Kobi Kai Calev, speaking Toki Pona since 2003, actively using it
Mar 30, 2016
I don't think so; but that depends or your usage of Toki-Pona, and whether you keep it simple (as described here for example: Dialects of toki pona).
Part of what differentiates Toki-Pona from Natural languages: There's a natural instinct or habit - to coin new words and terms - I think this happens in any language and environment, and in a way this simplifies communication, but there's a cost to this simplification - in a way we stop seeing things "as they are" and we see them coloured through these abstract terms we've coined and absorbed.
So - my usage of Toki-Pona - tried to avoid this coining, there's other "Dialects" of Toki-Pona that do the exact opposite - construct word pairs or set-phrases with a pre-set meaning. In my opinion - the very beauty of TP - is the ability to resist the temptation of coining terms, and keep coining them per situation - per conversation partner - and keep "forgetting" or even erasing them, otherwise - this just becomes a cumbersome just-another-language, and things are not stated "as they are" anymore.
In this sense - Toki-Pona is just as simple as some Pidgin languages in a community where they keep being used as Pidgins.
So TP in a sense - is a well documented Pidgin; From my experimentations - I would say it should take about 1.5 month for someone to properly study TP, or at least that's how long it took me, and some friends whom I've observed; It can also thus serve as an self-diagnostic language learning lab, see how long it takes you to properly learn a ~120 word vocab, how is grammar being absorbed, etc.
So - in a phrase - the thing that keeps TP simple, is the counter intuitive resistance to coining new terms, and that shouldn't exist in a natural language.
https://www.quora.com/Does-a-natural-language-as-simple-as-Toki-Pona-exist
