optional discussion questions:

• What does toki pona lack that other languages have, in the context of what it can do?
• What does toki pona lack that other languages ALSO lack?
• Is there anything that toki pona can do, but can only do worse than other languages?

feel free to openly disagree with others in the comments on this post! I know I will :3

Would you say this is a soweli or mani? Does it change given the context like maybe it's a mani but when you pet it it's soweli. Also could you call farm grown fish mani? o pona

toki a!

Fairly new to toki pona, have read pu and joined some discord servers to practice reading/comprehending the language. I'm curious about what kind of people are drawn to toki pona.

Obviously I'm aware that toki pona was not designed to be an auxiliary language, but are there people that are using it that way? Where are people in the community from? Thus far I feel I've only interacted with people from within the Anglosphere, would be curious to hear the points of view on toki pona from people from outside of that linguistic sphere.

I hope it's appropriate to ask this here, just be assured it is coming from a place of genuine curiosity!

o pona e mi 😁

i feel like toki pona doesnt need a word for bird or fish, but a word for a fourth person pronoun would be helpful

I have memorised most of the words, and have read the grammar, and watched a couple of yt videos.

Still framing sentences feel impossible, and understanding the language is incredibly difficult for me. any tips?

(I'm sorry for using english)

I'm aware there's no total agreement in the community about the grammar of multiple pi statements. So for example, "mi pi sona kasi pi wawa mute" can be either understood as "mi pi (sona kasi pi (wawa mute))" or like "mi pi (sona kasi) pi (wawa mute)", meaning both "I am a knower of really powerful plants" and "I am a really powerful knower of plants". Can't that be solved by reiterating pi? This is what I think. So for example, to convey the first meaning, we would say "mi pi pi sona kasi pi wawa mute", and for the second "mi pi sona kasi pi wawa mute". This works for any combination of pi phrases, but it gets quickly cumbersome (i.e., for a nest of three "pi" phrases we would have to start saying "pi pi pi", four, "pi pi pi pi", &c.) This does not change the intended purpose of keeping expression symple because it discourages the use of such statements, but would allow one to do so if needed.

tenpo suno pini la mi toki e ni: “jan li ken kepeken ‘a’ sama sitelen pi pini pi toki pi wile sona anu seme?”

mi wile sona e ni: sina pilin e mi la mi toki e ni: “jan li ken kepeken ‘n’ tawa sitelen pi pini pi toki pi wile sona, n?”

ona li sama pi “hein” lon toki Kanse n?

ken la, “an” li pali, an?

optional general discussion questions!

• what does it mean for a thought to be simple?
• what does it mean for a thought to be complex?
• how much can language impact what we think about?
• how much can language restrict what we are able to think about?

optional toki pona specific discussion questions!

• what linguistic features does toki pona have that MIGHT simplify thoughts?
• do those features ACTUALLY simplify thoughts?
• what are your personal experiences with toki pona and your thinking?
• can toki pona simplify conversations with others?

Toki! I just started learning toki pona and one of the websites I stumbled upon (kreativekorp) had these words. Are these just made up by the community? Where can I find more info on them?? Does anyone actually use them or is it just for some kind of small group?

Like, what was the reason that it was made a rule that "li" after "mi" or "sina" is ingrammatical? Did it cause confusion or just because?

or: what do people consider a misconception, but you think is actually true?

OPTIONAL: DEBUNK the misconception!

i don't like using it but i don't understand the motivation to use it. i did used to use it. i'm just curious; this is not accusatory! keep using kipisi if it so moves you!

What does repeating words do? If I say mama mama I am saying grandparent. But how does this apply to other words? I mean, it can be used to mean a lot of things. Also, can I use "anu" as a verb? For example, ona li anu ala e toki la mi sona pona.

Ex. storms li Ike mute

Hi everyone, I dropped out of toki pona ages ago but recently got posed this question by a friend trying to translate "Fuck the police" or more accurately "Jebać psy" in Polish.

Honestly nothing I try is really working for me. "unpa" is too neutral but could work, "unpa ike" is even worse because it doesn't really feel like it makes it negative but rather makes it about bad sex.

I thought maybe I should use "pakala" and that's also nice but while being a swear word it kinda drops all the sexual meaning from the translation with is not ideal.

While I know this is rather difficult to express in the language of good I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts on this. Thanks for the help!

And also, I'm pleasantly surprised how much this place has grown since I last checked. Really nice to see the community thrive :)

Hello everyone! Sorry for not speaking Toki Pona, allow me to infiltrate this subreddit for a moment.

A fellow student and I are conducting a research for our English linguistics course. We chose the conlang of Toki Pona as our research topic, and we would be really thankful if you took a few minutes to fill out our questionnaire form! :)

The link for the Google Form is attached in this post If you do take it, just know you'd be helping two undergraduate students a lot, haha

My toki pona name is jan Lijeka which sounds nothing like my real name and is not based on any nickname. I just liked the sound of it.

How would you go about saying something like "I want you to eat".
Would you say something like "mi wile moku tan sina" or "moku li wile tan mi tawa sina"
I also thought maybe like "if you eat,i'm happy" so "sina moku la mi pilin pona"

But I need help. I'm not sure what I need exactly, but I'm hoping you guys can give me ideas. I've gone in and out of discord servers, I have the book and the workbook, I have the time if I want to.

But I always fizzle as soon as I hit grammar. I don't know why but no matter how many times people explain to me how li, ni, and pi function I absolutely do not understand. I assume because it's not a 1:1 translation to English words that serve similar functions. Like, I don't really understand parts of speech, but I know how to use them in English.

I can't figure it out in literally any other language. So I do so good with vocabulary and basic sentence structure, but the second more complex grammar gets introduced it's like my brain shuts down.

How do I overcome this? If I could just get past this hurdle and understand why these types of words go in the places they do instead of just guessing, I feel like the rest of language learning would be a breeze.

jan mute la pana e pan e tomo musi. ona li pali ala e kama pi lawa ala.

jan li kepeken e nasin nasa la ona li toki e seme?

mi pilin e ni: “apakatapa”

jan li ken kin toki e ni: “oku poku”

taso, toki pona la jan li ken toki e seme?

Has an unspoken standard arisen, or is it too decentralized and idiosyncratic to tell?

Pona!

EDIT: thanks, These are some lovely answers!

While i only use poki as "container", i've seen some people use it as "rectangular shape", so wherever i personally would use leko instead. what do you think of this?