mi kama sona e toki pona/I'm learning toki pona, a constructed language

[juushika]

These last two weeks I've been learning toki pona. It's a constructed language intended to be minimalist and subsequently easy to learn, with a vocabulary of 140-ish words, limited phenomes, and simple and consistent pronunciation and construction. (This Langfocus video is a nice introduction.) The language is highly contextual and referential. Frex:

toki = talking, to talk, speaking, to speak; communicate, verbal, use language, think; or, as an interjection, hello

pona = goodness, good, positivity, positive; to improve, to fix; friendly, nice, simple; or, as an interjection, good, okay, yay, thanks

therefore

toki pona = the language of good, simple language

but the same words can be used as

ona li toki e pona = they talk about good things
toki sina li pona tawa mi = what you say is good to me, aka I like what you say
ona li pona e toki sina = they correct your speech
mi kama pona e toki pona = I'm getting better at toki pona

thus the limited vocabulary with interconnected/connotative meanings means that a lot is conveyed through context. toki pona is inspired by Taoist philosophy and intended to promote simple, positive thinking; not gonna lie, I picked it up because someone in a discord server mentioned that Sonja Lang/jan Sonja created toki pona as a coping mechanism when dealing with depression. Because, like, mood.

I love autumn a lot, I'm grateful that my dad died in autumn because it's the right time to process death each year—and because the season offers joy and distractions when the processing is too difficult. But the processing-death hit early and hard this year, probably because of my cousin's passing & recent memorial. So I need all the mindfulness or distraction I can muster, and this is both.

And it works! mostly in the sense of "actively learning a thing which is relatively simple and shows swift, obvious improvement engages my brain & makes me feel like I'm achieving something, as only a Not Sad Person™ could do," but also because it's at least not harmful to focus on simplifying and contextualizing language; to enter that focused-but-flow state of teasing out the connotative/contextual meaning of a word while still being willing to skim a confusing sentence because, it's fine, I'm still learning.

Also toki pona is intended to be and does sound cute. I feel bad = mi pilin ike. With the excuse of language practice I've been narrating a lot of stream of consciousness, mi pilin ike tan ni: mama meli mi li moli. tenpo pini la insa ona li pakala. Things which are hard to talk about, so big and yet so small, rendered into lilting almost-babytalk sentences where they are so big and small, simple little words but everything is context. Talking to my cats, mi pilin pona tan ni: sina pona tawa mi—just as cute, simple, silly, little/big, contextual.

I'm really enjoying it.

⁂

Anyway here's how I've been learning toki pona, recorded because troubleshooting the how of learning has been almost as rewarding the thing itself, and in case anyone reads this and goes, woah, sign me up for whatever this is!

• Do half of /urandom's toki pona course before getting overwhelmed by memorization/pronunciation of new words
  (I suspect one could substitute any similar online course)
  
• Start jan Kalupana's memrise course for toki pona with audio primarily to learn pronunciation and practice with flashcards, secondarily to learn the grammar
  
• Simultaniously use this memrise course to learn sitelen pona (good writing) aka toki pona pictographs, primarily for their mnemonic benefit as the glyphs are symbolic, ex. toki is a circle with emphasis lines, i.e. a mouth talking; pona is a smile
  (I struggle with memorization, okay)
  
• Eventually go back through /urandom's toki pona course (or similar), starting from the beginning, and discover that it's now much easier to follow. Consult similar resources regularly to learn what the rules are doing as well as seeing how they're doing it in toki pona text. Speaking of...
  
• Read some texts in toki pona, preferably sitelen pona because the glyphs provide extra context clues. These translations of Red Riding Hood/meli lili pi len loje is my personal favorite.
  
• Pick a headnoun and toki pona-legal name! because it's fun! "J" is pronounced "y" in toki pona, so there are probably more sound-accurate transliterations, but I'm emotionally attached to the letter J and comfortable with j-turned-y-or-h in names because that's often a thing that happens. So I'm going with soweli Ju (aka animal Juu). Non-jan/non-person headnames are surprisingly common in the toki pona community! That's so neat!
  
• Pick toki pona-legal names for your cats!* because it's fun, and because it opens up even more fodder for speaking practice. Practice a lot by talking to said cats.
  
• Learn sitelen telo (water writing) aka a more handwriting/Japanese-esque logographic system, because writing sitelen pona kinda sucks, but writing toki pona is a productive form of learning, and sitelen telo also has pitographic/mnemonic elements (and it unlocks more reading material)
  
• Keep reading works in translation, which I prefer to original work during the learning process because familiarity with the source material helps with context clues. I'm currently reading The Little Prince/jan lawa lili.
  
• Coming soon: actually use ma pona pi toki pona, the primary discord server? or not? Use this list of toki pona literature to find more to read. Translate picture books/kids books into toki pona because they're an accessible length and complexity; maybe focus on public domain works in case I ever finish them. Explore toki pona YouTube content to practice listening comprehension.

* soweli lili mi nanpa wan li jo e nimi ni: soweli Pipi. nimi ona li soweli Pipi tan ni: ona li wile moku e pipi. soweli lili mi nanpa tu li jo e nimi ni: soweli Topi. nimi ni li kalama sama tan ni: nimi suli pi soweli Topi.

Ideally "talk to other actual people in the language" should be my next priority, but I'm doing this to cope with mental health issues, not to create them, so I give myself time and grace. taso sina toki ala toki e toki pona? mi wile toki e sina a! If you speak toki pona, hit me up. If you want to learn, I encourage it.

Comments

[oracne]

That sounds FASCINATING.

[juushika]

It is! It's a lot of etymology/what words mean and how they're used and how those uses are connected, but intentionally light on the part where languages are complex and difficult to learn.

[starshipfox]

I'd never heard of that language -- it looks/sounds so cute! Is there a large community of people who use it?

[juushika]

The community probably about 3000 people, which is like ... small, but good traction for a conlang (and decent staying power, since it's been around for 20 years), but not comparable to a natural language or Esperanto, the most popular conlang with something like 60k+ speakers.

[starshipfox]

That is impressive! I was taking a course in minority languages (it was about language rather than actually learning languages) and many we looked at only had speakers in double digits.