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==History==
==History==
An early version of the language was published online in 2001 by Sonja Lang.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":15">{{Cite book|title=A Million Words and Counting: How Global English Is Rewriting The World|last=Payack|first=Paul J.J.|publisher=Kensington Publishing Corp.|year=2008|isbn=978-0-8065-3560-9|location=New York|pages=|chapter=Constructed Languages}}</ref> It quickly gained popularity,<ref name="Kozlovsky" /> and for a few months there was a Wikipedia written in Toki Pona (called "Wikipesija"). It was closed in 2004 and moved to [[Wikia]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Białous|first=Maciej|date=2018|title=Sztuczne języki wobec mediów społecznościowych|trans-title=Artificial languages in social media|url=https://www.academia.edu/37667190/Sztuczne_j%C4%99zyki_wobec_medi%C3%B3w_spo%C5%82eczno%C5%9Bciowych|journal=Pogranicze. Studia społeczne|language=Polish|publisher=Uniwersytet w Białymstoku|volume=32|pages=171|doi=10.15290/pss.2018.32.11|issn=1230-2392|via=Academia.edu}}</ref>[[File:Toki Pona The Language of Good.jpg|thumb|286x286px|Cover of ''Toki Pona: The Language of Good'' (2014)]]
An early version of the language was published online in 2001 by Sonja Lang.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":15">{{Cite book|title=A Million Words and Counting: How Global English Is Rewriting The World|last=Payack|first=Paul J.J.|publisher=Kensington Publishing Corp.|year=2008|isbn=978-0-8065-3560-9|location=New York|pages=|chapter=Constructed Languages}}</ref> It quickly gained popularity,<ref name="Kozlovsky" /> and for a few months there was a Wikipedia written in Toki Pona (called "Wikipesija"). It was closed in 2004 and moved to [[Wikia]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Białous|first=Maciej|date=2018|title=Sztuczne języki wobec mediów społecznościowych|trans-title=Artificial languages in social media|url=https://www.academia.edu/37667190/Sztuczne_j%C4%99zyki_wobec_medi%C3%B3w_spo%C5%82eczno%C5%9Bciowych|journal=Pogranicze. Studia społeczne|language=Polish|publisher=Uniwersytet w Białymstoku|volume=32|pages=171|doi=10.15290/pss.2018.32.11|issn=1230-2392|via=Academia.edu}}</ref>

As the community grew, a group of speakers, along with Lang, formed a [[Yahoo! Groups|Yahoo! group]] on March 24, 2002 which they used until 2009 when it was moved to a forum on a [[phpBB]] site.

From 2002 to 2009, 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 ''tokipona.org'' site. At its peak member count, the group had a little over 500 members.<ref name=":0" />[[File:Toki Pona The Language of Good.jpg|thumb|286x286px|Cover of ''Toki Pona: The Language of Good'' (2014)]]
Lang later released an official book on the language, ''Toki Pona: The Language of Good'', in 2014.<ref name=":14" /> It is also sometimes referred to as ''pu'' in the Toki Pona community.<ref name=":1" /> In 2016, the book was also published in French.<ref name=":4">{{Cite journal|last=Fabbri|first=Renato|date=July 2018|title=Basic concepts and tools for the Toki Pona minimal and constructed language|url=https://arxiv.org/abs/1712.09359v3|journal=ACM Transactions on Asian and Low-Resource Language Information Processing|volume=0|pages=00:2|arxiv=1712.09359v3|via=arXiv}}</ref> Although other resources for the language have been created by the community, the major sources for learning continue to be Lang's book and online lessons developed by Bryant Knight or "jan Pije", an early adapter of Toki Pona.<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":16">{{Cite web|url=http://www2.hawaii.edu/~chin/661F12/Projects/ztomaszewski.pdf|title=A Formal Grammar for Toki Pona|last=Tomaszewski|first=Zach|date=2012-12-11|website=University of Hawai‘i|format=PDF|url-status=live|access-date=2019-09-21}}</ref>{{Anchor|Toki Pona: The Language of Good|The Language of Good|Book}}
Lang later released an official book on the language, ''Toki Pona: The Language of Good'', in 2014.<ref name=":14" /> It is also sometimes referred to as ''pu'' in the Toki Pona community.<ref name=":1" /> In 2016, the book was also published in French.<ref name=":4">{{Cite journal|last=Fabbri|first=Renato|date=July 2018|title=Basic concepts and tools for the Toki Pona minimal and constructed language|url=https://arxiv.org/abs/1712.09359v3|journal=ACM Transactions on Asian and Low-Resource Language Information Processing|volume=0|pages=00:2|arxiv=1712.09359v3|via=arXiv}}</ref> Although other resources for the language have been created by the community, the major sources for learning continue to be Lang's book and online lessons developed by Bryant Knight or "jan Pije", an early adapter of Toki Pona.<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":16">{{Cite web|url=http://www2.hawaii.edu/~chin/661F12/Projects/ztomaszewski.pdf|title=A Formal Grammar for Toki Pona|last=Tomaszewski|first=Zach|date=2012-12-11|website=University of Hawai‘i|format=PDF|url-status=live|access-date=2019-09-21}}</ref>{{Anchor|Toki Pona: The Language of Good|The Language of Good|Book}}


Revision as of 02:48, 10 October 2019

Toki Pona
toki pona
Pronunciation[ˈtoki ˈpona]
Created bySonja Lang
Date2001
Setting and usagetesting principles of minimalism, the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis and pidgins
Purpose
constructed language, combining elements of the subgenres personal language and philosophical language
Latin; "sitelen pona" (logographic); "sitelen sitelen" (logographic with an alphabetical extension for foreign words)
Sourcesa posteriori language, with elements of English, Tok Pisin, Finnish, Georgian, Dutch, Acadian French, Esperanto, Croatian, Chinese
Language codes
ISO 639-3None (mis)
GlottologNone
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Toki Pona is an oligoisolating constructed language, created by Canadian linguist and translator Sonja Lang[1][2] as a philosophical language for the purpose of simplifying thoughts and communication.[2] It was first published online in 2001 as a draft,[3] and later in complete form in the book, Toki Pona: The Language of Good, in 2014. A small community of speakers developed in the early 2000s, and has continued to grow larger over the years,[4] especially after the release of the official book. While, activity mostly takes place online in chat rooms, on social media, and in other groups, there have been a few organized in-person meetings in recent years.

The underlying feature of Toki Pona is minimalism. It focuses on simple universal concepts, making use of very little to express the most. The language has 120–125 root words and 14 phonemes that are easy to pronounce across different languages. Although not initially intended as an international auxiliary language, it may function as one. 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. Despite the small vocabulary, speakers are able to understand and communicate with each other, mainly relying on context and combinations of several words to express more specific meanings.[5][6][7]

Etymology

The name of the language is constituted by toki (language), derived from Tok Pisin tok, which itself comes from English talk; and pona (good/simple), from Esperanto bona (good),[8] ultimately from Latin bonus.

Purpose

Sonja Lang developed Toki Pona as a way of simplifying her thoughts during depression,[2] with several objectives in mind.

One of the language’s main goals is a focus on minimalism. It is designed to express maximal meaning with minimal complexity.[7][9] Like a pidgin, it focuses on simple concepts and elements that are universal among cultures.[9][10] It has 120–125 root words, and 14 phonemes devised to be easy to pronounce for speakers of various language backgrounds.[10]

Inspired by Taoist philosophy, another goal of Toki Pona is to help its users focus on the essentials by reducing complex concepts into basic elements[11] and remove complexity from the thought process.[5][12] From these simple notions, more complex ideas can be created by simple combining.[9] This allows the users to see the fundamental nature and effect of the ideas expressed.[5]

Like the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, which states that a language changes the way its speakers think and behave,[1] Toki Pona tries to induce positive thinking.[13]

Another aim of the language is for the users to become aware of the present moment and pay more attention to the surroundings and the words people use.[12] According to its author, it is meant to be "fun and cute".[14]

Although it was not intended as an international auxiliary language,[13] it may function as one since people from all around the world use it for communication.[12][15]

History

An early version of the language was published online in 2001 by Sonja Lang.[1][16] It quickly gained popularity,[17] and for a few months there was a Wikipedia written in Toki Pona (called "Wikipesija"). It was closed in 2004 and moved to Wikia.[18]

As the community grew, a group of speakers, along with Lang, formed a Yahoo! group on March 24, 2002 which they used until 2009 when it was moved to a forum on a phpBB site.

From 2002 to 2009, 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 tokipona.org site. At its peak member count, the group had a little over 500 members.[1]

File:Toki Pona The Language of Good.jpg
Cover of Toki Pona: The Language of Good (2014)

Lang later released an official book on the language, Toki Pona: The Language of Good, in 2014.[3] It is also sometimes referred to as pu in the Toki Pona community.[19] In 2016, the book was also published in French.[20] Although other resources for the language have been created by the community, the major sources for learning continue to be Lang's book and online lessons developed by Bryant Knight or "jan Pije", an early adapter of Toki Pona.[20][21]

In 2008 an application for an ISO 639-3 code was rejected, with a statement that the language was too young.[22] 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".[23]

Toki Pona was the subject of some scientific works,[6] and it has also been used for artificial intelligence and software tools,[20] as well as a therapeutic method for eliminating negative thinking by having patients keep track of their thoughts in the language.[1]

Phonology and phonotactics

Inventory

Toki Pona has nine consonants (/p, t, k, s, m, n, l, j, w/) and five vowels (/a, e, i, o, u/). The first syllable of a word is stressed. There are no diphthongs, contrasting vowel length, consonant clusters (except those starting with the nasal coda), or tones.[6]

Consonants Labial Coronal Dorsal
Nasal m n
Stop p t k
Fricative s
Approximant w l j
Vowels Front Back
Close i u
Mid e o
Open a

Distribution

The statistical vowel spread is fairly typical when compared with other languages. 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/.[6] 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/.[24]

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.[6]

Syllable structure

All syllables are of the form (C)V(N), i.e. optional consonant + vowel + optional final nasal, or V, CV, VN, CVN. 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).[6]

Most roots (70%) are disyllabic; about 20% are monosyllables and 10% trisyllables. This is a common distribution, and similar to Polynesian.[6]

Phonotactics

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. 20% of roots are vowel initial. [6] Syllables that aren't word-initial must have an initial consonant.[20]

Proper nouns are usually converted into Toki Pona proper adjectives using a set of guidelines.[25] 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]

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 [n] before /n/, /t/, /s/ or /l/, as an [m] before /m/, /p/ or /w/, as an [ŋ] before /k/, and as an [ɲ] before /j/.[6]

Because of its small phoneme inventory, Toki Pona allows for quite a lot of 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.[6]

Both its sound inventory and phonotactics are compatible with the majority of human languages, and are therefore readily accessible. For example, */ji, wu, wo/ are impossible in Korean,[27] which is convenient when writing Toki Pona in alternative scripts.

Writing systems

14 Latin 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:[28] j sounds like English y, and the vowels are like those of Spanish or Italian. Capital initials are used to mark proper adjectives, while Toki Pona roots are always written with lowercase letters, even when they start a sentence.[10]

Modified symbols in sitelen pona

Besides the Latin alphabet, which is the most convenient and used way of writing the language, two logographic writing systems, sitelen pona and sitelen sitelen, were later introduced and included in Toki Pona: The Language of Good. The former, in which each word is represented by a symbol, was devised as an alternative by Lang herself. 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.[29] The symbol of the language is written in sitelen pona, with the symbol for pona written inside the symbol for toki. This system is occasionally used online and recognised by some of the members.

The word symbols of sitelen sitelen

The latter system, sitelen sitelen, was created by Jonathan Gabel. It is more elaborate and visually resembles the Mayan script. This non-linear logographic system uses two separate methods to form words: images representing whole words, and images that represent syllables, composed of graphemes representing each phoneme.[30] The difficulty of using this system along with its appealing design is a way for people to slow down and explore how not only the language but also the method of communication can influence thinking. Only a handful of people can write or read this system.

In addition, individuals from the community have adapted other scripts to write Toki Pona, such as Korean Hangul or J. R. R. Tolkien's Tengwar,[6] although these are rarely used.

Grammar

Toki Pona's word order is subject–verb–object.[31] The word li introduces predicates, e introduces direct objects, prepositional phrases follow the objects, and la phrases come before the subject to add additional context.[32]

Some roots are particles for grammatical functions, while others have lexical meanings. The lexical roots do not fall into well defined parts of speech; rather, they may generally be used as nouns, verbs, modifiers, or interjections depending on context or their position in a phrase.[33] For example, ona li moku may mean "they ate" or "it is food".[6]

Sentence structures

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

Some interjections are a, ala, ike, jaki, mu, o, pakala, pona, toki, etc. and can stand alone as a sentence.[32]

Statements follow the normal structure of subject predicate with an optional la phrase at the beginning. The word li always comes before the predicate unless the subject is mi or sina by itself. The direct object marker e comes before the direct objects.[31] More li and e markers can introduce new predicates or direct objects.[34] Vocative phrases come before the main sentence and are marked with o at the end of the phrase, after the addressee.[32]

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.[32]

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. Another way to form a yes-no question is to put "anu seme?" (lit. or what?) at the end of a sentence. It is important to note that questions cannot be made by just putting a question mark at the end of a sentence.[35]

Non-polar questions are formed by substituting the unknown information with the interrogative word seme.[35]

Pronouns

Toki Pona has basic pronouns: mi (first person), sina (second person), and ona (third person).[36]

The pronouns do not specify number or gender. Therefore, ona can mean "he", "she", "it", or "they". In practice, Toki Pona speakers use the phrase mi mute to mean "we", though the number is often discernible from context and thus only mi is necessary. Likewise, ona mute may mean "they" and sina mute would mean "you" (plural).[32]

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.[32]

Nouns

With such a small root-word vocabulary, Toki Pona relies heavily on compound nouns, where a noun is modified by a following root, to make more complex meanings.[2] A typical example is combining jan (person) with utala (fight) to make jan utala (soldier, warrior).[37] [See 'modifiers' next.]

Nouns do not decline according to number.[32] jan can mean "person", "people",[32] or "the human race" depending on context.

Toki Pona does not use isolated proper nouns; instead, they must modify a preceding noun. For this reason they are called "proper adjectives"; they are functionally the same as compound nouns.[11] 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 country") or jan Lisa (lit. "Lisa person").[6]

Modifiers

Phrases in Toki Pona are head-initial; modifiers always come after the word that they modify.[38] This trait resembles the typical arrangement of adjectives in Spanish and Arabic and contrasts with the typical English structure. Therefore, soweli utala, literally "animal of fighting", is a "fighting animal", whereas utala soweli, literally "fighting of animal", means "animal war".[6]

In Toki Pona, "N A1 A2" (where N represents a noun and A1 and A2 represent modifiers) is always understood as ((N A1) A2), i.e. an A1 N that is A2: E.g., jan pona lukin = ((jan pona) lukin), a friend watching, rather than (jan (pona lukin)), a good-looking person.[6]

This can be changed with the particle pi, "of", which groups the following adjectives into a kind of compound adjective that applies to the head noun, which leads to jan pi pona lukin = (jan (pona lukin)), "good-looking person". Demonstratives, numerals, and possessive pronouns follow other modifiers.[6]

Verbs

Toki Pona does not inflect verbs according to person, tense, mood, or voice, as the language features no inflection whatsoever. Person is inferred from the subject of the verb; time is inferred from context or a temporal adverb in the sentence as a subclause.[32] The closest thing to passivity in Toki Pona is a structure such as "(result) of (subject) is because of (agent)". Alternatively, one could phrase a passive sentence as an active one with the agent subject being unknown.

Prepositions can be used as a kind of verb. For example, tawa means "to" as a preposition and "to go", "to move" or "to go to" as a verb; lon means "in" or "at" as a preposition and "to be in/at" or "to exist" or "to be true" as a verb; kepeken means "using" or "with" (in the sense of the instrumental case) as a preposition and "to use" as a verb. Verbs from prepositional roots have their objects right after them without the direct object marker e, similar to when they are used as a preposition.[32] Compare mi moku lon tomo mi for "I am eating at my house" and mi lon tomo mi for "I am at my house". Using the direct object marker e with a prepositional verb makes it causative, e.g. mi tawa e sijelo mi means "I make my body move". An exception is often made for kepeken, which some speakers use with e without a causative sense. E.g. both mi kepeken ilo and mi kepeken e ilo are used to say "I am using a tool".

Vocabulary

A list of vocabulary along with their symbols in the sitelen pona script

The vocabulary is designed around the principles of living a simple life without the complications of modern civilization and heavily relies on context[5] and metaphor.[3] Toki Pona is generally said to have around 120,[39] 123,[40] or 125[41] root words.[42] Each of these is polysemous and can be thought of as a group of similar concepts,[19] so suli not only means "big" or "long", but also "important".[6] To express more complex thoughts, the roots can be combined.[16] For example, jan pona can mean friend, although it literally translates as "good person", and telo nasa, which literally means "strange water" or "liquid of craziness", would be understood to mean "alcohol" or "alcoholic beverage" depending on the context.[32] The verb "to teach" can be expressed by pana e sona, which literally means "to give knowledge".[17] Essentially identical concepts can be described by different words as the choice relies on the speaker's perception and experience.[3]

Many colours can be expressed by using subtractive colours

Colours

Toki Pona has five root words for colours: pimeja (black), walo (white), loje (red), jelo (yellow), and laso (blue and green).[12] Although the simplified conceptualization of colours tends to exclude a number of colours that are commonly expressed in Western languages, speakers sometimes may combine these five words to make more specific descriptions of certain colours. 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".[6]

Numbers

Toki Pona has root words for one (wan), two (tu), and many (mute). In addition, ala can mean zero, although its more literal meaning is "no" or "none," and ale "all" can express an infinite or immense amount.[43]

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".[32]

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.[11]

An alternate system proposed by Lang's official 2014 description of Toki Pona for larger numbers uses luka (literally "hand") to signify "five", mute (literally "many") to signify "twenty" and ale (literally "all") to signify "100". For example, using this structure ale tu would mean "102" and mute mute mute luka luka luka tu wan would signify "78".[44]

Roots history

Body parts in Toki Pona

Some words have obsolete synonyms. For example, nena replaced kapa (protuberance) early in the language's development for unknown reasons. Later, the pronoun ona replaced iki (he, she, it, they), which was sometimes confused with ike (bad).[11]

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.[45]

Originally, oko meant "eye" and lukin was used as a verb "see". The meanings were later merged into lukin, oko being the alternative. Most users, however, tend to follow the traditional definitions.[46]

Words that have been simply removed from the lexicon include leko (block, stairs), monsuta (monster, fear), majuna (old), and pata (sibling).[47]

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), kipisi, (to cut), and namako (extra, additional, spice), another word for sin (new).[48]

kipisi, majuna and monsuta are now considered outdated because they were not included in the official book.[47]

Provenance

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

Toki Pona roots generally come from English, Tok Pisin, Finnish, Georgian, Dutch, Acadian French, Esperanto, Croatian, and Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese).[8]

Many of these derivations are transparent. For example, oko (eye) is identical to Slavic oko and similar to other cognates such as Spanish ojo, Italian occhio and English ocular; likewise, 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.][8]

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% 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).[8]

Hand shapes of Signed Toki Pona

Signed Toki 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.[49]

To form a sentence, each of the signs is performed using the grammar and word order of Toki Pona.[49]

Community

The language is fairly known among Esperantists, who often offer courses and conversation groups at their meetings.[6] In 2007, Lang was reported to have said that at least 100 people speak Toki Pona fluently and estimated that a few hundred have a basic knowledge of the language.[1] One-hour courses of Toki Pona were taught on various occasions by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology during their Independent Activities Period.[1]

The language is used mainly online on social media, in forums, and other groups.[10] Users of the language are spread out across multiple platforms. Two large groups exist on Facebook—one designated for conversation in Toki Pona and English, and the other for conversation in only Toki Pona.[50] In 2019, the most subscribed group, in which members communicate in both English and Toki Pona, had over 4,000 total members.[41] Users also use other social media platforms such as Reddit, in which there were around 2,300 users in 2019, and Amikumu which recorded around 550 users in 2019.[51]

Sample texts

A contract in sitelen sitelen writing system

mama pi mi mute[7] (The Lord's Prayer)

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 en 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.
Amen.

ma tomo Pape[52] (The Tower of Babel story)

jan ali li kepeken e toki sama. jan li kama tawa 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.

See also

References

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Literature

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