which isnāt in english. Like āchā as in the german āBachā and all I can think is a] Iāve never heard a german say that word, and b] How come english doesnāt have any cool sounds? =ā[
Iām donāt get frustrated at the language, but rather at myself (and english) for not knowing how to say something, lol.
Fortunately, all the sounds in Toki Pona are in english too, so that shouldnāt be a problem for the english speakers of the group =D
In fact, itās possible that jan Sonja picked sounds which are commonly seen/heard in languages so it would be easier for everyone to learn ^^
(I was slightly shocked to see your level of understanding compared to mine, after you said ā1.3 and 1.4ā, before I noticed that the HTML-version of the lessons I was reading are a lot shorter than the PDF version! switching now! ^^)
My attempt at a translation:
Hello! Good day.
Iām @chimeforest.
Iām eating good food.
It is a fruit.
I drink water.
I want [suna]
I think the last one is a typo? I couldnāt find āsunaā anywhere, so either you like the sun (suno), or you want me (sina ā āI want youā )ā¦ I hope for the sunny optionā¦
So let me try a replyā¦ (The same basis of 1.4, with a first peek into the next topic ^^)
toki! mi jan Lapo.
mi moku e telo kili.
mi lukin e ilo.
pipi li ma. (?)
You are correct, I meant to say āI want sun/lightā The weather has been pretty drab for the past couple days here, lol.
I didnāt realize that the HTML version was shorter either. Iāll have to make a note of that in the first post.
I think it is just, āI am drinkingā or āI drinkā ā¦ though I could be wrong, I havenāt seen any examples yet of a sentence with āI drink [type of liquid]ā Perhaps a better definition of āmokuā as a verb would be āconsumeā? Iām not sure =/
Nowā¦ to try an decipher your text, lol.
Hello! I am @Raffo.
I am drinking juice. (had to look that one up in appendix 5.8 lol)
I look at the tool
Bug is land. (?)
Iām not so sure about that last one, it has no verbs in it =/
Are you trying to say that a bug is outside?
As far as I understood it, āmi mokuā is actually both, āIām eatingā and āIām drinkingā (and for that matter, also nice things as āI will be foodāā¦ ^^).
I didnāt think the juice would be that hard. To be honest, I got inspired to that by reading the Wikipedia article, and afterwards I noticed, that itās actually part of the practice of 1.5 (second to last sentence). And yes, I wanted to say that a bug is outside, at least thatās how I understood the meaning āoutside areaā of āmaā, but as the (?) implies, I wasnāt sure about that one. How would you say it?
Another question: I intended to say something like āI look at my monitorā (or rather āa monitorā), but of course āiloā itself is not descriptive enough. Looking at the word list, there is of course no monitor, but a picture = āsitelenā. So I would assume, a better way to say āIām looking at my monitorā would be āmi lukin e ilo sitelen miā (the last āmiā added for the āmyā). What do you think?
Edit: Oh, and adding to this, how could someone talk about their camera? Thatās also a āpicture deviceā, but the other way around. Maybe by adding āhave/take/obtainā to āilo sitelen joā?
Oh, and @8BitCrab, youāre still reading along, arenāt you?
You are correct, my bad ^^;
Thatās what I get for looking more at the appendixes than the actual lessons, lol
lol so it is. I havenāt gotten that far yet. Something which Iāll have to correct
I read the ENTIRE DICTIONARY (lol) and found the perfect word: lon meaning āto be located in/at/onā
So āpipi li lon maā Would mean āBug located outsideā aka āThe bug is outsideā.
So that was just a word/some grammar which we hadnāt gotten to yet, lol.
As for monitor and cameraā¦hmm
In Appendix 5.9 āilo sonaā means computer (a smart machine) So you could say āmi lukin e ilo sonaā to say āI look at the computerā. If you wanted to specifically say ācomputer monitor/screenā. I think there might be a way to combine the phrases for computer and tv(ilo pi sitelen tawa "tool possesses moving picture), but Iām not sure how =/
For camera, I though you are on the right track. āilo sitelen joā tool picture have/obtain. I think I might use āilo lukin joā maybeā¦ Iāll have to think about this more when I am more awake, lol. We might be getting into concepts which arenāt in lesson 1, lol.
[quote=āchimeforest, post:9, topic:11879ā]
Yeah @8BitCrab we miss you ='O
[/quote]darn, ive been to busy with other stuff to be able to do this guys
Itās actually really as simple as they advertise it. You know that there are some people who can easily pick up and learn a brand new language? Some can even master it within a few months or a year? Well, Iām kind of the opposite of thoseā¦ ^^ And even I managed to grasp the basic concepts of Toki Pona within, what now, a week or two? This is a completely new experience for me!
Anyway, let me take the opportunity to say, that the original lessons can still use some revision at some pointā¦ Some of the examples or structures areā¦ āamusingā, to say the least. Some of my favorites in the PDF lessions:
The very first example for this simple and peaceful language explains that the letter ākā is pronounced as in ākillā
In the second vocabulary block you get to learn āpakalaā (āto mess up, to destroyā) directly next to āunpaā (which has a distinctly PG-rated translation ^^)
Speaking of which: already in the second lesson you learn how to express your wish to sleep with someone. Thatās language learning efficiency!
ā¦and one lesson later you get to learn the expression for prostitute, and spoilers: I peaked a little ahead, and later this term will be used to describe Heather. ^^
ānasaā has nothing to do with space, but on the contrary means ācrazy, stupid, drunkā
And this is only up to 1.5!
Anyway; during listing these things, I got inspired to translate this phrase:
ijo jan li wile lukin e ma seli.
Iām not entirely sure about the first term (maybe ājan ijoā?) or the last part (maybe āā¦ma li seliā? We didnāt exactly have the proper grammar for this yet), but feel free to try and reconstruct the original phrase!
Yeah toki poni sure does get straight to the point, lol
Nowā¦ as for the sentenceā¦
ijo(noun) jan(modifier) li wile(verb trans) lukin(verb) e ma(noun) seli(modifier).
something of person wants to look at the land of hot
personal thing wants to see the hot land?
ājan ijoā would mean āperson of thing(s)ā or āthing personā. since āijoā is now a modifier of ājanā instead of the other way around.
and āma li seliā would mean āland heats upā since āseliā would become a verb.
Wellā¦ If I wouldnāt know my original intention, I probably wouldnāt have guessed itā¦
Letās clarify this first: as subject of the sentence I was aiming for āsomeoneā or āsome peopleāā¦ maybe I misread āijoā to be more of āsomeā, and less of āthingā, but youāre probably right, āijoā is more focused on the objectsā¦ so what would be a good modifier to turn ājanā/āpersonā into āsomeoneā or āsome peopleā?
As for the last part, where I was not sure, after your translations I now know that I wanted to say āā¦ma li seliā. ^^
Iāll keep it to this. Maybe with these additions you can already guess the phrase I was going for. Otherwise Iāll disclose the mystery in two posts from now, and we can discuss, why the translation was not good enough to identify the phrase.
Edit: I was looking at the wordlist and noticed, that ājanā already means āsomebodyā by itselfā¦ Therefore the corrected sentence (to the best of my knowledge) would be
jan li wile lukin e ma li seli.
But as I said, I would love emphasize the āsomeā of āsomeoneā, maybe even the pluralā¦ Maybe ājan muteā? But wouldnāt that be more specific āpeopleā instead of āsome peopleā? Can this be done in Toki Pona, or is this part of the intended ambiguity?
OH YES, I THINK I UNDERSTAND NOW xD
jan li wile lukin e ma li seli = People want to see spring!
Cause spring is when the land/outside heats up =D
Did I get it? ^^
You are correct in that ājanā by itself can be plural/not plural.
ājan muteā could mean anything between āpeopleā to āsome peopleā to āmany/lots of peopleā it basically makes the noun it modifies plural, but it doesnāt specify to what degree. Itās part of the ambiguity of Toki Pona, I think. Iād be nice to have a middle word, lol. or an āunintensifierāā¦ like āmuteā means āmanyā but ā(less) muteā could mean āsomeā. Maybe we will find a way to to that later on in the lessons =]
Speaking of, I think it would be safe to officially move to lessons 1.5 and 1.6.
Edit: also, I found this [really cool writing system][1] for Toki Pona =D
Edit edit: I looked ahead into the numbers/counting chapter(1.16) and it has info on specifying amounts =]
[1]: http://jonathangabel.com/projects/t47
Thatā¦ is certainly a beautiful phrase, but not at all what I had in mindā¦ ^^ As my sentence sounds more terrible than yours, Iād like to point out that I came up with the idea while I was compiling these things as āk as in killingā and āpakalaāā¦
OK, hereās what I wanted to say:
jan mute li wile lukin e ma li seli = Some people (just) want to see the world burn.
(As I said, not as beautiful as the one with spring, donāt judge me! ^^)
Which raises two questions:
How would you have translated this phrase? Was the problem with one of my choices or was the problem the ambiguity?
How would someone translate spring? I would have never thought of translating it as āwhen the outside getās warmā, but then again I wouldnāt know how to translate itā¦ In a first attempt I would probably describe it as ātenpo kamaā (time of beginning), how does that sound? It is kind of hard to find a good way, as none of the following terms year, early, morning, or birth are in the word listā¦ ^^
Edit: I know that years are counted as āsunsā (on Wikipedia thereās an example of asking āhow old are youā with āhow many times have you traveled around the sunā ), soooo maybe spring would be more āpreciseā with something like ātenpo suno kamaā? ātenpo sunoā would then be āseasonā, and summer, autumn and winter could probably be ātenpo suno seliā (hot season), āā¦ alasaā (harvesting season, on the extended list) and āā¦ leteā (cold season)?
I also found this āwriting systemā once, but I think itās needlessly complicated and completely uselessā¦ āon purposeā, as they say, but while the language of Toki Pona is beautifully simple, this writing system is the oppositeā¦ or to put it in reference: In Toki Pona, āgoodā and āsimpleā are both āponaā, while ābad, evilā and ācomplicatedā are both āikeā, and this writing system is āikeāā¦
So I could have gone that route, but choose not to, lol (āpersonal thing wants to see a hot placeā for example, lol) which is why we have the toki pona word āunpaā, lol so when that it is brought up we KNOW what it going on, lol.
Probably a little bit of both. Perhaps stacking more words on to be more specificā¦ for example perhaps referring to the world as āma sike suliā = important/big round/spherical land/outside aka earth? and for burn, perhaps use āseli pakalaā = heat up destructively. Soā¦ if we use thoseā¦ the finished sentence would be something along the lines of:
jan mute li wile lukin e ma sike suli li seli pakala. = More than one person wants to see the important spherical outside heat up destructively = Some people want to watch the world burn.
I thought a bit about this after I posted my responce earlier today, and I came up with ātempo sinā = time of renewal, based on Appendix 5.16 which gives phrases for summer (tenpo seli, time of warmth) and winter (tenpo lete, time of cold).
btw, I canāt seem to find that example on wikipedia you found, would you mind copying it?
Also, In A.5.16, ātenpo sunoā = time of the sun, aka daytime, so ātenpo suno kamaā = time of new day would be morning, I would thinkā¦ except I just looked again, and it means ātomorrowā, since Toki Pona doesnāt have a word for ānextā, ātenpo suno sinā time of renewed day = morning, lol. Just goes to show how ambiguous this language can be I guess. Soā¦ following those examples ātenpo suno seliā would be a very good way of saying ānoonā =D
Also using āalasaā (tempo alasa, time of harvest) would be a great way to say fall ^^
Now that I think about it, I agree, it is very very āikeā lol. But it looks cool, so I think I might keep at it, maybe, lol. Maybe I/we could come up with out own writing system? or perhaps toki pona is best without itās own writing systemā¦
EDIT:
Have a crack at this =] : ali li pona mute. taso mi mute li wile ona li ike - jan Konpuki
)
)ā¦ I hope for the sunny optionā¦ 
