Introduction to toki pona
M4rt4a | 2015
Hello,
lately I have seen a lot of posts with introductions of different languages. I find it extremely interesting, as a person who is interested in way more languages than I will ever be able to learn. But since my native language is already in the incubator I guess there is no point in explaining it.
Therefore I've decided to introduce something else, something I found out about two months ago and got into it right away. And that's toki pona.
It's a constructed language which was published online around 2001 by translator and linguist Sonja Lang. It has 120 root words, which you can use to create different ones.
For example:
suno means sun or light, ilo means tool or device
but if you combine it
ilo suno means flashlight
Other interesting thing are color names, there are only five of them: pimeja means black, walo means white, loje means red, jelo means yellow, laso means blue,
So what do you do if you want to get another color? Green, for that matter? You just have to use the same rules you would in art class, combine the colors - simple as that.
So for green you just add yellow and blue: green - jelo laso/ laso jelo
The situation is similar with numbers - in toki pona you have only wan (one), tu (two) and luka (five), the others are created by adding existing ones.
2 + 1 = 3
tu + wan = tu wan
the name 'toki pona' means 'good language' and its roots come from many different languages, like English, Finnish, Esperanto, Chinese etc.
I'm aware that there are people who think that learning new language is meaningful only when it is practical, when you can use it on a daily basis or when it helps you at work but I believe that knowledge alone has a very high value. Not to mention that language is fascinating.
With that being said, I hope you enjoyed it.
Best wishes,
Marta
February 1, 2015
https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/6769701/Introduction-to-toki-pona
#TokiPona #kama_sona #jan_sona #komento #anno2015
NB : There is an interesting conversation in the comments in not perfect Toki Pona, but nontheless very comprehensible ...
