Toki Pona uses capital letters only to signify names and not to mark the beginning of a sentence.Toki Pona
SPOKEN BY
Toki Pona is spoken by those who wish to learn the constructed language.
DOCUMENTED BY
Linguist and translator Sonja Elen Kisa (1978– ) constructed Toki Pona to express the most by using the least.
BEHIND THE WORDS
Toki Pona consists of only fourteen phonemes and 123 root words. Kisa’s goal was to create a minimalist language to test the Safir-Whorf Hypothesis as well as to see whether those who spoke it would achieve a zen-like simplicity of thought.
DERIVATION OF THE LANGUAGE
Toki Pona is a mixture of English, Tok Pisin, Finnish, Georgian, Dutch, Acadian French, Esperanto, Croatian, and Chinese. The bowl in which they were mixed was Taoist philosophy.
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LANGUAGE
Toki Pona uses capital letters only to signify names and not to mark the beginning of a sentence.
There are only nine consonants and five vowels in the language.
Speaking or writing Toki Pona, you combine root words to create complex ideas.
A TASTE OF THE LANGUAGE
kute (verb)—to listen
mama (noun)—parent
moku (noun)—food
musi (verb)—to have fun
noka (noun)—leg
pali (noun)—work
pimeja (adjective)—black
pini (noun)—end
seli (noun)—fire
suno (noun)—sun
telo (noun)—water
waso (noun)—bird
SOME USEFUL PHRASES
sina kepeken ala kepeken e ni? (Are you using that?)
tenpo suno sin ale la sina moku e telo seli pimeja. (Every morning I drink coffee.)
mi wile sin e telo pi lape ala. (I need more coffee.)
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.
(Translated by Pije/Jopi)
PHILOLOGICAL FACTS
Since it has very few root nouns, Toki Pona tends toward noun compounds in which a noun is modified by a following root—somewhat similar to German.
At least 100 people speak Toki Pona fluently.
IF YOU’RE INTERESTED IN LEARNING THE LANGUAGE
The simple way to learn the simple language is to go to the web page: http://en.tokipona.org/wiki/What_is_Toki_Pona%3F.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Review the resources listed in the bibliography and the web pages: “Dictionary toki pona—
English” (http://rowa.giso.de/languages/toki-pona/english/dictionary.php) and “What is Toki Pona?” (http://en.tokipona.org/wiki/What_is_Toki_Pona%3F).