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Toki Pona: A Language with a Hundred Words (2015)

theatlantic.com

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Re: Toki Pona: A Language with a Hundred Words (2015)

#2

Post by katsura »

I learned it last year as a fun excercise, and found it pretty interesting that there are so many things you can express with so few words.

However, in the end you'll end up wanting to express much more and the language is just not able to do that, you'll end up lost in the compounds, and things become unclear pretty quickly.

Re: Toki Pona: A Language with a Hundred Words (2015)

#3

Post by jan_Inkepa »

katsura wrote: post #2

I learned it last year as a fun excercise, and found it pretty interesting that there are so many things you can express with so few words. However, in the end you'll end up wanting to express much more and the language is just not able to do that, you'll end up lost in the compounds, and things become unclear pretty quickly.

(long-time lurker here...)

Yip, there are definitely topics I butt into where I hit a wall too -_- . But with time I got much better at navigating them and have had several-hour-long conversations IRL as well as online using just Toki Pona (without resorting to compounds really - I don't know if it's what you're referring to, but compound phrases with fixed meaning aren't really in the spirit of the language). There are people online who I talk with regularly exclusively using Toki Pona.

Re: Toki Pona: A Language with a Hundred Words (2015)

#4

Post by failrate »

jan_Inkepa wrote: post #3
katsura wrote: post #2

I learned it last year as a fun excercise, and found it pretty interesting that there are so many things you can express with so few words. However, in the end you'll end up wanting to express much more and the language is just not able to do that, you'll end up lost in the compounds, and things become unclear pretty quickly.

(long-time lurker here...) Yip, there are definitely topics I butt into where I hit a wall too -_- . But with time I got much better at navigating them and have had several-hour-long conversations IRL as well as online using just Toki Pona (without resorting to compounds really - I don't know if it's what you're referring to, but compound phrases with fixed meaning aren't really in the spirit of the language). There…

It may not be a concisely expressive language, but I like that the small number of word units means it would be easier to use as an intermediary language than Esperanto.

Another practical step could be to identify a specific minimal set of language units required for any given popular nonconstructed language. Is this already a thing?

Re: Toki Pona: A Language with a Hundred Words (2015)

#5

Post by jan_Inkepa »

failrate wrote: post #4
jan_Inkepa wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(long-time lurker here...) Yip, there are definitely topics I butt into where I hit a wall too -_- . But with time I got much better at navigating them and have had several-hour-long conversations IRL as well as online using just Toki Pona (without resorting to compounds really - I don't know if it's what you're referring to, but compound phrases with fixed meaning aren't really in the spirit of the language). There…

It may not be a concisely expressive language, but I like that the small number of word units means it would be easier to use as an intermediary language than Esperanto. Another practical step could be to identify a specific minimal set of language units required for any given popular nonconstructed language. Is this already a thing?

>Another practical step could be to identify a specific minimal set of language units required for any given popular nonconstructed language. Is this already a thing?

You mean something like this question?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19331307

Re: Toki Pona: A Language with a Hundred Words (2015)

#8

Post by masukomi »

dk8086 wrote: post #6

It feels like taking a picture and converting it to the lowest image format. Even if you know what was there previously, it's impossible to convert it back to a meaningful piece of information.

having played with it i will say that it was an interesting and valuable experience to try and distill something that's emotional to you down into the basic basic concepts required to try and express it, which is exactly the point of TP. It's not for trying to have real conversations in.

Re: Toki Pona: A Language with a Hundred Words (2015)

#9

Post by elldoubleyew »

In high school I was the founder of our (small) Esperanto Club. I gave Esperanto lessons each week at our club meeting designed as a one year course, usually by the end of the year if someone attended each week and did moderate self study outside of class they could communicate in Esperanto really well. We even had one international student who really struggled with english that after a few months of attending our club could communicate with us in Esperanto more fluently than English!

We had one a freshman join during my senior year who was a huge advocate of Toki Pona as a conlang. We decided to devote a month of the club to Toki Pona instead of Esperanto and it was mind boggling how quickly everyone was able to get a grasp of it. Granted Toki Pona is much more "wordy" than Esperanto, you often have to use many words to convey an idea that you could express quickly in a language with a larger vocabulary. Regardless it was an absolute blast to learn and I'm surprised by how much I remember.

Once I got to college there seemed to be a severe lack of interest in Esperanto, or any conlang for that matter, amongst the student body. I could never really keep enough people interested the same way I could in high school so I gave up after my sophomore year. I really miss teaching people Esperanto. I believe the club at my high school still runs to this day, I'd love to be able to go back and visit one day.

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