If an English speaker learned Toki Pona could you consider them bilingual?
https://www.quora.com/If-an-English-speaker-learned-Toki-Pona-could-you-consider-them-bilingual
Nick Picard, B.A. Linguistics, University of Victoria
Yes, BUT:
It’s not enough to learn all the “words” in Toki Pona. The true vocabulary includes many thousands of compounds.
It’s not enough to learn the grammar of Toki Pona. Expressing yourself requires knowing a grammar so well that forming sentences comes somewhat naturally.
Finally, being bilingual and claiming you are bilingual are different things. If you speak fluent Toki Pona, you are bilingual. But if you put “bilingual” on your resume, you would be misleading the interviewer into thinking you spoke a language useful for your industry. You can’t authentically claim bilingualism to someone if you have reason to believe they wouldn’t consider Toki Pona a “real” language. You have to start from a simpler claim.
More honest would be, “in addition to English, I am fluent in a very obscure constructed language, of interest to linguists and conlang hobbyists.”
https://www.quora.com/If-an-English-speaker-learned-Toki-Pona-could-you-consider-them-bilingual
