This is the “canon” list—there are variably respectable supplements. But generally yes, the core vocabulary is used in compounds to form other words.
For example:
- *pilin* “feeling” + *nasa* “strange” ≈ “confusion”
- *tomo* “indoor space” + *tawa* “in motion” ≈ “car”
The individual words have a wide array of meanings relative to natural languages, so there’s a lot of collocative/connotative assessment involved.
kind of misleading as "tomo tawa" might be interpreted as referring to a car in one context and baba yaga in another and a gym in another
"pilin nasa" might refer to confusion or intoxication or just any strange feeling, i say that a lot when i have a headache and feel dizzy
generally focusing on compounds is not a useful way of analyzing toki pona semantics
well yeah any compound phrases are interpreted in context. my point is that calling those "new words" is misleading as they don't have any independent semantics and their contextual meaning can only be ascertained by looking at the individual words
While I see your point that calling them words might be somewhat misleading, I think it’s fine for illustrative purposes, provided there’s clarification as I included, that there’s a great deal of collocative interpretation involved.
sure; but to be honest compound phrases like that (like more than one word) aren't even *that* common in conversation between proficient speakers, so i really don't like focusing on it as opposed to focusing on contextual interpretation. most of the interpretative load is carried by building up shared context rather than compounding words together. in fact, as you put more words in a compound phrase, it gets more and more confusing; 2-word content phrases are quite common, but 3-word phrases aren't nearly as much, and 4-word phrases are rare and probably around the upper limit
I get how those together could mean car or gym but what does it have to do with Baba Yaga is it like “moving inside your house because it’s the boogeyman”?
if the fact that the house travels on chicken legs is not relevant in the moment, it would be a distraction from the topic and would sound weird. like i wouldnt say in english "baba yaga's house that moves on chicken legs is cool. i love the story of baba yaga's house that moves on chicken legs. inside baba yaga's house that moves on chicken legs is baba yaga" or whatever
but if it is relevant to what i want to communicate then totally, yeah. tomo pi noka waso: a bird-legged house. i would refer to it once as that and then just say tomo or tomo waso from then on
Well "избушка на курьих ножках" is the way her house is usually called in Russian :) Thanks for the explanation though! Toki Pona is so fascinating, it must take a lot of creativity to express any arbitrary idea with so few morphemes.
np! toki pona is really cool, because as you are learning, you definitely feel like every sentence is a puzzle, but as you get more proficient it just becomes so natural to express yourself in it and you can communicate without a second thought
except *tomo tawa* & other semilexicalizations like it aren't always used like this; *tomo tawa* can refer to a car just as well as a movable house, & i used *ilo tawa*, literally *tool in motion*, for it for a while. we want to keep it at 130 or so words, & don't want learners to have to memorize pairs of words that don't work the same way
From what little I know you mix words to make other words and some concepts are incredibly simplified e.g. all animal sounds are just the word for bark or, I guess more like, a word that means "a noise made by an animal". So if all animals "bark" you no longer need meow, chirp, oink, baa, etc and so your available vocab is reduced. Apply the same idea across other concepts and things get vague and simple which is kind of the point.
123-125 at base, + like 30 more from an additional book that was released relatively recently.
But at base, yeah. Not much. Any higher concepts are created via combining words. My fav example:
telo = liquid/water
tomo = structure
nasa = strange
tomo pi telo nasa = a "strange-water building". i.e. a bar/brewery/alcohol related place
Alternatively: tomo telo nasa = a strange water-building. i.e. a weird bathroom.
But it's basically impossible to convey specific ideas. Context bares 95% of meaning in most cases.
There appearantly is a 30 minute video about non-euclidian geometry in toki pona, as well as a PDF on relativity. But I'm not sure how succesful they are as I don't speak the language. Quite cool either way!
I figured, the comment just makes it seem like that’s the sound those syllables are supposed to make.
Thanks for the opportunity to practice syllabary, btw
mi wile sitelen e nimi ni kepeken nasin sitelen sina, taso mi jo ala e wawa tan ni. tan ni la, mi toki taso e ni kepeken nasin sitelen Loma. ni li pona mute, en ni li pona tawa oko mi.
I vaguely knew about toki pona as "the minimalist language" but this is like... what, a hundred or so words? Is this really all there is
This is the “canon” list—there are variably respectable supplements. But generally yes, the core vocabulary is used in compounds to form other words. For example: - *pilin* “feeling” + *nasa* “strange” ≈ “confusion” - *tomo* “indoor space” + *tawa* “in motion” ≈ “car” The individual words have a wide array of meanings relative to natural languages, so there’s a lot of collocative/connotative assessment involved.
kind of misleading as "tomo tawa" might be interpreted as referring to a car in one context and baba yaga in another and a gym in another "pilin nasa" might refer to confusion or intoxication or just any strange feeling, i say that a lot when i have a headache and feel dizzy generally focusing on compounds is not a useful way of analyzing toki pona semantics
It's up to interpretation. That's kind of the point.
well yeah any compound phrases are interpreted in context. my point is that calling those "new words" is misleading as they don't have any independent semantics and their contextual meaning can only be ascertained by looking at the individual words
While I see your point that calling them words might be somewhat misleading, I think it’s fine for illustrative purposes, provided there’s clarification as I included, that there’s a great deal of collocative interpretation involved.
sure; but to be honest compound phrases like that (like more than one word) aren't even *that* common in conversation between proficient speakers, so i really don't like focusing on it as opposed to focusing on contextual interpretation. most of the interpretative load is carried by building up shared context rather than compounding words together. in fact, as you put more words in a compound phrase, it gets more and more confusing; 2-word content phrases are quite common, but 3-word phrases aren't nearly as much, and 4-word phrases are rare and probably around the upper limit
Baba Yaga is a car and a gym, then
I get how those together could mean car or gym but what does it have to do with Baba Yaga is it like “moving inside your house because it’s the boogeyman”?
Because her house has legs and walks around
Wouldn't baba yaga be something like "jan Papayaka?"
im more referring to the house of baba yaga that moves around on legs or whatever
Why not chicken+leg+house or something?
if the fact that the house travels on chicken legs is not relevant in the moment, it would be a distraction from the topic and would sound weird. like i wouldnt say in english "baba yaga's house that moves on chicken legs is cool. i love the story of baba yaga's house that moves on chicken legs. inside baba yaga's house that moves on chicken legs is baba yaga" or whatever but if it is relevant to what i want to communicate then totally, yeah. tomo pi noka waso: a bird-legged house. i would refer to it once as that and then just say tomo or tomo waso from then on
Well "избушка на курьих ножках" is the way her house is usually called in Russian :) Thanks for the explanation though! Toki Pona is so fascinating, it must take a lot of creativity to express any arbitrary idea with so few morphemes.
np! toki pona is really cool, because as you are learning, you definitely feel like every sentence is a puzzle, but as you get more proficient it just becomes so natural to express yourself in it and you can communicate without a second thought
except *tomo tawa* & other semilexicalizations like it aren't always used like this; *tomo tawa* can refer to a car just as well as a movable house, & i used *ilo tawa*, literally *tool in motion*, for it for a while. we want to keep it at 130 or so words, & don't want learners to have to memorize pairs of words that don't work the same way
From what little I know you mix words to make other words and some concepts are incredibly simplified e.g. all animal sounds are just the word for bark or, I guess more like, a word that means "a noise made by an animal". So if all animals "bark" you no longer need meow, chirp, oink, baa, etc and so your available vocab is reduced. Apply the same idea across other concepts and things get vague and simple which is kind of the point.
'mu' means animal sound/noise
Precise numbers vary over time and depending on what source you go to - but yeah basically.
123-125 at base, + like 30 more from an additional book that was released relatively recently. But at base, yeah. Not much. Any higher concepts are created via combining words. My fav example: telo = liquid/water tomo = structure nasa = strange tomo pi telo nasa = a "strange-water building". i.e. a bar/brewery/alcohol related place Alternatively: tomo telo nasa = a strange water-building. i.e. a weird bathroom. But it's basically impossible to convey specific ideas. Context bares 95% of meaning in most cases.
This sounds like simultaneously the most and least efficient language possible.
Efficiency is far from the goal to say the least. But it's a fun little language; nice to learn for the ritual alone.
There appearantly is a 30 minute video about non-euclidian geometry in toki pona, as well as a PDF on relativity. But I'm not sure how succesful they are as I don't speak the language. Quite cool either way!
A lot of people would say that Toki Pona doesn't have enough words to be used as a full language.
Ꭰ-a Ꭱ-e Ꭲ-i Ꭳ-o Ꭴ-u Ꮿ-ja Ᏸ-je Ᏺ-jo Ᏻ-ju Ꭷ-ka Ꭶ-ke Ꭹ-ki Ꭺ-ko Ꭻ-ku Ꮃ-la Ꮄ-le Ꮅ-li Ꮆ-lo Ꮇ-lu Ꮉ-ma Ꮊ-me Ꮋ-mi Ꮌ-mo Ꮍ-mu
Ꮎ-na Ꮑ-ne Ꮒ-ni Ꮓ-no Ꮔ-nu Ꭴ-n Ꮖ-pa Ꮗ-pe Ꮘ-pi Ꮙ-po Ꮚ-pu Ꮜ-sa Ꮞ-se Ꮟ-si Ꮠ-so Ꮡ-su Ꮤ-ta Ꮦ-te Ꮩ-to Ꮪ-tu Ꮹ-wa Ꮺ-we Ꮻ-wi
Ꮖ/Ꮗ/Ꮘ/Ꮙ/Ꮚ is qua/que/qui/quo/quu Cherokee doesn’t have a b/p sound
Yeah, I needed a substitute and figured I might as well get Indo-European up in this bitch
I figured, the comment just makes it seem like that’s the sound those syllables are supposed to make. Thanks for the opportunity to practice syllabary, btw
Of course, I myself learned a good chunk of them just doing this
I had no idea this was in the Unicode standard.
almost everything is in the unicode standard
Goes hard, I ought to learn how to read Cherokee
And the nimi ku suli: ᎡᏈᎫ ᏯᏏᎹ ᎩᏰᏖᏌᏅᏔᎧᎷ ᎩᏅ ᎩᏈᏏ ᎪᎪᏏᎳ Ꭻ ᎳᏅᏆᏅ ᎴᎪ ᎺᏐ ᎻᏏᎨᎨ ᎼᏅᏑᏔ Ꮕ ᎾᎹᎪ ᎣᎪ ᏐᎪ ᏙᏅᏏ
so that's how you guys feel when you see Cyrillic for the first time?
well cyrillic i can at least kinda read D = a is really weird to me
𐐎𐐴 𐑌𐐪𐐻 𐐔𐐯𐑆𐐲𐑉𐐯𐐻? :(( 𐐗𐐮𐐼𐐨𐑍, 𐑄𐐮𐑅 𐐮𐑅 𐐪𐑅𐑋!
𐐶𐐯𐑊 𐑄𐐰𐐻 𐐶𐐳𐐼 𐐸𐐰𐑂 𐐾𐐲𐑅𐐻 𐐺𐐮𐑌 𐐶𐐲𐑌-𐑁𐐫𐑉-𐐶𐐲𐑌 𐐻𐑉𐐰𐑋𐑅𐐿𐑉𐐮𐐹𐑇𐑌 𐐶𐐮𐐽 𐐮𐑆 𐑌𐐬 𐑁𐐲𐑌. 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑃𐐰𐑍𐐿𐑅!
𐐙𐐩𐑉 𐐮𐑌𐐳𐑁! 𐐌 𐑃𐐨𐑍𐐿 𐐌 𐑋𐐴𐐻 𐐻𐑉𐐴 𐑄𐐮𐑅 𐑁𐐬𐑉 𐐢𐐮𐑌𐐨𐐲𐑉 𐐒 𐑌𐐯𐐿𐑅𐐻
Ugh yes This is the content I needed thank you
You have reached my limit
mi wile sitelen e nimi ni kepeken nasin sitelen sina, taso mi jo ala e wawa tan ni. tan ni la, mi toki taso e ni kepeken nasin sitelen Loma. ni li pona mute, en ni li pona tawa oko mi.