The World's TINIEST Language? (TOKI PONA) | Enhanced reboot
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- Опубліковано 8 лют 2025
- This video is a re-shot, re-edited, and updated version of my video about Toki Pona from 7 years ago.
TOKI PONA is a minimalist constructed language with only 123 words! The name of the language means "The language of good", "toki" meaning "language" (Like "talk"), and "pona" meaning "good". The idea of Toki Pona is to simplify thought and communication by cutting our communication down to the most important universal concepts, and expressing more complex concepts by combining simple ones. With only 123 words, translating a single English word into Toki Pona sometimes requires several words to "explain" or paraphrase the idea. The Toki Pona community, which uses Toki Pona to communicate online (and occasionally in person), is always finding new and interesting ways to use the core 123 words to describe new concepts, events, and technology.
Toki Pona inspires various reactions, including some people who say it reminds them of "Newspeak" in the George Orwell book 1984, but the intention behind it is not to hold back, but to inspire you to express yourself in new ways. At the very least, it's a very interesting and unique conlang!
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Rarely you cover half of a language’s vocabulary in a 12min video ;)
About 15 years ago I tried to learn it, but nobody understood when I tried to string a simple sentences together. That's when I learned simple does not equal easy, and easy does not equal simple.
And so simplicity causes complexity.
You might say the optional complexity is loaded in a different place. In practise, speakers develop a basic awareness of "pragmatics" and know when 1 or 2 words is enough to point to a concept in context, or whether an entire sentence is needed to introduce a complex topic, which then gets shortened to 1 or 2 words when mentioned again afterwards.
@@SonjaLang sure but the issue I see is to have to introduce the complex topic every time someone enters the conversation or every time the topic is discussed to avoid quiproquo. That's pretty much the practical need behind the extended vocabulary of every natural language and the necessity to introduce new words and standardizing them.
To me, Toki Pona is like the programming language called Brainfuck or some reduced instruction set assembly : Those are great tools to make people think out of the box but even though it's possible to create complex software with them, it requires a lot of mastering and the code is very impractical to read or to port so we don't really use them in practice.
@@PainterVieraxhow i see it: if you want to talk about complex topics, learn how to talk about them! in order to use any language to its full potential, you’ll need to master it. toki pona just takes more (and a different type of) learning
@@DaRedPanda That's right. Being skilled in Toki Pona lets you comfortably talk about highly technical topics, but you can't just parrot buzzwords. You need to actually think about or understand their meanings.
Send 1000 people of native speakers of toki pona to an isolated place and 5 generations later you’ll find a “normal” language with lots of words and grammatical features.
That's true. It wouldn't be Toki Pona anymore. But it would be fascinating to see what arose!
Hm well, native speakers don't exist yet, there's a ton of things that could end up differently with native speakers, maybe?
@@IamSamysactually, I’m pretty sure some dude is teaching their kids toki pona alongside English, Arabic, and other one I forgot about.
They’re still children though.
@@Thestuffdoer I know who you're talking about, but... I know enough about them to not be confident. In their specific case, we would only be able to determine that some time in the future. There were 2 other families, I think (don't quote me on that) who had similar goals, but iirc with older children. And age is just one among many factors in the complicated discussion about native speakers
@@IamSamys brain wipe speakers so the only language left is toki pona muhahahahah...
Also, I recently did (yet another) monosyllabic toki pona project, this time evolving the words from the original TP, though more dogi bona. I wonder if some of the words in this hypothetical isolated place might end up, at least in some contexts, like any of the words I ended up with:
- mi wile kama sona e toki pona » me we ganson je doppon.
- sina ken ala ken kute e kalama ni » sja gen 'akken ge je gaun ni?
Complex topics in any language requires lots of knowledge and experience, regardless of the complexity of the language.
True.
Technically true, but Toki pona discourages even discussing complex things, by its philosophy and by design (e.g. "ike" conflates complex with bad).
@@dukereg not really, it mostly encourages breaking complex things into simple parts and only prevents the speaker from using a lot of complex terminology without understanding what it really means (for example, there's a really good video about non-euclidean geometry in toki pona by jan Telakoman)
@@chromatica__ "Being able to talk about a subject which is complex" is not the same thing as "being able to discuss complex subjects". You can achieve the former by throwing away all the complex details and only mention the barebones simple aspects. Would someone who's never heard of non-Euclidean geometry be able to learn the subject using toki pona, to the point that they are able to solve exam problems as if they had taken a standard college course on it?
@@letao12 it's hypothetically possible to explain things like that in that amount of detail, even if it is fairly inconvenient and difficult (also i don't rlly feel like doing a ton of research into specific examples of this and spending a ton of effort on a yt argument, so do some research and ask other members of the community if you're actually interested)
It'd be great if you made a video about Lakhota (Sioux language), it's a very interesting native American language and unfortunately there's not many resources for it, so it'd be great to see it here.
I thought for a moment that it's probably how languages were actually forming in prehistoric times. Finite amount of words composing of simple sounds, broadly describing common and universal meanings/objects, almost no grammar, etc
Impossible to know! Most ancient languages we know about are highly complex.
You missed the cutest feature: the logographic writing system, Sitelen Pona. Interesting and informative video nonetheless. Well done.
I noticed that it sounds like Finnish language "mina/sina" and etc.
you're right, "sina" meaning "you" is derived from finnish!
Half of Toki Pona's vocabulary comes from Finnish
You know, upon watching this video, maybe this is a language that could be useful to me. I'm autistic, and when I'm not talking about special interest i usually want to use as few words as possible. I'll pore over some reading material and see where it takes me.
I've never taken a poll or anything, but I think a decent percentage of the Toki Pona community is probably on the spectrum.
There's tons of neurodivergent people in the community
This would explain quite a bit. Reasonable hypothesis.
@@Langfocus
there's entire mastodon instances dedicated to folks speaking Toki Pona, it's really quite neat. And yeah folks from all over the spectrum definitely make use of it.
@@Langfocus As an autistic person, I actually struggled with Toki Pona. Because it is heavily context dependent, and because I struggle with theory of mind and understanding the intent of what the other person means to say unless it is stated with real clarity, the ambiguity of and wide range of meanings of Toki Pona words, meant I could know every word in a sentence and still not really understand what the other person meant to say. I'd like to try again though as I absolutely love the idea of the language.
Awesome work, Paul! So Happy to see this enhanced reboot! I watched the original years ago and later learnt Toki Pona. With so few words and rules, one can start using the language quickly. It does take some amount of practice to get good at fully expressing everything in Toki Pona, no doubt, but contrarily to many languages one can start having fun with it right away; that's also what makes it special! Plus of course, everything in the language is cute. It puts me in a good mood whenever I use it. I show casual spoken Toki Pona on UA-cam and use the language in day-to-day situations and also provide visual clues and annotations for people of every level 🐇👍. Actually, there are many good teaching resource out there using different methods (from fully grammar-based to exclusively using comprehensible input methodology). Learning Toki Pona is not only not too hard, but it has never been so easy. And of course Sonja's book is excellent, and she's also planning a second edition. The community of Toki Pona speakers is growing a lot. Exciting times! 💖
One last thing... about complex notions in Toki Pona, yes, it's possible. I've had fascinating chats online on Discord, and on UA-cam there exists a few videos discussing stuff like taxation or non-euclidean geometry using only Toki Pona 😊
Toki pona reminds me of the board game "Concept" where you must convey an idea by essentially pointing at a bunch of abstract symbols on the board!
ngl listening to Toki pona gives me Hawaiian vibe from the phonetics
In a lot of ways, this reminds me of American Sign Language. For example, the idea of putting time first to indicate verb tense, not conjugating verbs, interpreting generalized words based on context rather than having more specific words for them, etc. (Note: I'm still a beginner at ASL, so if any of this is wrong, please correct me!)
🏆Absolutely BEAUTIFUL as it sounds so soothing, especially as a native Spanish speaker and the word endings are very similar.
The use of explicit markers for parts of speech is exceptionally useful and as with any language the SPOKEN forms allow for even greater meaning through paralinguistic features, such as tone, speed, etc
I feel like when speaking this language one would have to use many hand gestures to explain things. 😂
I have to do that in any language 😅
@ Same, I get super into what i’m talking about and can get very animated 😂
mi pali e ni. tenpo ale la, mi toki kepeken luka mi. ona li suli tan pana sona!
I do this. I speak with my hands all the time. It’s very important for communication!
Toki pona li pona suli a!
This conlang is one of my favorites out there, and I've seen people describe some really advanced stuff. One time I saw a presentation on 3D modeling in toki pona, and i understood most of it. Context and brief explanations can bridge a surprising amount of gaps!
O.K., thoughts of learning Toki Pona are coming to my head...
Is it just me or does Toki Pona sound like some Austronesian languages? 🤔
They were definitely one of they sources it drew from, especially in its phonology.
I consider that a coincidence. The small phonology was designed to be easy to pronounce for everyone around the world. It just so happens that Hawaiian or Rotokas is also this way.
I stand corrected!
there was a study on this! it's you and a lot of other people who speak european languages. to malaysian speakers, according to the study, toki pona sounded like italian.
Maybe you could have briefly introduced the toki pona hieroglyphs. It's pretty cute and there is only 120 of them...
This makes me wonder about the Chinook Jargon. The vocabulary seems limited but there seem to be able to communicate on a wide variety of topics.
sitelen tawa ni li pona tawa mi
pona tawa sina!
sina pali kin e sitelen tawa. ni li pona mute tawa mi. mi wile toki e ni: sina pona, pilin pi jan ali li pona tan sitelen tawa ni!
Interesting concept and video. Thanks. It seems that the tradeoff is fewer words in the vocabulary, but more words are needed to express a thought. I wonder if you translated a book with, say, 50,000 English words into this language, how many words it would have. I'll bet it would be lot more. Also, having to figure out how to circumnavigate a concept to express it with so few available words doesn't seem very relaxing to me. Also, where's the poetry? How would it sound to translate Shakespeare into this language? "Existence verb alternative negation existence verb!" Not quite the same ring.
In my own experience, the length of a translated text doesn't grow that much. Maybe a 50%-100% increase. The nice thing is that toki pona has its own hieroglyphic writing system. You may have more words, but you have fewer characters/glyphs overall.
toki pona poetry can be quite rich and evocative. There are translations of famous pieces but also original poems (and songs...)
Based on its take on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, a 50,000-word book in English would be much shorter in Toki Pona because the ideas are what get translated, not the specific words used to express them.
@@KGRedrum But does it still contain enough details to match everything expressed in the original? It's not surprising that you can make things shorter by throwing away content.
@@letao12 Referring to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz again, it’s detailed enough for the characters and overall sequence of events to feel familiar, but it’s also somewhat unique because it’s written in sitelen pona, a feature of which is that a name of a person or place is rendered as a series of glyphs inside a cartouche. Because each glyph is chosen for phonetic reasons but also corresponds to a word, a name is thus able to indirectly convey information about (or ascribe a quality to) that person or place, whereas writing in the Latin script would require that information to be conveyed separately, if at all.
I'm curious what language Google thinks the comments in toki pona are. It offers to translate, but most words don't translate
A genius construct
Interested to see what exactly this reboot will have that the original did not.
It’s not a completely new reboot like some others I’ve made. But there are some new parts, lots of little errors were fixed, and all my footage and audio is redone. It’s better than the original one.
views? 7 years is a long time. And not everyone roots around in the back catalogue.
@@Langfocus Loved the old one. I'm so looking forward to seeing this update. Thank you so much for doing it.
The toki pona community has grown a lot in the last few years, and the language itself has changed and become more decentralized. Nowadays most speakers don't conform to the official word list in Toki Pona: The Language of Good. In 2021, Sonja Lang identified 137 widely used words and many other less common words. Since then, some of those words have fallen out of use and some others have become more popular.
@@1aapmens I re-shot this video because I filmed the original when I was sick, and I hate how I look in it. And I took the opportunity to update the video contents while I was at it. It has nothing to do with views.
a a a ni li pona mute tawa mi! sitelen tawa ante sina li pona li pana e sona mute. mi lukin e ona lon tenpo mute. taso, toki pona li toki nanpa wan tawa mi. sina pana e pona tawa kulupu pi toki pona. sina pana e musi tawa mi. pona tawa sina!
(For non Toki Pona speakers)
Haha! I love this! Your other videos are good and teach a lot. I’ve been watching them for a while. However, Toki Pona is my favorite language. I give my appreciation to the Toki Pona community. You entertain me. Thank you!
[Edit: change in translation under context]
pona tawa sina! toki ante sina li pona mute! mi lukin e lipu sina la mi toki insa e ni: kulupu musi "Miracle Musical" li pona tawa sina anu seme? ona li pona li wawa tawa mi. mi la kalama musi ona nanpa wan li "The Mind Electric" :))))))
@ lon a! mi olin e kalama musi ni kin! kulupu pi toki pona li jo e jan epiku mute!
My questions that came in mind: Who speaks this language? And how should I know, rather learning it would benefit me or not?
I mean, normally I'd like to learn a language if the culture where it is spoken interests me or I sympathize with the people of the country. Or specific literature of the language is important for me to learn.
did the inventor think "the people who speak my language will create a new culture, so it might be important for the next generations"?
There is a large community of speakers online, r/tokipona has ~23000 members
I want to learn Toki Pona, but where can I find texts to read?
I have great doubts that Toki Poni is a useful language. But learnig a language to have some experience with the language seems to me a good reason to learn it.
tokipona . 🙂org
The wiki on "sona small-circle pona small-circle la" has resources listed
@TokiSani-h9k These texts are too complicated for me. I need simpler texts, where I can guess the meaning. Learning a language is an incremental process. The more you understand, the better you learn.
@@IamSamysThese are not the texts I want. I want simple texts, probably with pictures, simple stories.
o su!
This seems like it would be ideal for tourists, assuming the country they visit speaks it lol. Even with just a few weeks of dedicated study
I would think of li as more of a predicate marker than a subject marker.
I second this. «li» is also used to introduce more than one predicate
This may be a stupid question, but im gonna go for it lol. So, can you tell jokes, write books, have movies and stand up gigs in a limited word language?
Yes! There are many links to such content on the main Toki Pona website.
A toki pona version of the wizard of Oz is actually one of the core official books
(The other 2 being the official guide and the official dictionary)
The content is limited but people speak out movie scenes and make toki pona memes as well.
The humor question is probably the most difficult one to answer well.
Comedy is possible WITHOUT language. See: physical comedy. And it exists in every language too. So, yes, you can be funny in a small language.
But it's the linguistic jokes themselves that might be different. Puns will be more challenging, for one. Any language jokes rooted in grammar will be different ... And more limited.
There are quite a bit! An example would be “sina tawa tomo. mi tawa e tomo. mi en sina li sama ala.” It literally translates to “You go to the house. I move the house. We are not the same.” It’s poking fun at how if you don’t use the particle “e” it can change the meaning of a sentence (basically “lets eat grandma”)
tenpo ala la, mi toki insa ala e ni: sina pali e sitelen tawa sin pi toki pona
(hope i wrote everything right :v)
no li after mi or sina as a subject on their own ;D
oh yeah true, i first wrote a version with 3rd person (ona), but for the sake of posting it as a comment here i changed ona to sina, forgetting li was still there lmao
@ i see
ken la, ona li pilin e ni: jan Sonja li sitelen e ijo sin.
i’d love a video on pama nyungan languages like my native language
a! sina pali pona
a mi lukin lili e sitelen tawa ni la mi pilin pona tan ni: ijo sin li kama sona pi toki pona.
you're the best Paul. Make another video on another Arabic dialect they are the best
Thanks! I like making videos about Arabic dialects, but I also have to think about other viewers who are interested in different languages.
@@Langfocus True Great Work I have been a follower for ten years
Wow, thanks for being such a long time viewer!
Have you ever learned anything about Ithkuil? I find Ithkuil and Toki Pona equally fascinating especially when you compare them to each other
i love toki pona
we invent new words and slang every year...
yeah you guessed right: Persian!!!
EXCELENT video!
Thanks! I'm glad you like it!
Does it have numbers now? That's what turned me off, years ago. Not specifically that it didn't have numbers, but the attitude that numbers were a modern complex idea that detracted from "pure" communication.
Very interesting
"jan lili li..." How long a battologism can you make in Toki Pona?
Why do I feel like this should be the lingua franca of Indonesia?
Toki Pona took lots of inspiration from Tok Pisin, and it's kind of the lingua franca in Papua New Guinea
OK, there are 123 words, and there is a word for Thailand, which makes me conclude there are words for other countries as well. There are some 200 states in the world. How does this work with 123 words?
Proper nouns aren’t part of the core vocabulary, just “Michael” isn’t really a vocabulary word.
I definitely could not use this language in my daily life since I don't like ambiguity 😅😅
Can you talk about the ancient greek and the best resources for learning it .🙏🏻❤️❤️
as a fan of the harsh noise genre, "entertaining sound" is a 1:1 description of what I get out of this not-very-musical music
kalama
If individual speakers always use the simple words to invent phrases to encode complex meanings, how do the listeners decode the phrases they have never seen before? Are listeners constantly guessing the meanings? This doesn’t sound efficient and error proof.
Context helps a lot. We rarely have to guess. I've had conversations about medical issues without any need for clarification or guessing. There are misunderstandings from time to time, but they're often funny!
@ thanks a lot!
A szövegkörnyezet miatt értjük, hogy mit akar mondani valaki nekünk toki pona nyelven. Ki kellene szerintem próbálnod azért, hogy megértsd a működését. Én magyar vagyok és nehézséget okozott nekem a nyelvtanulás egész életemben. De a Toki Pona nyelvet egy hónap alatt megtanultam.
So how would a sentence like: 'I HEARD you, but I didn't OBEY you' come out, since HEAR and OBEY are the same word ?
"kute mi li kute e wile sina. taso pilin mi li kute ala." could work.
"mi kute e sina kepeken kute mi. taso mi pali ala e wile sina" could also work.
A simple "mi kute e sina la mi kute ala", depending on context, could be understood as well
It could be “mi kute e sina. taso mi kute ala e sina” if it made sense in context. I’d write something like: “mi kute e toki sina. taso mi kute ala e lawa sina.” In the context you’ve established, it might mean, “I heard what you said, but I did not obey your instructions.”
Ultimately, people express things in Toki Pona in relation to their individual perceptions and priorities, so establishing context is required for people to converse in it (this often involves incorporating things beyond the language itself but doesn’t necessarily have to).
"sina kute e mi kepeken kute sina, taso kepeken ala pali sina", seems like it'll work. That means "you hear/obey me with your ears but not with your actions."
sitelen tawa ni li pona mute.
Kanji or Katakana?
This language looks like- but doesn't 'mean' like- a composite of Maori & Samoan IMO.
Toki= axe
Tawa= Tree type etc
S & L as in Samoan- being of course absent in Maori.
Kute in my country means Volture. 😅
I know that the goal is to make Toki Pona equally easy for anyone to learn but wouldn’t it still be easier for native speakers of languages it is influenced by (Tok Pisin, Finnish, Georgian, English)?
Probably!
I am speak in hungarian. I am speak in Toki Pona. I do not speak in English.
mama toki mi li toki Maja. mi toki e toki pona kin. taso, mi la, toki ante li ike tawa mi tan ni: nimi li mute. 🙂
Toki pona would be easier if all of the words were from English since English is the most internationally used language around the world. Either way, a language is more than vocabulary. A simple phonology to make it easy to pronounce and a simple grammar is helpful.
“Fruit that is yellowish-red of Thailand” = “Mango” … Much simpler 👍
I assume that proper nouns are not included in the 123 words (there are more countries than that)
What if there are multiple fruits that are yellowish-red?
What if I don't know where mangoes originated from?
What if I categorize colors differently and think mangoes are just yellow?
It's just asking for trouble.
Interesting. Probably will always lag Esperanto, reasons stated by Tolkien.
Szerintem az eszperantó elöregedő mesterséges nyelv. Szinte csak idős emberek beszélik, és csak néhány nagyon fiatal ember akarná megtanulni az Eszperantót. Én ezt látom a UA-cam videókban. Viszont a Toki Pona a fiatalok körében népszerű.
It's interesting as a constructed language, but can't see how it "simplifies" anything, on contrary, it just looks more complex to me. Like, you need 7 words only to say "mango"? How is that less complex?
Some of Paul's theoretical examples were on the long side and wouldn't be used by advanced speakers. In real-world situations, Toki Pona speakers develop a basic awareness of "pragmatics", so in most situations 2 words is enough to point at a meaning the listener can easily figure out in context.
@@SonjaLang So how do you pragmatically say mango?
Do a enhanced reboot of indonesian 🇮🇩🤍
I would like to do that...
It sounds like Hawaiian to me :)
Please reshoot and reedit your 2016 review of the Pimsleur Method.
I've thought about making an updated review of Pimsleur (since they have an online subscription platform now which makes it quite different). But I haven't done it yet because I don't know how much my regular viewers want to see a review video.
@@Langfocus I'm a subscribed but "now and then" viewer because I have so many subscriptions that videos tend to get lost, lol. I would like to see something like that. :) Pretty much anything you make I find interesting.
I see. Thanks!
I'd be interested too
pona 👍
mi olin e toki ni a!
Not exactly scientific but for monks or practitioners od buddhism maye good
pona pona 😊❤
This language has almost no speakers.
a lon. mute jan li lili lon kulupu. ni li ken suwi
if Star Trek introduced an alien race that was woke they would speak Toki Pona
Akkor az egy bölcs faj volna szerintem. 🙂
6:23 That was creepy.
Yay
Cool language. A sort of Toki Pona with 500 words would be cooler, imo.
Sona.
This has been tried with creative forks such as "toki ma". Their speaking community is about 2% or 3% the size of Toki Pona's speaking community, so they are quite fringe.
TP is descended from Sona.
I use my own version of Sona I entirely overhauled and fine-tuned for my own use quite a while ago. I also designed logograms for it.
mi pilin pona tawa video ni.
mi wile sona toki toki pona.
pona taso mi ala wile e jan kepeken toki ni.
toki a!
(Hello!)
sina ken toki e nimi “Video” kepeken e ni: sitelen tawa.
(You can use the word video using this: “motion picture”)
Papoy!
This is just a suggestion can you please talk about Afrikaans next please. Not a suggestion that sounds kind of rude.
I made a video about Afrikaans once. I haven't seen it for a long time, so I don't know how good it is comparing to my current videos, but if you search for "Langfocus Afrikaans" you'll find it.
@Langfocus okay thank you, here's the idea I just got can you do like a person of Dutch in Afrikaans just the idea
Seems pretty pointless to me, to be honest. I'd rather spend the time learning a language where I can say whatever I need without working so hard; and communicate to many more people, too. After all, the point of language is to communicate; a language should facilitate that, not get in the way. If your goal is to simplify your thoughts and communicate less, that's fine, but you can do it without a special language.
Also, the world's natural languages are rich and fascinating. I wish I had time to learn them all! This one goes last on the list.
Bonus fact: there's a similar concept in computer languages that does this even better. It's a language called "Whitespace" in which the only symbols are spaces, tabs, newlines, and the like. And it works! I would have more fun learning that (and could probably express more in it), than learning Toki Pona.
Some people learn things simply out of interest and not because they’re useful. I see no point whatsoever in watching sports. Playing, ok, but watching - what’s the use? Nothing, except that people find it entertaining, and it gives them something to talk about.
@@Langfocus Well, for sure, and I have my interests too, of course. (Watching language and linguistics videos on YT is one of them! Useless, but I find them interesting.) For those who like it, they should knock themselves out! But you know, you asked what we thought! 😛 For me one of the most satisfying experiences is learning a language because I *_have to,_* to communicate - I lived in Austria for two years, and as I gradually got better at German, every successful communication was an exhilarating triumph. Useful can be exciting!
Toki pona: because esperanto isn't useless enough...
This is a dis, but it's funny!
Define "use". toki pona's goals are not the same as Esperanto's goals. People usually do it for fun
Just wait ‘til they hear about lojban
Klingon is my Toki Pona
It seems to me that all the phrase creating to express a single word or concept is more complicated than just having a larger vocabulary. Doesn't seem a simple language use.
According to the first of Grice's Maxims, fluent speakers know how much info to give according to context: not too much, not too little. In practise, usually 2 words is enough for most concepts.
Toki pona is a language with 123 words, but you need to use a thousand word combinations to say something clear. Imagine translating a book in English with 200 pages? My guess is that the toki pona version will have 600 pages.
I think as Toki Pona has a very limited amount of morphemes and no fixed compound words it requires a lot of conencration to express yourself and to understand what others are trying to say. By the way I did not recognize any Mandirin. Still sounds like a purely European language to me.
Hey, that's fair. If you're interested, here are some of the words with the etymology:
jo - Mandarin: 有 (yǒu) - have
kon - Mandarin: 空氣 (kōngqì) - air, atmosphere, ambience, opinion
sin - Mandarin: 新 (xīn) - new, fresh
seme - Mandarin: 什麼 (shénme) - what, something
tonsi - Mandarin: 同志 (tóngzhì) - comrade (same will/purpose), LGBT+
search up "Category:Toki Pona terms derived from Mandarin" there is a list.
As a programmer, this is a nightmare, but interesting. Good video
I find Toki Pona interesting, but I view it more as like a thought experiment than anything else. I don't think it has much usefulness to it.
Most constructed languages are used by only a small community, thousands or tens of thousands of people. So they're not useful as global languages, but they're valuable to the community that's passionate about them. I don't really understand why people love watching strangers throw balls into hoops and cheer when they manage to do it. It doesn't seem very useful to me. But people like it.
I find it fun to speak
Finally a language that essentially prevents any meaningful communication! 🙂
A language that has no word for God or even the basic colors, seriously its usefulness is zero I guess language enthusiasts might try to learn it as a mental exercise and that's where the usefulness ends.
The word for God is "sewi". There are 5 basic colours according to CMYK model, which can be combined for in-between shades, plus a 6th word that means colour.
If you’re complaining about _laso,_ you could just say _laso pi kule telo_ or _laso pi kule kasi_
Usefulness isn’t everything. As a kid I was an outsider because I had no
interest in using a stick to hit a rubber puck into a hockey net. What use is ice hockey? Maybe physical exercise and entertainment. But it’s only entertaining to some people (not me).
aka newspeak. americans will probably be monolingual in this in the next 3 years
We already went over that. Observe: “kulupu pi jan lawa li ike tawa mi.” It means “I don’t like the group of people who control”
And trust me. The majority of Americans are monolingual.
Yeah, I thought I addressed that in the first minute of the video or so.