_Edit: Someone clarified this for me in the replies, so check that out_ Unless I have the two mixed up, it seems like this would make a great _auxlang_ rather than an _interlang._ (The distinction I think there is being that an interlang is for everyone to speak all the time, while an auxlang is a secondary language for everyone so that you can communicate to anyone in the world while still using your primary language for everyday usage.)
with just toki pona and google translate two people who do not speak a common first language would be able to communicate quite easily, as more complicated concepts can be borrowed from one of the languages as google translate is far better with single words or phrases than whole sentences.
I love this distinction even if your definition of an auxlang is how I always assumed an interlang would function - nobody involved with Esperanto or Votgil expects anyone to speak them literally all the time...right?
I think you got it wrong here, IALs (or interlangs as Mitch calls it) are meant to be used like auxlangs when speaking with people around the world, while still using your first language for everyday usage. Auxlangs are just languages used to facilitate communication between some people/groups, but not always everyone in the world. E.g. hindustani is an auxlang used throughout India but not in the whole world.
That makes it actually a difficult language to actually learn to use. It's good for some conversations, that don't have anything complex. That is why it's not a good interlang in my opinion. If you were to add a simple way of expressing complex things while keeping the basic grammar simple, and increasing the vocabulary somewhat, it'd be a perfect interlang.
That's not my experience, when conversing in Toki-Pona - I'm sometimes amazed, by having a simple way to express something that would be complex in other non-con languages I speak. It's often something my conversation partner would say, and it communicates something 'complex' or 'deep' sometimes, or at-least difficult to express in words.
@@tatu8927I tried learning some other interlangs, but none of them hit the mark for me. I think Toki Pona's simplicity is the exact reason why it would be a good international language. Of course it wouldn't and shouldn't be used for discussing world politics or astrophysics, but for the majority of daily conversations, Toki Pona flows very naturally, and has most of the words needed for expressing yourself.
Have you noticed that, with the exception of ken/kin, there are no minimal pairs in Toki Pona that distinguish i/e or o/u? Toki Pona is a three-vowel language in a five-vowel trench coat
That's okay, since most "three-vowel languages" (classical Arabic, I'm looking at you) are really five-vowel languages where two of the vowels just aren't talked about in the description. That is, there are more than three vowels phonetically, but mid vowels, though profusely scattered throughout the spoken language, aren't phonemes.
My partner and I learned a little toki pona a year ago and "jaki" "ike" (bad and gross) has entered our daily convo as well as "pakala" (destroy) as a mild swear and "sona" (knowledge) as a replacement for "sorry" when commiserating with someone.
Personally I like Toki Pona as a cute little experiment at minimalism. It's of course really limited, but a ton of fun to learn (which could take a dedicated person like 1 day, without taking into account the extense list of compounds) and a good introduction to what conlanging is about, since we are dealing with a sketch of a language that works pretty differently from English.
tbh you could probably learn toki pona without knowing specific compounds and make your own ones independently based on what attributes the thing you're talking about has can be described within the vocab
@David Heslop In chinese, "want" and "need" can both be expressed with 要 depending on context. If there is chance for confusion, "want" can be further clarified as 想要 (think + want/need) and "need" can be further clarified as 需要 (necessary + want/need). The toki pona construction of compound words to form lexemes is in general pretty reminiscent of the chinese way of doing the same, just with a much more restricted core set of "words".
@@Sarsanoa i just made a way to write toki pona in japanese and im glad i used 要 for want/need. the only other thing i could find was 欲しい but that seemed a bit too wanty and greedy for me
You can already write all of the native Toki Pona sounds in hiragana pretty easily, as mentioned in the video. Transliterating with hiragana or katakana seems a bit off, as well, considering that those explicitly give sounds and not meaning. It would probably be simple enough to describe all of the words using kanji regardless, though I'd imagine that that would look rather crowded for a native Japanese perspective, and it would be better to use the simplified Chinese forms rather than shinjitai forms in most cases to reduce writing complexity. Unless you were talking about building a translation flowchart between the languages?
@@kellamyoshikage286 i have seen people write the whole thing in simplified hanzi, but because i wanted the meanings to be closer to japanese i used shinjitai in some places. im primarily using it for typing anyway since if im writing stuff by hand i'd probably use sitelen pona. i did use just hiragana before, but since you have to write 'je' as 'いぇ' and i didnt like using 2 characters for one sound i substituted it for を, as there isnt a wo in toki pona. then i saw someone say "kili lili li lili lili" and decided that instead of writing it as "きり りり り りり りり" it would be easier to read it as ”果小り小小” ..that's basically a long and poorly worded version of my thought process
There are Esperanto native speakers... I wonder what would happen if you tried to teach Toki Pona to children. It would probably turn into a full fledged creole language, still very simple but with much more expressive capability.
There actually is a person raising their kids as native speakers of toki pona. Not as an only language, of course. They also speak English, Arabic, and French.
@@mariolis English: To be more economically efficient, we will be downsizing Toki Pona: mi weka e sina tan mi wile lanpan e mani (I might be putting e in the wrong place) Translated back to English: I am removing you because I want to steal (lanpan is nimi pi pu ala) money
toki-pona got one very important thing right for an 'ad hoc' IAL - I think Sonja once describe it like this - it's like a Pidgin, refusing to Creolise; thus - we cannot allow gathering extra semantic baggage into toki-pona, like started to use a bunch of set expressions with common pre-assumed metaphors - there were times the 'community' was gathering them up (early on) - but most of them started diverging, and they're kept out of the language definition and context dependant. I've you've ever communicated in a "Pidgin like" situation with a person from a different language sphere - you'll get this similar feeling - like using "basic english" with someone from China let's say (with basic english) - both of you trying to import metaphors sometimes - and they might work out for the context of the conversation - or even if you meet the same person a week later, but you wouldn't use that with other people not exposed to that construction. I think in that sense - TP became a first practical IAL, you train yourself to "gather no moss" and simplify, it's counter intuitive, it's a human instinct to extend the vocabulary and coin up terms and set expressions. I've heard anecdotal evidence - from one social meeting - that happened to be in Munich - were a native Persian speaker (resident and German speaker as well) and native Russian speaker (a tourist with no knowledge of german) - used Toki-Pona for an entire evening on the first night they've met.
Small brain: Toki Pona only lets you count to five. Big brain: Toki Pona only lets you count to two. Astro brain: Toki Pona has a trinary counting system.
@@fanaticofmetal The thing is that anyone learning the R sound of another language is going to have a hard time because they're all way diffrent from each other, it's just that the internet is filled with a lot of native English speakers so they grew up having already learned the English R. A lot of the inernet's English-speaking populace is also US American, so they're also more likely to complain about the Spanish R sounds because that's the most common second language in the states.
oh my god you're missing out, rolled Rs are an amazing letter (yes ik letters are weird things to be enthusiastic about but cmon i love that little phoneme)
What's amusing is that 123 words 1) give you an ability to encode all of them in 7 bits at most, 2) leave the space for punctuation bits and for the special marker to switch between word encoding and syllable encoding to encode proper names. Engineeringly, this is a beautiful feature.
Heck you have enough room left over to reserve some for sufficiently accepted nimi sin. Especially if you use full bytes, which is probably more practical on a real computer.
0 is null, 1 through 137 are the vocabulary, 138 to 223 are reserved for future vocabulary (if you use them all that means feces went down), the rest are punctuation/space/line feed/etc
*apologises for reviewing fluidlang as an interlang* OOPSY WOOPSY MY BAD *immediately after reviews an artlang as an interrlang cause xd it nails this* dont get me wrong i absolutely love ur vids and this video made me want to learn toki pona and i just spent an entire day learning it hehehe toki pona li pona tawa mi owo
Toki Pona is... cute. I do genuinely like it, but it's not a good IAL in any conceivable way. It's SO minimalist that in order to say anything more complex than "fruit is good", it actually becomes more confusing and overly-complicated than it's worth.
just use loanwords, like in every other language. we don't have "english" words for a lot of things, we just use french or latin or greek words, and claim that those are english. just do the same thing with toki pona.
Yeah, it might do good with an auxiliary word system somewhat close to Japanese writing where there exists a larger specialized vocabulary that can simplify advanced communication alongside the main vocabulary that can be easily grasped and used for a wide breadth of simple thoughts. This does run into problems when paired with the goal of the language to be as simple as possible, though, and the lack of paralanguage means writing any equivalent of furigana is going to be a pain.
"why are you speaking Toki Pona if you don't think simplicity makes things good?" "why would you ever want something you didn't need?" Clearly Toki Pona is the most Epicurean language.
I don't think toki pona is a good interlang. I think of it more as a interesting artlang. Classifying it as the best interlang doesn't make since it is bad at conveying complex information which interlang should be able to do. Otherwise people can not use it to talk to one another about everything and a second language should be needed. This in turn defeats the whole purpose of the language. I really like toki pona and I don't think it's purpose is to be the interlang of the world. It is unfair to judge it as a interlang.
you can talk about complex things, it just takes longer than it would with a language with more words. mathematics, however, are impossible to discuss with Toki Pona.
Joshua Smith if you want to express complex things then you would use longer compound words but you are more likely to be understood by saying simple sentence but be understood via the context (nice last name by the way)
That was the original idea, yes. The creator was swayed by strong Whorfianism, hoping that if a person could only use very simple words and grammar, then they will automatically simplify their thoughts and entire life. The biggest drawback is how oligosynthetic it is. She originally created only 123 basic words for toki pona, with the caveat that other words can be made with compounding. However, that leaves too much interpretation. How is a banana described as a "stick fruit"? Why not a "yellow fruit"? I mean, just by saying "stick fruit," I can simultaneously mean a banana, a plantain, a zucchini (scientifically), or even rhubarb (culinarily). These are all very different things. How can I be specific without resorting to something like a twenty-word compound? I can't.
That could be a summer squash: it's a fruit, scientifically, it's stick-like, and it's yellow. Look, I'm not saying that no one should learn toki pona. If someone likes a language, and they want to learn it, then by all means, learn it! It doesn't matter whether it's any natural language, or toki pona, or Dothraki, or Volapük, or Lojban, or Ithkuil, or whatnot. If you want to learn it, then learn it to the best of your ability! In total, toki pona isn't a bad language. I'm sure that it's fun, at least for those who like it. However, it's not a good IAL, and it can't magically give you simpler thoughts.
I haven't studied Toki Pona for long but it seems like a good basis for an IAL, rather than a IAL already. With a more diverse lexicon and maybe some more complex syntax, it might work. Edit: I have since discovered Pandunia, which seems at least to have really goodd philosophy: as easy as possible in both syntax and pronounciation and a good distribution across global language groups.
Just expand the vocabulary by adding more specific verbs and nouns. The phonotactics are flexible enough to construct thousands of unique words, the 125-word canon is just a stifling limitation.
I totally agree. If Toki Pona can just add a sprinkle of more words and work out the number system, I think it'll fit great as an interlang that way, but it defeats its original purpose as a philosophical artlang that values simplicity. It's really cute to learn and speak. It has a small number of easy to learn vocab, but the compound words that will be created as a result can become a slight hassle.
I know it's been a few years since you've written this, but check out toki ma! It's an IAL based on toki pona, with basically exactly what you said - slightly more complex grammar and about double the vocabulary.
you are the reason that i discovered toki pona. thank you. i am now forcing my friends to learn toki pona too. we are learning it together. i am forever grateful to you for introducing me to toki pona. thank you so much. me and my friends love this language. pona tenpo suno, jan Misali.
I think toki pona could actually work as an auxlang. Adult speakers would use it for normal business and everyday interactions but still use their native language for more complex things. Once children learned it as a native language, it would form a more complex sort of creole much more suited to normal language needs, allowing it to be used in most situations. Soon enough, it would be applicable just like any other language while still maintaining the simplicity of toki pona.
I almost had a heart attack when I saw the (pictogram with 5 pointy extremities that happens to have a visual quality, that can be expressed as a wavelenght of light, of many plants)
Why didn't you mention that a third of its vocabulary is Tok Pisin, Finnish, and Croatian, all somewhat obscure languages with less than 14 million speakers combined.
(3:45) For Hiragana, I would suggest using ひふへほは instead of ぴぷぺぽぱ. In Japanese, you would add ° to mark the H-letter to be a P-letter. But Tokipona has neither H or B as consonants, so there's no need to add that mark to the letter. Similar to how Hangul (3:47) is using the unaspirated letters which would transliterate to Dogibona - Some might argue that this would be the wrong way to use the script, but if you're an English speaker, shouldn't Tokipona's usage of J for /j/ also be wrong? It's the language that determines the sound of a letter, not the script. The Cyrillic example already uses Е for /e/, even though it's pronounced as /je/ in Russian (except in certain situations). Other languages disagree, and uses Е in Cyrillic for just the flat /e/ sound. - So if your language does not make a distinction of /h b p/, then marking the letter へ as べ or ぺ is redundant. Tokipona has no voiced-unvoiced distinction, so calling it Dogibona is just as valid. (3:50) I also don't get the use of Λ over Ꮩ in Cherokee. I get that Ꮩ actually stands for "do", but as said, /d/ is the same as /t/ in Dokipona. But maybe Ꮩ looks too similar to Ꮙ than Λ looks similar to Ꭺ. But Λ doesn't exist in Unicode for Cherokee, so this is actually a Greek letter being used.
Wow, I hadn’t watched until the very end of this episode before apparently, because I hadn’t noticed that Green Sun / [S] Cascade reference at the end. Nice!
i read homestuck for the first time two months ago. i am watching this entire series for the first time right now. i was genuinely shocked by the sudden Dark Rose Green Sun at the end and frantically scrolled down the comments for any sign i wasnt the ONLY one who saw this sidnekfjd
Honestly toki pona feels more like some linguistic toy than an actual full language. It's not usable as an interlang, because it's not usable as a language. You kind of praise it way too much which is my main problem with the community, which is kind of like the esperanto community but somehow worse. Funny enough I speak both so whoops.
Well OP's comment was only a contra to Conlang Critic's claim that Toki Pona nails being an interlang, which it clearly doesn't. Toki Pona is good thought experiment, but not a good auxlang or language in general
Also, I don't know how many languages you speak, but things like fruit and fish take the singular to describe the general variety of the thing in several languages all over the world. It's not an English quirk, it's just common sense with certain items where the 'many' aspect is often implied.
Dibyajyoti Lahiri, I would like some examples of languages that do that, because of the ones I speak (Portuguese, which is my native language, fluent English, and very poor Spanish), English is very much the only one that does that, so I'm not so sure it's "just common sense". Granted, it's a small sample of languages, but you can see my point. And besides, I'm pretty sure Latin and Italian are also languages that don't do that, and also Galician, which is similar to Portuguese enough that I can read it and understand pretty much everything just fine, but it's still a separate language. I guess you can see a pattern here, these are all Romance languages, and I'm willing to bet the vast majority of Romance languages don't do this thing you're claiming to be "common sense". It may not be just an English quirk, and a few other languages may share the same feature, but I'd say it's still very much a quirk.
QuotePilgrim The languages I speak (in descending order of fluency) are English, Bengali, Hindi, and Italian. Once again, I agree this is also a small sample size but these are 4 languages that belong to 3 distinct language families and all of them have this characteristic - the specific objects to which is applies vary from language to language (for example it applies to 'fruit' in all four, and to 'fish' only in two, but every languages have different objects to which it applies. In Italian the definite article is often used ahead of objects and despite 'il' (masc) and 'la' (fem) specifically being singular marker articles, la frutta and la verdura usually refer to a large number of fruits and vegetables (not le frutte and le verdure). If you think about it, saying things like 'the fruits' is super rare because you are referring to a countable number of fruits - which is rare compared to referring to fruit in general. You rarely say things like "I bought three fruits" as compared to "I have three dogs" where the plural marker is more significant. Edit: Dunno about Latin but it definitely works that way in Italian. I dunno where you're getting the info from, but don't go simply by whether or not the plural form 'exists', that is not the point here. Even in English, fruits and fishes are words. There are very few words like deer and bear for which a plural marker is grammatically incorrect. But what I'm talking about is ideal/regular usage. Even though 'i bought fruits' can be said, it isn't as refined or technically correct as 'i bought some fruit'.
Sorry for stretching this into two replies, but in my opinion these things are a result of culture and environment. Kinda like how Inuits have a ridiculously large number of words for snow whereas a language from a desert region is likely to have just one. Plural endings are usually dropped (in practice if not as a hard and fast rule) for things considered uncountable in that particular culture. So for example, a place with an abundance of something may drop the plural marker for that object because it is usually implied that there are many of them. But that same thing might not be abundant or found in large numbers in a different culture, so they need the plural marker.
Going to take on Toki Pona with my mother:) She hasn't had a good experience studying foreign languages in the past so I hope she won't see language learning as an unmanageable task anymore^^
I also think the philosophy of Toki Pona is really smart for an IAL. It's not meant to replace anyone's first language, but if a significant amount of people across the globe took some time to learn it, it would provide them with a set of simple words to express everday ideas when they're travelling. And then if they want to stay longer and communicate more complex ideas, they can learn the local language.
@@WhizzKid201210k speak it primarily, but I imagine there are many who know it. Even if it’s not a common language, it is still a language (bro that’s so redundant)
Just as bad: Toki Pona assigns one of its 123 words - the word “pu” - the meaning “the official Toki Pona Book” (in other words, the textbook by the creator of the conlang).
What annoys me is the word "mu" - meow/any animal call. Why would they waste a word for that, when they could just use *toki soweli* (animal talk/animal communication).
Tetrahedrony, that's different: *"a"* is a word for emphasis; it doesn't mean *human noise;* while *a* is a word I can imagine being used very often, *mu* - meaning *animal call* - is a bit more of a vague concept. Since Toki Pona would rather be simple, why wouldn't it try to make *toki soweli* the word: it cuts the word count; it should be easy to understand, if you know *toki* and *soweli.* *soweli suwi ni li toki soweli e mi* animal cute this speaks animal me *This cat meows at me*
Irish Virador Let's use '2018': *a "Simple" language* Ali ali ali ali ali ali ali ali ali ali ali ali ali ali ali ali ali ali ali ali luka luka luka tu wan *a Logical language* renopabi
I personally love toki pona because of the ideology it has. If there was ever a language of akuna matata it would be toki pona. why does it have 120 words? "we understand each other, no worries!" why is coffee called black water? "it is black water though" talking about complex subjects he instantly turned into childish opinion, but that exactly why I love it, it's emotional, non-rational, non-scientific, a language of a cave-man, but who actually needs anything more than it? Diogenes would have probably lived a happier life if he had such a language.
What is the point of language in the first place if you can't use it to properly convey information? Toki Pona is absolutely useless for anything that goes beyond the kind of conversation you would have with a three y/o child.
@@wasserruebenvergilbungsvirus we use language far beyond information transmission. We use it to build relationships, express ourselves, influence others. If language was about information sharing then politics would not exist. Politicians are not well known as good information sharers, on the contrary they are known as good question dodgers. Beyond that, toki pona IS just an artistic sort of conlang, and more like a fun game than a practical language. But, by having so few words it could be argued to be the most practical language in some ways, it removes alot of our specific aspects of language and acts on the level of categories. "Get me a glass of that water!" "It's coffee" "Yeah, yeah, whatever it is!"
How is someone supposed to tell ideas, opinions, instructions, thoughts and so much more in such a limited language? Toki Pona feels I'm locked in a speech jail where I am unable to say what I want to say. This can't be an IAL and I'm surprised you don't notice that.
it's been so long since I've made this, I genuinely don't remember if I actually called toki pona an ial anywhere in it? if I did, that's not me changing my opinion, I was just incorrect. I also called it an "interlang" which is a super broad category that I've since stopped using. but yeah, toki pona is not an ial; you're right.
Only if you're using the full root word though. Usually just *tanru* are as simple as Toki Pona. "surla tavla", a tanru that could mean "idle talk", but when using *rafsi*, things become complicated. You could use "surlytavla", which could be easily broken up, but then there's also "surta'a", which would require you to know that *sur* is a rafsi for *surla*, and *ta'a* is a rafsi for *tavla*. Rafsi over-complicate the compounding system, unfortunately.
I think Max was joking. Of course, the whole Lojban word-coining system is needlessly, obscenely baroque. But at least you _can_ coin words if you want to.
109Rage If I may, it doesn't take too much brain power to learn 0-3 three-letter words, can it. klama - kla - x1 goes to x2… bajra - baj - x1 runs… bajykla - run type of go mi bajykla le ckule - I run to school. lojbo - lob/jbo - x1 is Lojbanic bangu - ban/bau - x1 is a language… jbobau - lojbanic language/lojban balvi - bav - x1 is later than x2 lamji - lam - x1 is adjacent to x2 djedi - dei - x1 is a full day… bavlamdei - later adjacent day bavlamdei - tomorrow Which is easier: bavlamdei , or balvi lamji djedi ? It may seem overly complicated, if you ignored the rafsi. In which case, of course you can't understand them. Besides, if there was a native speaker of Lojban, they probably wouldn't have any trouble. English has around twenty-thousand words: Lojban has 1300 gismu (give or take) and only some of those have rafsi. It should be easy. It may even be mentally engaging and good for the brain: it is essentially jigsawing words to each other to make new words. There is a list of recognised lujvo, I think: www.lojban.org/publications/wordlists/lujvo.txt
If you think about it, *conlang* is an English lujvo/compound word. Con Lang Constructed Language Can you understand conlang? What about fanfic? If anyone can think of another, let me know.
I feel you may have a bit of a bias. While I'll admit that “[NOUN]-Good-Foam-Food" isn't a good way to describe pie, "Grain Sweet" doesn't seem much better.
He said in Toki Pona: Welcome to Conlang Critic, the show that gets facts wrong about YOUR favorite Conlang! I'm jan Misali, and in this episode, we'll be looking at my favorite language, Toki Pona!
This is worth expanding for those unaware: "mi moku" means either of "I eat" and "I am eaten / I am food." Naturally, active voice is the natural interpretation when the subject is human, but what about subjects like shrimp (assuming you can come up with some locution for "shrimp" in the first place). Context can sometimes disambiguate, for example at a banquet where shrimp are served, but it won't suffice in a nature documentary. And mind you almost all sentences have similar ambiguities in TP. In fact the ambiguities are layered in different ways, making any non-trivial sentence a puzzle for the addressee. So much for simplicity. Impractically imprecise by natural language standards, but at least it's easy to pronounce!
Only because there is such a limited number of things you can actually say. I am sure it's fun, and I mean not to deny anyone their fun. But in terms of human communication requirements, this language's artificial restrictions are absurd. Why hasn't anyone yet designed a real lexicon and syntax to go along with the phonology that you like so much? This language positively screams for expansion into real languagehood. A couple thousand new roots, a way to flag passive voice, etc.
lon; sina ken ala toki sona a kepeken toki pona. taso, sina ken *toki* kepeken toki pona! jan li ken nimi e ijo ale kepeken ijo lili. *ni* li toki pona. ona li pona *a* tawa mi tan ni! toki pona li kama jo e nimi mute la, ona li toki pona ala!
Hey, I explained a dream about aliens stealing kitchen knives so humans wouldn't have any weapons to my friend in this language. I send postcards and stuff. Who cares if it's IAL material or not? I think it works well enough for the purpose of fun, which it's kinda meant to. Don't want to get in a miniature war here, so mi tawa!
Ok but what's up with the Black Hole Green Sun at the end? Almost led me to think that someone somehow made an Alternian conlang (the prospect of which terrifies me)
@@elemenopi9239 sitelen sina li musi tan ni: tenpo suno pini la mi kama sona e toki ni. ni li musi: mi sitelen lon toki pi toki Inli ala. toki pona li kin pona li musi. sina pilin ala pilin e ni?
Well, the biggest problem with Toki Pona is that it lacks words for some really basic concrete things. Like, there's no word for "sit". It's fine that it isn't very elaborate with the abstract, but there should be more morphemes for some everyday verbs and nouns.
To be perfectly fair, the want/need dichotomy has been supported by some scientific research, and (IIRC) there's actually some experimental evidence that the chemicals responsible for motivation don't cause satisfaction.
You can actually speak toki pona with only 3 vowels - there are no minimal pairs between e-i, nor are there any between o-u, so if you speak Arabic or Inuktitut or some other 3-vowel language, it’s fine Also, je can become ja and for Japanese speakers, tu can become to
The only problem I have with toki pona is the fact that, despite the extremely small dictionary of 125 words, there are still homophones. It just seems strange to me that the creator wouldn't avoid this.
I should clarify that I mean that entire sentences can be homophones. I may have to retract my statement anyway, though; initially upon reading the word list I noticed words like "li" and "lili", "ma" and "mama", "pi" and "pipi", and "pi ni" and "pini" and thought toki pona would have phrases that, if missing spaces, would be readable in multiple ways. However, on further study of the language (I learned it many moons ago but haven't touched it in a few years, so I reread a grammar book to refresh), it isn't so easy to create the sentences I thought would be possible. I still think it's possible to make homophonic sentences, but I haven't found any after two hours of searching.
Distinction between desire and necessity is something I constantly use in conversation, so I'm wondering how frustrating it might be to try and express what I like to talk about in Toki Pona. That said, the language sounds delightful, and I might just put in the investment to learn it given its relative simplicity just to see what its like.
It would literally be impossible to communicate. And if I meant need, and they thought I meant want, they'd have no way of communicating that there is a misunderstanding until we get further into the conversation and they tell me that it's not a big deal and that I can wait for it (even in situations where I couldn't). It would just end up being a misunderstood confusing mess
Thanks a lot for your videos! What do you think about accents in toki pona? Your said "palisa" with an accent on the second syllable, while in all sources I've seen it is stated that accent is always on the first syllable. Which is quite disturbing since words like "kepeken", "akesi", "utala" and so on are much easier to pronounce with an accent on the second syllable! And also (in my opinion) it makes speech, well, more melodic (like in Esperanto, which is great for poetry).
if you listen closely, you'll hear that I did, in fact, put the stress on the first syllable of "palisa" Toki Pona's stress system is designed to make it clear where word boundaries are, so there isn't confusion between things like "kalama" (sound) and "kala ma" (land fish)
Just a tiny correction: in the hangeul table, in the -e and -en columns, the letter youre using (ㅓ) makes an open "o" sound, while -e would be (ㅔ) or (ㅐ) (open and closed respectively), though I think using (ㅔ) would be better in this context, since western words with the "e" sound are written with (ㅔ) in korean. I dont know if you made this table or if it was provided by toki pona's creator, but I just wanted to let you know☺️
5:47 Even if Toki Pona weren't so simplistic, conflating "want" and "need" would still be completely valid. In many contexts, these words could be used interchangeably, because "need" is ambiguous. You could need something to fulfill an absolute necessity, whatever that means; but you could also need something to fulfill a trivial desire.
o sona e ni: sina toki e ike tawa toki Epelanto la, jan Evildea li pali e ike tawa sina! ona li sewi wawa >:-) But anyway, I don't think toki pona was intended as an interlang, and I don't think it would be ideal in that capacity. Not that I don't like it, but it has its limitations. Though it may help in some cases to just get to the point.... jan lawa nanpa wan: o pana e mani tawa ma mi! jan lawa nanpa tu: mi wile ala pana e mani tawa ma sina. wan: a! sina pana ala e mani la, mi utala e sina! jan utala mi li moli e jan utala ali sina! tu: a a a! sina wile la, o utala e mi. mi pakala taso e ma sina. wan: mi pilin e ni: ni li lon ala. mi tu o utala! tu: o utala kin! a... mi nasa mute.
Toki Pona is a simple language, but what makes languages beautiful is not always simplicity. Take Scottish Gaelic, for example. It's a really beautiful language, but its pronounciation is really difficult, at least for me.
Raviolino uwu this is true, and this is not the point of toki pona: It’s beauty is it’s lovable simplicity. Not all languages have to be simple, but that just happens to be the point of Toki Pona
@@KnzoVortex To me, the point of toki pona is really sinister, or disturbing; the creator wanted to create a language that'd force people to think in a simple maner (this reminds me of a certain infamous language from a certain famous novel)
I prefer Esperanto but yeah Toki Pona is a very good constructed language. I like Toki Pona and how it is set up a lot, my sister introduced me to it, for awhile she was obsessed with Toki Pona. Has anyone else noticed how in the Esperanto episode Jan Misali criticized how the J sounds like Y in English and how loanwords are based on spelling and not pronunciation, but in this episode Jan Misali is ok with it? A bit odd but eh still a very good episode and series! :D
I mean, sorta? but like, "kili palisa" doesn't specifically mean "banana"; it can refer to any edible plant that's shaped like a stick. likewise, "telo nasa" can mean any strange liquid, not just alcohol.
Aha. But how would you know what to call something unless you have learned to "properly" describe it? Or can you just come up with whatever expressions you like for things for which there is no specific word?
yeah that's the fun part, there isn't a "proper" way to say to say most things. bananas can be "kili jelo" (yellow fruit) or "kili selo" (skin fruit) or even "kili jelo palisa selo" (yellow stick shaped fruit with skin) depending on who you ask
I think the vocab and sentence structure is a wonderful basis to learn new languages on. Sure, you won't sound fluent but knowing all the words of Toki Pona in a language will enable you to express many things and explain more complex things if you do not know the word for the more complex thing
3:47 there's an even simpler way you can transcribe it (although it would be less intuitive to native speakers). In Hindi (and Devanagari as whole, but I only speak Hindi), a dot above a letter signifies a nasally vowel, but because there is no nasality in toki pona, and the coda of a syllable, if it's there, can only have a /n/, you could use a dot to signify that a vowel ends in /n/. This would make every syllable written as one letter (albeit with up to three parts), with the only downside being that it's different to how the spelling actually works and would therefore be less intuitive to native speakers.
Speaking of the video made by Epenenkal, (a.k.a. Conlang Critic Episode Eleven-and-a-half or The Perfect Language (Epic)), did anybody think that this episode will review "Homestuck 42"?
ZESE is basically the same as v0tgil, but with a reduced lexicon. I can't imagine there's much for you to say on the subject. In fact, most of Ostrocod's languages share pretty much the same grammar rules.
The phonology and phonotactics of toki pona is genius, easily the best system of any interlang I've ever seen. The grammar is very elegant and user-friendly, but could be made more precise with a slightly expanded vocabulary to avoid ambiguities. Basically, expanding the vocabulary would solve all of toki pona's problems.
The vocabulary is too small for a lot situations, but it interestingly reminds me of my super limited knowledge of Vietnamese. Words are 1 syllable and compound words are really frequent. Alligator= ugly fish Shark=fat fish Vietnamese=viet speak English=brother speak England=brother water America=beautiful water
since I haven’t seen anybody say anything about it, I wanna give props to the extremely high-effort homestuck reference at the end. It’s done really well & looks like it took a lot of work. unless it wasn’t meant to be a homestuck reference in which case I think I need to go outside more.
Sonja Lang's full name is Sonjanguage Language.
Roaming Adhocrat the sonjanana banana
Sonjactive Language
Ant-Man’s full name is Scottish Language
I think I'm having a stroke.
n
Toki Pona community: adopts seximal as new number system
jan Misali: *screams in toki pona*
a!
My thoughts exactly!
Where can you find this?
a!
a!
I legitimately thought ';)' was a conlang
International Cartoons
:0 I feel like I've been detrolled just to get trolled even harder immediately afterwards. Looking forward to ;)
Name Emoticonlang
Firegodot Nice pun.
Zinouweel lol
Cameron B 😶💬👇👤👍👍📐💬
Emoji Lang is my favorite conlang
All this time I thought his name was actually Jan Misali and he just had some stylistic reason for leaving the "j" in lowercase.
i didnt even realize he left it uncapitalized. but like, jan is a fairly common name and misali sounds like it could be a last name so i just assumed
before i knew it was "person" i thought that he did it to purposely piss people off lmao
qkdjhse
I thought it was because he dislikes capitalism.
yeah same
_Edit: Someone clarified this for me in the replies, so check that out_
Unless I have the two mixed up, it seems like this would make a great _auxlang_ rather than an _interlang._
(The distinction I think there is being that an interlang is for everyone to speak all the time, while an auxlang is a secondary language for everyone so that you can communicate to anyone in the world while still using your primary language for everyday usage.)
WHY DO I SEE YOU EVERYWHERE, GET AWAY FROM ME!
with just toki pona and google translate two people who do not speak a common first language would be able to communicate quite easily, as more complicated concepts can be borrowed from one of the languages as google translate is far better with single words or phrases than whole sentences.
I love this distinction even if your definition of an auxlang is how I always assumed an interlang would function - nobody involved with Esperanto or Votgil expects anyone to speak them literally all the time...right?
I think you got it wrong here, IALs (or interlangs as Mitch calls it) are meant to be used like auxlangs when speaking with people around the world, while still using your first language for everyday usage.
Auxlangs are just languages used to facilitate communication between some people/groups, but not always everyone in the world. E.g. hindustani is an auxlang used throughout India but not in the whole world.
Isn’t that just the same thing as a lingua franca then
I once tried Toki Pona. Very easy to learn, very difficult to express complex things
Exactly what it is
That makes it actually a difficult language to actually learn to use. It's good for some conversations, that don't have anything complex. That is why it's not a good interlang in my opinion. If you were to add a simple way of expressing complex things while keeping the basic grammar simple, and increasing the vocabulary somewhat, it'd be a perfect interlang.
That's not my experience, when conversing in Toki-Pona - I'm sometimes amazed, by having a simple way to express something that would be complex in other non-con languages I speak. It's often something my conversation partner would say, and it communicates something 'complex' or 'deep' sometimes, or at-least difficult to express in words.
@@tatu8927I tried learning some other interlangs, but none of them hit the mark for me. I think Toki Pona's simplicity is the exact reason why it would be a good international language. Of course it wouldn't and shouldn't be used for discussing world politics or astrophysics, but for the majority of daily conversations, Toki Pona flows very naturally, and has most of the words needed for expressing yourself.
So basically like English, only more extreme.
Have you noticed that, with the exception of ken/kin, there are no minimal pairs in Toki Pona that distinguish i/e or o/u?
Toki Pona is a three-vowel language in a five-vowel trench coat
That's okay, since most "three-vowel languages" (classical Arabic, I'm looking at you) are really five-vowel languages where two of the vowels just aren't talked about in the description. That is, there are more than three vowels phonetically, but mid vowels, though profusely scattered throughout the spoken language, aren't phonemes.
oh, wow
@@stanrogers5613 So, similar to how English is a many-vowel language in a five-vowel trenchcoat.
سِتِلٍ الَبِ لَ مِ سِتِلٍ ي تُكِ بُنَ
or
سيتيلين الابي لا مي سيتيلين ي توكي بونا
@@kennyholmes5196 I feel more like English is a 1 vowel language in a many vowel trenchcoat sometimes.
My partner and I learned a little toki pona a year ago and "jaki" "ike" (bad and gross) has entered our daily convo as well as "pakala" (destroy) as a mild swear and "sona" (knowledge) as a replacement for "sorry" when commiserating with someone.
jan Towe li pakala e mama sina
@@kiendra which one
@@HeterosexuaIjoe
@@kiendra the word unpa: and i took that personally
@@kiendra mi pakala e mama sina! sona!
Personally I like Toki Pona as a cute little experiment at minimalism. It's of course really limited, but a ton of fun to learn (which could take a dedicated person like 1 day, without taking into account the extense list of compounds) and a good introduction to what conlanging is about, since we are dealing with a sketch of a language that works pretty differently from English.
tbh you could probably learn toki pona without knowing specific compounds and make your own ones independently based on what attributes the thing you're talking about has can be described within the vocab
@@egon3705 yeah I don't know what everyone means when they talk about the "extensive list of compound words" even though there isnt any??
A funny thing about distinguishing "want" from "need": a lot of natural languages don't bother with this distinction either!
Keith Gaughan I don't know about others, bit Portuguese has it:
"quero" - I want
"preciso de" - I need
@David Heslop In chinese, "want" and "need" can both be expressed with 要 depending on context. If there is chance for confusion, "want" can be further clarified as 想要 (think + want/need) and "need" can be further clarified as 需要 (necessary + want/need). The toki pona construction of compound words to form lexemes is in general pretty reminiscent of the chinese way of doing the same, just with a much more restricted core set of "words".
@@Sarsanoa i just made a way to write toki pona in japanese and im glad i used 要 for want/need. the only other thing i could find was 欲しい but that seemed a bit too wanty and greedy for me
You can already write all of the native Toki Pona sounds in hiragana pretty easily, as mentioned in the video. Transliterating with hiragana or katakana seems a bit off, as well, considering that those explicitly give sounds and not meaning. It would probably be simple enough to describe all of the words using kanji regardless, though I'd imagine that that would look rather crowded for a native Japanese perspective, and it would be better to use the simplified Chinese forms rather than shinjitai forms in most cases to reduce writing complexity.
Unless you were talking about building a translation flowchart between the languages?
@@kellamyoshikage286 i have seen people write the whole thing in simplified hanzi, but because i wanted the meanings to be closer to japanese i used shinjitai in some places. im primarily using it for typing anyway since if im writing stuff by hand i'd probably use sitelen pona.
i did use just hiragana before, but since you have to write 'je' as 'いぇ' and i didnt like using 2 characters for one sound i substituted it for を, as there isnt a wo in toki pona. then i saw someone say "kili lili li lili lili" and decided that instead of writing it as "きり りり り りり りり" it would be easier to read it as ”果小り小小”
..that's basically a long and poorly worded version of my thought process
As someone who knows nothing about conlangs, I like Toki Pona solely because it reminds me of the bug language in Hollow Knight.
Based
Based
based + real + love + *cornifer humming* + someone should translate hollow knight into toki pona + based + lon + toki pipi
_sigh_ bapanada
W
me in the midst of the quarantine of 2020: ferb, i know what we're gonna do this week
Hey, where's Perry?
sina kama sona anu seme?
There are Esperanto native speakers... I wonder what would happen if you tried to teach Toki Pona to children. It would probably turn into a full fledged creole language, still very simple but with much more expressive capability.
trafo60
The vocabulary would expand beyond the current arbitrary limit
slang would start existing
To be honest I think kids talk like that
Maximillius
There are multiple unofficial words that are being updated into the book
There actually is a person raising their kids as native speakers of toki pona.
Not as an only language, of course. They also speak English, Arabic, and French.
Imagine a political debate where both sides are required to talk exclusivelly in toki pona ... that would be hilarious!
@@tux1468 *you don't put "li" after "mi" and "sina", tux*
Translation:
"YOU ARE BAD!"
"NO! I AM GOOD! YOU ARE VERY BAD!"
@@EnriqueLaberintico Lmao
basically sums up real world political debates
@@mariolis English: To be more economically efficient, we will be downsizing
Toki Pona: mi weka e sina tan mi wile lanpan e mani (I might be putting e in the wrong place)
Translated back to English: I am removing you because I want to steal (lanpan is nimi pi pu ala) money
@@jangamecuber So it makes people more honest?
toki-pona got one very important thing right for an 'ad hoc' IAL - I think Sonja once describe it like this - it's like a Pidgin, refusing to Creolise; thus - we cannot allow gathering extra semantic baggage into toki-pona, like started to use a bunch of set expressions with common pre-assumed metaphors - there were times the 'community' was gathering them up (early on) - but most of them started diverging, and they're kept out of the language definition and context dependant.
I've you've ever communicated in a "Pidgin like" situation with a person from a different language sphere - you'll get this similar feeling - like using "basic english" with someone from China let's say (with basic english) - both of you trying to import metaphors sometimes - and they might work out for the context of the conversation - or even if you meet the same person a week later, but you wouldn't use that with other people not exposed to that construction.
I think in that sense - TP became a first practical IAL, you train yourself to "gather no moss" and simplify, it's counter intuitive, it's a human instinct to extend the vocabulary and coin up terms and set expressions.
I've heard anecdotal evidence - from one social meeting - that happened to be in Munich - were a native Persian speaker (resident and German speaker as well) and native Russian speaker (a tourist with no knowledge of german) - used Toki-Pona for an entire evening on the first night they've met.
Small brain: Toki Pona only lets you count to five.
Big brain: Toki Pona only lets you count to two.
Astro brain: Toki Pona has a trinary counting system.
unreal brain: toki pona has not any counting
Cirno brain: There are no buses in Gensokyo
@@angelodc1652 tomo tawa suli li lon ma Kensokiyo lon ala
Toki pona brain: toki pona lets you count
@@thefacethatstares *kensokijo
As an artlanger who loves complexity, this sort of conlang is the exact opposite of something I would make, but I respect its intent.
Yoo same I love complexity, I'm working on a conlang with 38 consonants and 9 vowels
I am so happy I can pronounce all these. Im an American who cant really roll “r”’s so this is a breath of fresh air.
Don't worry, i couldn't do trilled r's until i was 7 in a lamguage with trilled r's
You guys act like the Trilled R is hard then what about the English R
@@fanaticofmetal
The thing is that anyone learning the R sound of another language is going to have a hard time because they're all way diffrent from each other, it's just that the internet is filled with a lot of native English speakers so they grew up having already learned the English R. A lot of the inernet's English-speaking populace is also US American, so they're also more likely to complain about the Spanish R sounds because that's the most common second language in the states.
oh my god you're missing out, rolled Rs are an amazing letter (yes ik letters are weird things to be enthusiastic about but cmon i love that little phoneme)
@@darkacadpresenceinblood Yeah they are! I learned how a while ago.
Why is Toki Pona being reviewed on this show?
Toki Pona isn't a conlang.
It's a *Sonjalang*
the only good joke.
oh phew haha i thought this was going to be some mccarthy-type garbage, but no well done
@@redpepper74 oh lol yeah "toki pona isn't a conlang" ic
:applause:
OML-
What's amusing is that 123 words 1) give you an ability to encode all of them in 7 bits at most, 2) leave the space for punctuation bits and for the special marker to switch between word encoding and syllable encoding to encode proper names. Engineeringly, this is a beautiful feature.
Heck you have enough room left over to reserve some for sufficiently accepted nimi sin. Especially if you use full bytes, which is probably more practical on a real computer.
It can't fit in the 7 bit limit anymore, but an 8 bit encoding would be stupidly simple and elegant.
0 is null, 1 through 137 are the vocabulary, 138 to 223 are reserved for future vocabulary (if you use them all that means feces went down), the rest are punctuation/space/line feed/etc
*apologises for reviewing fluidlang as an interlang* OOPSY WOOPSY MY BAD
*immediately after reviews an artlang as an interrlang cause xd it nails this*
dont get me wrong i absolutely love ur vids and this video made me want to learn toki pona and i just spent an entire day learning it hehehe
toki pona li pona tawa mi owo
kittydog It’s so surreal seeing you of all people on this channel (that’s not a bad thing but still)
HOW DID I FIND YOU ON HERE
owo
wtf kittydog? i literally only know you from jregnant
@@rigel3004 HAHAHAHAHAHAUIEDRT63WR7D3YR7326Y47834Y372RF7WERFHRY8DYER834Y3408
i absolutely love the idea of toki pona being spoken by some peaceful tribe on an island undiscovered by anyone else.
imagine if ithkuil and toki pona were the only languages left of humanity.
Toki Pona is... cute. I do genuinely like it, but it's not a good IAL in any conceivable way. It's SO minimalist that in order to say anything more complex than "fruit is good", it actually becomes more confusing and overly-complicated than it's worth.
Neptune I understand that, actually... but people still push for its use as an IAL when it's not suitable for that purpose.
just use loanwords, like in every other language.
we don't have "english" words for a lot of things, we just use french or latin or greek words, and claim that those are english.
just do the same thing with toki pona.
kili li pona
I mean unless they create a one word that has this one meaning
Yeah, it might do good with an auxiliary word system somewhat close to Japanese writing where there exists a larger specialized vocabulary that can simplify advanced communication alongside the main vocabulary that can be easily grasped and used for a wide breadth of simple thoughts. This does run into problems when paired with the goal of the language to be as simple as possible, though, and the lack of paralanguage means writing any equivalent of furigana is going to be a pain.
Hearing the excitement and love for toki pona in your voice was heartwarming.
"why are you speaking Toki Pona if you don't think simplicity makes things good?" "why would you ever want something you didn't need?" Clearly Toki Pona is the most Epicurean language.
Toki Pona speakers probably are all RISC enjoyers like me.
I don't think toki pona is a good interlang. I think of it more as a interesting artlang. Classifying it as the best interlang doesn't make since it is bad at conveying complex information which interlang should be able to do. Otherwise people can not use it to talk to one another about everything and a second language should be needed. This in turn defeats the whole purpose of the language.
I really like toki pona and I don't think it's purpose is to be the interlang of the world. It is unfair to judge it as a interlang.
I couldn't agree more. I don't think that the maker of this video understands the purpose of language.
panderohit I think the inherent bias the maker has affected their judgement
Noel Earl Watson noone cares about your opinion.
I'll take that as a compliment
1:51
Wouldn't expressing any complex ideas in this language be virtually impossible? Politics/Philosophy/Economics?
you can talk about complex things, it just takes longer than it would with a language with more words.
mathematics, however, are impossible to discuss with Toki Pona.
Joshua Smith if you want to express complex things then you would use longer compound words but you are more likely to be understood by saying simple sentence but be understood via the context (nice last name by the way)
That was the original idea, yes. The creator was swayed by strong Whorfianism, hoping that if a person could only use very simple words and grammar, then they will automatically simplify their thoughts and entire life.
The biggest drawback is how oligosynthetic it is. She originally created only 123 basic words for toki pona, with the caveat that other words can be made with compounding. However, that leaves too much interpretation.
How is a banana described as a "stick fruit"? Why not a "yellow fruit"? I mean, just by saying "stick fruit," I can simultaneously mean a banana, a plantain, a zucchini (scientifically), or even rhubarb (culinarily). These are all very different things. How can I be specific without resorting to something like a twenty-word compound? I can't.
Sovairu Say yellow stick fruit. Boom, ambiguity gone.
That could be a summer squash: it's a fruit, scientifically, it's stick-like, and it's yellow.
Look, I'm not saying that no one should learn toki pona. If someone likes a language, and they want to learn it, then by all means, learn it! It doesn't matter whether it's any natural language, or toki pona, or Dothraki, or Volapük, or Lojban, or Ithkuil, or whatnot. If you want to learn it, then learn it to the best of your ability! In total, toki pona isn't a bad language. I'm sure that it's fun, at least for those who like it. However, it's not a good IAL, and it can't magically give you simpler thoughts.
I haven't studied Toki Pona for long but it seems like a good basis for an IAL, rather than a IAL already. With a more diverse lexicon and maybe some more complex syntax, it might work.
Edit: I have since discovered Pandunia, which seems at least to have really goodd philosophy: as easy as possible in both syntax and pronounciation and a good distribution across global language groups.
Just expand the vocabulary by adding more specific verbs and nouns. The phonotactics are flexible enough to construct thousands of unique words, the 125-word canon is just a stifling limitation.
I totally agree. If Toki Pona can just add a sprinkle of more words and work out the number system, I think it'll fit great as an interlang that way, but it defeats its original purpose as a philosophical artlang that values simplicity.
It's really cute to learn and speak. It has a small number of easy to learn vocab, but the compound words that will be created as a result can become a slight hassle.
I realized that the word for left, “poka”, was the same as the word for right. If you tell someone to go “poka”, they will randomly go left or right.
I know it's been a few years since you've written this, but check out toki ma! It's an IAL based on toki pona, with basically exactly what you said - slightly more complex grammar and about double the vocabulary.
@@TheShadowOfMars Or, you know, you could use adverbs and adjectives, respectively.
"Conlang Critic: Toki Pona"
*readies a big knife*
"Toki Pona is my Favorite Language"
*tosses knife aside*
toki pona good
toki pona li pona
"My Lord father taught me that it was death to bare steel against your liege lord, but doubtless you only meant to cut my meat."
Toki Pona is simple in concept, but gets very complicated when talking about most complex ideas
you are the reason that i discovered toki pona. thank you. i am now forcing my friends to learn toki pona too. we are learning it together. i am forever grateful to you for introducing me to toki pona. thank you so much. me and my friends love this language. pona tenpo suno, jan Misali.
I think toki pona could actually work as an auxlang. Adult speakers would use it for normal business and everyday interactions but still use their native language for more complex things. Once children learned it as a native language, it would form a more complex sort of creole much more suited to normal language needs, allowing it to be used in most situations. Soon enough, it would be applicable just like any other language while still maintaining the simplicity of toki pona.
gosh if toki pona creolized i have no idea how needlessly complex it would get. it would probably get more words like ‘epiku’
I almost had a heart attack when I saw the (pictogram with 5 pointy extremities that happens to have a visual quality, that can be expressed as a wavelenght of light, of many plants)
Took me a minute to get. Nice comment
Maybe I'm just dense, but I don't get what your referring to?
why are you using big words to say "green star"
@@Gimodon suno lili laso li sitelen pi toki Epelanto
the fact that this language is functional and can be learned in a maximum of 2 weeks is *noice* not gonna lie
lmao it took me three monthes. i guess that makes sense though because i knew almost nothing about grammar before learning toki pona
@@omekapo i learned it in 2 days lmao
@@papaxsmurf7678 what?? prove it! sina ken ala ken sona e mi? o toki e mute tawa mi lon toki pona!
@@omekapo?
How fitting is it that Sonja's last name is literally "Lang"
Why didn't you mention that a third of its vocabulary is Tok Pisin, Finnish, and Croatian, all somewhat obscure languages with less than 14 million speakers combined.
the vocabulary is so small it might as well be a priori as far as giving advantages to speakers of certain languages goes
Conlang Critic I see.
You can count Croatian as the whole set of Slavic languages with all their hundreds of millions speakers due to their relative similarity.
T o k P i s i n
T o k i P o n a
@@MisterHunterWolf "toki" comes from the tok pisin word "tok" (which comes from the english word "talk")
(3:45) For Hiragana, I would suggest using ひふへほは instead of ぴぷぺぽぱ. In Japanese, you would add ° to mark the H-letter to be a P-letter. But Tokipona has neither H or B as consonants, so there's no need to add that mark to the letter. Similar to how Hangul (3:47) is using the unaspirated letters which would transliterate to Dogibona - Some might argue that this would be the wrong way to use the script, but if you're an English speaker, shouldn't Tokipona's usage of J for /j/ also be wrong? It's the language that determines the sound of a letter, not the script. The Cyrillic example already uses Е for /e/, even though it's pronounced as /je/ in Russian (except in certain situations). Other languages disagree, and uses Е in Cyrillic for just the flat /e/ sound. - So if your language does not make a distinction of /h b p/, then marking the letter へ as べ or ぺ is redundant. Tokipona has no voiced-unvoiced distinction, so calling it Dogibona is just as valid.
(3:50) I also don't get the use of Λ over Ꮩ in Cherokee. I get that Ꮩ actually stands for "do", but as said, /d/ is the same as /t/ in Dokipona. But maybe Ꮩ looks too similar to Ꮙ than Λ looks similar to Ꭺ. But Λ doesn't exist in Unicode for Cherokee, so this is actually a Greek letter being used.
Similarly, with Hangeul, he shows ㅓ as the character for /e/ when the more correct character would be ㅔ.
bro said dokipona
Wow, I hadn’t watched until the very end of this episode before apparently, because I hadn’t noticed that Green Sun / [S] Cascade reference at the end.
Nice!
Like, it was really well executed, and I really liked it
i read homestuck for the first time two months ago. i am watching this entire series for the first time right now. i was genuinely shocked by the sudden Dark Rose Green Sun at the end and frantically scrolled down the comments for any sign i wasnt the ONLY one who saw this sidnekfjd
The five vowel system is the four-pop-chords structure of language
That ending though- talking about big green stars
THE GREEN SUN
Honestly toki pona feels more like some linguistic toy than an actual full language. It's not usable as an interlang, because it's not usable as a language. You kind of praise it way too much which is my main problem with the community, which is kind of like the esperanto community but somehow worse. Funny enough I speak both so whoops.
Well, it's an artlang, so it's not meant to be a 'full language'. And it was an 'attempt'.
I love Toki Pona, but as a minimalist artlang, not an interlang.
Well OP's comment was only a contra to Conlang Critic's claim that Toki Pona nails being an interlang, which it clearly doesn't. Toki Pona is good thought experiment, but not a good auxlang or language in general
@Andrew Jacob Sauer is it tonal?
@Andrew Jacob Sauer what's the Grammer like?
Um, why is "fruit -> FRUIT" and "bugs -> BUG MANY"? Why would the inconsistencies of English pluralization carry over to a conlang?
honestly, I was just doing that to demonstrate how plurals work in Toki Pona. in practice, you wouldn't actually say that.
Also, I don't know how many languages you speak, but things like fruit and fish take the singular to describe the general variety of the thing in several languages all over the world. It's not an English quirk, it's just common sense with certain items where the 'many' aspect is often implied.
Dibyajyoti Lahiri, I would like some examples of languages that do that, because of the ones I speak (Portuguese, which is my native language, fluent English, and very poor Spanish), English is very much the only one that does that, so I'm not so sure it's "just common sense". Granted, it's a small sample of languages, but you can see my point.
And besides, I'm pretty sure Latin and Italian are also languages that don't do that, and also Galician, which is similar to Portuguese enough that I can read it and understand pretty much everything just fine, but it's still a separate language. I guess you can see a pattern here, these are all Romance languages, and I'm willing to bet the vast majority of Romance languages don't do this thing you're claiming to be "common sense". It may not be just an English quirk, and a few other languages may share the same feature, but I'd say it's still very much a quirk.
QuotePilgrim The languages I speak (in descending order of fluency) are English, Bengali, Hindi, and Italian. Once again, I agree this is also a small sample size but these are 4 languages that belong to 3 distinct language families and all of them have this characteristic - the specific objects to which is applies vary from language to language (for example it applies to 'fruit' in all four, and to 'fish' only in two, but every languages have different objects to which it applies. In Italian the definite article is often used ahead of objects and despite 'il' (masc) and 'la' (fem) specifically being singular marker articles, la frutta and la verdura usually refer to a large number of fruits and vegetables (not le frutte and le verdure). If you think about it, saying things like 'the fruits' is super rare because you are referring to a countable number of fruits - which is rare compared to referring to fruit in general. You rarely say things like "I bought three fruits" as compared to "I have three dogs" where the plural marker is more significant.
Edit: Dunno about Latin but it definitely works that way in Italian. I dunno where you're getting the info from, but don't go simply by whether or not the plural form 'exists', that is not the point here. Even in English, fruits and fishes are words. There are very few words like deer and bear for which a plural marker is grammatically incorrect. But what I'm talking about is ideal/regular usage. Even though 'i bought fruits' can be said, it isn't as refined or technically correct as 'i bought some fruit'.
Sorry for stretching this into two replies, but in my opinion these things are a result of culture and environment. Kinda like how Inuits have a ridiculously large number of words for snow whereas a language from a desert region is likely to have just one.
Plural endings are usually dropped (in practice if not as a hard and fast rule) for things considered uncountable in that particular culture. So for example, a place with an abundance of something may drop the plural marker for that object because it is usually implied that there are many of them. But that same thing might not be abundant or found in large numbers in a different culture, so they need the plural marker.
Going to take on Toki Pona with my mother:) She hasn't had a good experience studying foreign languages in the past so I hope she won't see language learning as an unmanageable task anymore^^
I also think the philosophy of Toki Pona is really smart for an IAL. It's not meant to replace anyone's first language, but if a significant amount of people across the globe took some time to learn it, it would provide them with a set of simple words to express everday ideas when they're travelling. And then if they want to stay longer and communicate more complex ideas, they can learn the local language.
2:22 "The majority of natural languages have all of these sounds"
*kalaīka in Hawaiian*
Hawaiian doesnt exist anymore. Only 10k people speak it.
@@WhizzKid201210k speak it primarily, but I imagine there are many who know it. Even if it’s not a common language, it is still a language (bro that’s so redundant)
toki Awaje li jo ala e kalama 'sa'.
toki Awaje la kalama 'ta' en kalama 'ka' li sama.
toki Awaje li jo ala e kalama 'ja'.
heck I forgot I requested this.
I think I just found my favorite ever outro... Thank you!
I hate that Toki Pona has no way to express numbers! You can’t COUNT in Toki Pona!
Just as bad: Toki Pona assigns one of its 123 words - the word “pu” - the meaning “the official Toki Pona Book” (in other words, the textbook by the creator of the conlang).
What annoys me is the word "mu" - meow/any animal call.
Why would they waste a word for that, when they could just use *toki soweli* (animal talk/animal communication).
Tetrahedrony, that's different: *"a"* is a word for emphasis; it doesn't mean *human noise;* while *a* is a word I can imagine being used very often, *mu* - meaning *animal call* - is a bit more of a vague concept. Since Toki Pona would rather be simple, why wouldn't it try to make *toki soweli* the word: it cuts the word count; it should be easy to understand, if you know *toki* and *soweli.*
*soweli suwi ni li toki soweli e mi*
animal cute this speaks animal me
*This cat meows at me*
What do you mean?
It can express numbers
wan
tu
tu wan
tu tu
luka
luka wan
luka tu
......
ali ali ali ali ali ali
Irish Virador
Let's use '2018':
*a "Simple" language*
Ali ali ali ali ali ali ali ali ali ali ali ali ali ali ali ali ali ali ali ali luka luka luka tu wan
*a Logical language*
renopabi
I personally love toki pona because of the ideology it has.
If there was ever a language of akuna matata it would be toki pona.
why does it have 120 words?
"we understand each other, no worries!"
why is coffee called black water?
"it is black water though"
talking about complex subjects he instantly turned into childish opinion, but that exactly why I love it, it's emotional, non-rational, non-scientific, a language of a cave-man, but who actually needs anything more than it?
Diogenes would have probably lived a happier life if he had such a language.
What is the point of language in the first place if you can't use it to properly convey information? Toki Pona is absolutely useless for anything that goes beyond the kind of conversation you would have with a three y/o child.
@@wasserruebenvergilbungsvirus we use language far beyond information transmission. We use it to build relationships, express ourselves, influence others.
If language was about information sharing then politics would not exist.
Politicians are not well known as good information sharers, on the contrary they are known as good question dodgers.
Beyond that, toki pona IS just an artistic sort of conlang, and more like a fun game than a practical language. But, by having so few words it could be argued to be the most practical language in some ways, it removes alot of our specific aspects of language and acts on the level of categories.
"Get me a glass of that water!"
"It's coffee"
"Yeah, yeah, whatever it is!"
@@wasserruebenvergilbungsvirus Because you've expressed yourself in english so well
it's HAKUNA matata, with an.H.
How is someone supposed to tell ideas, opinions, instructions, thoughts and so much more in such a limited language? Toki Pona feels I'm locked in a speech jail where I am unable to say what I want to say. This can't be an IAL and I'm surprised you don't notice that.
you're right, it isn't an ial.
@@HBMmaster I guess you are joking? Or did you really change your opinion?
it's been so long since I've made this, I genuinely don't remember if I actually called toki pona an ial anywhere in it? if I did, that's not me changing my opinion, I was just incorrect. I also called it an "interlang" which is a super broad category that I've since stopped using. but yeah, toki pona is not an ial; you're right.
I dont NEED an xbox, but I WANT an xbox
o...o I knew nothing about toki pona before this video. My conlang has ALOT of similar features.
5:10 The lojban root-word combination system is as simple as toki pona
Only if you're using the full root word though. Usually just *tanru* are as simple as Toki Pona.
"surla tavla", a tanru that could mean "idle talk", but when using *rafsi*, things become complicated. You could use "surlytavla", which could be easily broken up, but then there's also "surta'a", which would require you to know that *sur* is a rafsi for *surla*, and *ta'a* is a rafsi for *tavla*.
Rafsi over-complicate the compounding system, unfortunately.
I think Max was joking. Of course, the whole Lojban word-coining system is needlessly, obscenely baroque. But at least you _can_ coin words if you want to.
109Rage
If I may, it doesn't take too much brain power to learn 0-3 three-letter words, can it.
klama - kla - x1 goes to x2…
bajra - baj - x1 runs…
bajykla - run type of go
mi bajykla le ckule -
I run to school.
lojbo - lob/jbo - x1 is Lojbanic
bangu - ban/bau - x1 is a language…
jbobau - lojbanic language/lojban
balvi - bav - x1 is later than x2
lamji - lam - x1 is adjacent to x2
djedi - dei - x1 is a full day…
bavlamdei - later adjacent day
bavlamdei - tomorrow
Which is easier:
bavlamdei ,
or balvi lamji djedi ?
It may seem overly complicated, if you ignored the rafsi. In which case, of course you can't understand them.
Besides, if there was a native speaker of Lojban, they probably wouldn't have any trouble.
English has around twenty-thousand words: Lojban has 1300 gismu (give or take) and only some of those have rafsi. It should be easy. It may even be mentally engaging and good for the brain: it is essentially jigsawing words to each other to make new words.
There is a list of recognised lujvo, I think:
www.lojban.org/publications/wordlists/lujvo.txt
Heck, it's not much different than adding affixes, is it?
Great(est)
banli + traji = balrai (most great)
↑ ↑
great superlative/most
If you think about it, *conlang* is an English lujvo/compound word.
Con Lang
Constructed Language
Can you understand conlang? What about fanfic? If anyone can think of another, let me know.
I wish our school had this as a foreign language option, so much easier.
I feel you may have a bit of a bias.
While I'll admit that
“[NOUN]-Good-Foam-Food"
isn't a good way to describe pie,
"Grain Sweet"
doesn't seem much better.
It makes me think of sweet-tasting wheat grain, not a cake, nor a pie.
It's actually worse
well both are terrible. so what's the point?
well howd you describe a pie or a cake? HUH?!?!?!??!?!
@@omarthefabulous9967
Baked round food with flavor
I'm learning so much from this channel
Oh shit I always just thought Jan Misali was your name
He said in Toki Pona: Welcome to Conlang Critic, the show that gets facts wrong about YOUR favorite Conlang! I'm jan Misali, and in this episode, we'll be looking at my favorite language, Toki Pona!
me: "mi moku". toki pona: \*breaks*
This is worth expanding for those unaware: "mi moku" means either of "I eat" and "I am eaten / I am food." Naturally, active voice is the natural interpretation when the subject is human, but what about subjects like shrimp (assuming you can come up with some locution for "shrimp" in the first place). Context can sometimes disambiguate, for example at a banquet where shrimp are served, but it won't suffice in a nature documentary. And mind you almost all sentences have similar ambiguities in TP. In fact the ambiguities are layered in different ways, making any non-trivial sentence a puzzle for the addressee. So much for simplicity.
Impractically imprecise by natural language standards, but at least it's easy to pronounce!
easy to learn, too!
Only because there is such a limited number of things you can actually say. I am sure it's fun, and I mean not to deny anyone their fun. But in terms of human communication requirements, this language's artificial restrictions are absurd. Why hasn't anyone yet designed a real lexicon and syntax to go along with the phonology that you like so much? This language positively screams for expansion into real languagehood. A couple thousand new roots, a way to flag passive voice, etc.
lon; sina ken ala toki sona a kepeken toki pona. taso, sina ken *toki* kepeken toki pona! jan li ken nimi e ijo ale kepeken ijo lili. *ni* li toki pona. ona li pona *a* tawa mi tan ni! toki pona li kama jo e nimi mute la, ona li toki pona ala!
Hey, I explained a dream about aliens stealing kitchen knives so humans wouldn't have any weapons to my friend in this language. I send postcards and stuff. Who cares if it's IAL material or not? I think it works well enough for the purpose of fun, which it's kinda meant to. Don't want to get in a miniature war here, so mi tawa!
Ok but what's up with the Black Hole Green Sun at the end? Almost led me to think that someone somehow made an Alternian conlang (the prospect of which terrifies me)
that green sun thing at the end......
Okay imma start learning this for fun, seems accesible and i really like the concept
Looks like my laziness isn't an excuse to not try learning this one. I look forward to the Solresol episode!
Yeah, it’s REALLY easy.
mi kama sona e toki ni kepeken tenpo suno tu wan.
@@elemenopi9239 sitelen sina li musi tan ni: tenpo suno pini la mi kama sona e toki ni. ni li musi: mi sitelen lon toki pi toki Inli ala. toki pona li kin pona li musi. sina pilin ala pilin e ni?
Well, the biggest problem with Toki Pona is that it lacks words for some really basic concrete things. Like, there's no word for "sit". It's fine that it isn't very elaborate with the abstract, but there should be more morphemes for some everyday verbs and nouns.
mi lon supa = I'm sitting
Have you ever made a conlang? And if you have, can you do a video on ur conlang?
flop I would love to see that!
Metropolitan (that was made way after these comments and he seems to have abandoned it)
The Homestuck reference at the end tho.
To be perfectly fair, the want/need dichotomy has been supported by some scientific research, and (IIRC) there's actually some experimental evidence that the chemicals responsible for motivation don't cause satisfaction.
You can actually speak toki pona with only 3 vowels - there are no minimal pairs between e-i, nor are there any between o-u, so if you speak Arabic or Inuktitut or some other 3-vowel language, it’s fine
Also, je can become ja and for Japanese speakers, tu can become to
ken/kin: am i a joke to you?
The only problem I have with toki pona is the fact that, despite the extremely small dictionary of 125 words, there are still homophones. It just seems strange to me that the creator wouldn't avoid this.
such as...?
(S)he's probably talking about the different meanings of the same word, which is not a homophone but it's understandable the confusion.
I should clarify that I mean that entire sentences can be homophones.
I may have to retract my statement anyway, though; initially upon reading the word list I noticed words like "li" and "lili", "ma" and "mama", "pi" and "pipi", and "pi ni" and "pini" and thought toki pona would have phrases that, if missing spaces, would be readable in multiple ways. However, on further study of the language (I learned it many moons ago but haven't touched it in a few years, so I reread a grammar book to refresh), it isn't so easy to create the sentences I thought would be possible. I still think it's possible to make homophonic sentences, but I haven't found any after two hours of searching.
Sudokuu ma ni -> mani
Li pu -> lipu
Welp, that 1st place is probably never moving.
The beginning gave me the same feeling as I get when watching foreign language adaptations of English tv shows for some reason?
7:26 someone call the homestuck police
Distinction between desire and necessity is something I constantly use in conversation, so I'm wondering how frustrating it might be to try and express what I like to talk about in Toki Pona. That said, the language sounds delightful, and I might just put in the investment to learn it given its relative simplicity just to see what its like.
It would literally be impossible to communicate. And if I meant need, and they thought I meant want, they'd have no way of communicating that there is a misunderstanding until we get further into the conversation and they tell me that it's not a big deal and that I can wait for it (even in situations where I couldn't). It would just end up being a misunderstood confusing mess
You can feel the joy in their voice during this video
Thanks a lot for your videos!
What do you think about accents in toki pona? Your said "palisa" with an accent on the second syllable, while in all sources I've seen it is stated that accent is always on the first syllable. Which is quite disturbing since words like "kepeken", "akesi", "utala" and so on are much easier to pronounce with an accent on the second syllable! And also (in my opinion) it makes speech, well, more melodic (like in Esperanto, which is great for poetry).
if you listen closely, you'll hear that I did, in fact, put the stress on the first syllable of "palisa"
Toki Pona's stress system is designed to make it clear where word boundaries are, so there isn't confusion between things like "kalama" (sound) and "kala ma" (land fish)
Just a tiny correction: in the hangeul table, in the -e and -en columns, the letter youre using (ㅓ) makes an open "o" sound, while -e would be (ㅔ) or (ㅐ) (open and closed respectively), though I think using (ㅔ) would be better in this context, since western words with the "e" sound are written with (ㅔ) in korean. I dont know if you made this table or if it was provided by toki pona's creator, but I just wanted to let you know☺️
Mauricio Liadanni ㅏ ㅓ ㅣ ㅗ ㅜ is less strokes than ㅏ ㅔ ㅣ ㅗ ㅜ
and it could be confused with /a/
5:47 Even if Toki Pona weren't so simplistic, conflating "want" and "need" would still be completely valid. In many contexts, these words could be used interchangeably, because "need" is ambiguous. You could need something to fulfill an absolute necessity, whatever that means; but you could also need something to fulfill a trivial desire.
o sona e ni: sina toki e ike tawa toki Epelanto la, jan Evildea li pali e ike tawa sina! ona li sewi wawa >:-)
But anyway, I don't think toki pona was intended as an interlang, and I don't think it would be ideal in that capacity. Not that I don't like it, but it has its limitations. Though it may help in some cases to just get to the point....
jan lawa nanpa wan: o pana e mani tawa ma mi!
jan lawa nanpa tu: mi wile ala pana e mani tawa ma sina.
wan: a! sina pana ala e mani la, mi utala e sina! jan utala mi li moli e jan utala ali sina!
tu: a a a! sina wile la, o utala e mi. mi pakala taso e ma sina.
wan: mi pilin e ni: ni li lon ala. mi tu o utala!
tu: o utala kin!
a... mi nasa mute.
christa627 are you fluent?
a a a a. jan lawa ali o moli a
Toki Pona is a simple language, but what makes languages beautiful is not always simplicity.
Take Scottish Gaelic, for example. It's a really beautiful language, but its pronounciation is really difficult, at least for me.
Raviolino uwu this is true, and this is not the point of toki pona: It’s beauty is it’s lovable simplicity. Not all languages have to be simple, but that just happens to be the point of Toki Pona
@@KnzoVortex To me, the point of toki pona is really sinister, or disturbing; the creator wanted to create a language that'd force people to think in a simple maner (this reminds me of a certain infamous language from a certain famous novel)
@@bigshrekhorner Newspeak?
Unlike that language, toki pona wasn't designed to control people.
@@bigshrekhorner I would control your name.
I prefer Esperanto but yeah Toki Pona is a very good constructed language. I like Toki Pona and how it is set up a lot, my sister introduced me to it, for awhile she was obsessed with Toki Pona.
Has anyone else noticed how in the Esperanto episode Jan Misali criticized how the J sounds like Y in English and how loanwords are based on spelling and not pronunciation, but in this episode Jan Misali is ok with it? A bit odd but eh still a very good episode and series! :D
If banana is "stick fruit" and alcohol is "weird liquid", then these are compounds and so the language has way more than 120 words.
I mean, sorta? but like, "kili palisa" doesn't specifically mean "banana"; it can refer to any edible plant that's shaped like a stick. likewise, "telo nasa" can mean any strange liquid, not just alcohol.
Aha. But how would you know what to call something unless you have learned to "properly" describe it? Or can you just come up with whatever expressions you like for things for which there is no specific word?
yeah that's the fun part, there isn't a "proper" way to say to say most things. bananas can be "kili jelo" (yellow fruit) or "kili selo" (skin fruit) or even "kili jelo palisa selo" (yellow stick shaped fruit with skin) depending on who you ask
Oh, I see. Thanks!
Conlang Critic
Oh, so you're all for difficulty in communication when it's “fun.”
Love your videos
I think the vocab and sentence structure is a wonderful basis to learn new languages on. Sure, you won't sound fluent but knowing all the words of Toki Pona in a language will enable you to express many things and explain more complex things if you do not know the word for the more complex thing
He had to review toki pona as an interlang because if it was an artlang it would literally never be beaten
"Worth learning"
So you can have -deep, meaningful- conversations with all those OTHER Toki Pona speakers out there
Probably more for forcing yourself to think or journal simply, or have a private language for your family
This is a masterpiece. I haven't watched it. It's wonderful.
I actually like to write Toki Pona in a constructed writing system called Heptal.
Nathanael McDaniel or you could try Hangul
at 3:30 I was surprised that you marked the "o" as nasalized
3:47 there's an even simpler way you can transcribe it (although it would be less intuitive to native speakers). In Hindi (and Devanagari as whole, but I only speak Hindi), a dot above a letter signifies a nasally vowel, but because there is no nasality in toki pona, and the coda of a syllable, if it's there, can only have a /n/, you could use a dot to signify that a vowel ends in /n/. This would make every syllable written as one letter (albeit with up to three parts), with the only downside being that it's different to how the spelling actually works and would therefore be less intuitive to native speakers.
Speaking of the video made by Epenenkal, (a.k.a. Conlang Critic Episode Eleven-and-a-half or The Perfect Language (Epic)), did anybody think that this episode will review "Homestuck 42"?
要(yào) in Mandarin also means "want" and "need," just like the word"wile" in Toki Pona, but with more other meanings and different usages.
ZESE is basically the same as v0tgil, but with a reduced lexicon. I can't imagine there's much for you to say on the subject. In fact, most of Ostrocod's languages share pretty much the same grammar rules.
FOR NEXT EPISODE:
ESPERANTO
outro is the best thing ever
mi ala sona e: mi toki e ni,.
The phonology and phonotactics of toki pona is genius, easily the best system of any interlang I've ever seen. The grammar is very elegant and user-friendly, but could be made more precise with a slightly expanded vocabulary to avoid ambiguities. Basically, expanding the vocabulary would solve all of toki pona's problems.
god damn if only your name was actually Jan Misali. that language flows off the tongue and i love it
The vocabulary is too small for a lot situations, but it interestingly reminds me of my super limited knowledge of Vietnamese.
Words are 1 syllable and compound words are really frequent.
Alligator= ugly fish
Shark=fat fish
Vietnamese=viet speak
English=brother speak
England=brother water
America=beautiful water
Wait, Vietnamese consider English their brothers?
food-water-black-good
coffee
food-water-strange-good
beer
holy fuck the cascade at the end... absolutely incredible
since I haven’t seen anybody say anything about it, I wanna give props to the extremely high-effort homestuck reference at the end. It’s done really well & looks like it took a lot of work. unless it wasn’t meant to be a homestuck reference in which case I think I need to go outside more.
By now I think it's safe to assume that it was an intentional Homestuck reference.