The World's TINIEST Language? (TOKI PONA)

[@Langfocus]

Hey, guys! If you're into Toki Pona, there's a new Toki Pona dictionary (around 400 pages long). Check it out: www.amazon.com/Toki-Pona-Dictionary-Official/dp/0978292367/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=toki+pona&qid=1627425403&sr=8-1 (not an affiliate link).

[@xx_skullgamer_xx2754]

Doesn’t it have like 100 words? How would they do a 400 page long dictionary then?

[@gkky-xx4mc]

@@xx_skullgamer_xx2754 One of the schticks of the new dictionary ('ku') is that there's a very comprehensive dictionary of "phrases" that the community uses to describe concepts. So for example, "computer" is translated as "ilo sona, ilo nanpa, ilo, poki nanpa", which mean "knowledge tool, number tool, tool, number box". These translations aren't supposed to tell speakers how to speak but just offer a look into the state of the language as it is today.

[@Langfocus]

@Unproductive Failure Yes, that's exactly it.

[@ValkyRiver]

Both me and jan misali have a problem with numbers in toki pona.

[@blazertrail5344]

@@xx_skullgamer_xx2754 afaik it also has translations of English words into tiki pona

[@ExtraDipson]

It's kind of ironic how in trying to simplify things, Toki Pona can sometimes make very simple sentences more complex

[@channelwithnotopic]

this man gets a ❤ after 4 years and nobody else does. wow. edit: stop liking this someone else has one

[@Numbabu]

@@channelwithnotopic best comment

[@corginzer6139]

@@channelwithnotopic yeah

[@jaredf6205]

In a similar way to how a number in binary has a lot more digits than a regular number.

[@tylermitchell185]

@@jaredf6205 But binary isnt meant to be simple, just blunt enough that we can represent it in 2 states, just being on and off.

[@breitensundra179]

If there were native speakers, they would probably find it incredibly hard to learn another language due to their relatively extensive vocabularies.

[@xGOKOPx]

If there were native speakers, their Toki Pona would immediately become a lot more complicated because in it's current form it's insufficient as a main communication language of a society

[@Emile.gorgonZola]

aounds like ethnocentric BS from a non-linguist but ok

[@gogl0l386]

@@Emile.gorgonZola I don't know if you are addressing xgokopx or breiten. But if it's xgokopx I need to inform you that basically all English words are composed of simpler words. The different between Toki Pona and English is that the simpler building blocks are apart of the standard vocabulary. While in English the smaller words are often not in use anymore. Consider internet. Inter and net, inter meaning between. Television. Tele and vision, tele meaning distant. Metaphor, meta meaning with.

[@PixelBytesPixelArtist]

That's kinda like what learning Chinese is like.

[@Carewolf]

No, as you could see in the video. The lack of words is entirely theorical. In effective use the language already has thousands of words, they are just made up of chains of the base words. So saying the language only has 123 words is already down right wrong, they are more like supersyllables.

[@d.c.monaco2108]

In English: "I like bacon." In Toki Pona: "Bacon is good for me."

[@______608]

In English: I like Smoking and Alcohol In Toki Pona: Smoking and Alcohol is good for me 😂😂😂😂😂 Edit: Damn, 110 likes. Thanks y'all

[@dungeness3224]

to be fair, "good for me" in english is idiomatic to mean healthy, while in toki pona its idiomatic to mean liking something. so practically they mean different things despite being the same literal translation. funny tho

[@cheesegirl8624]

"is maith liom bagún" in irish is a similar construction lol

[@gorilla3dd]

@@dungeness3224 yeah, for example in russia we use a phrase that can be translated "helpfull for health".

[@il-dottore]

@@______608 telo nasa li pona tawa mi kon ike li pona tawa mi

[@halfsourlizard9319]

How can you NOT love a language that calls alcohol 'silly water'!?!?!?!?!?!?

[@ambientexperience5793]

Lol I just read this comment right at the moment it came up in the vid 😅

[@tonylovesmusic]

you mean "telo nasa"

[@Curvyfeets]

mi olin e telo nasa

[@Curvyfeets]

mi sona lili e toki pona mi kama sona e toki pona

[@calikae]

@@tonylovesmusicwhich means silly water

[@majarimennamazerinth5753]

Summary of the video "There's no word for ___ in Toki Pona, but..."

[@knight.2049]

kiyomi onuma ya having a stroke there?

[@user-yg4en5mv2j]

@kiyomi onuma r/ihadastroke

[@fetyrol7108]

what did he say

[@xuly3129]

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.

[@mytriumph]

@@xuly3129 as someone who fluently speaks toki pona, I can tell you this is not true. "poka" means "to the side," so there are two common ways tell someone to "go right" or "go left." The first, and easiest, is to just pick an object in the area that would require the user to go in the direction you want to reach (ex. "o tawa soweli" could mean "go right," if there is an animal to the person's right). The other, more complicated and sometimes conviluted way, used more in literature when there are no objects to refer to, is to say something like "luka sitelen mi la o tawa poka," which would be, "in the context of my writing hand, move to my side (my hand)." The problem then is that the reader needs to know which is my writing hand, so for generality it is often assumed to be the right, unless otherwise specified.

[@saidsalim471]

What I like about this language, as someone who's never heard of it before, is that the linguist who made this language made it right here in my hometown of Toronto!

[@Langfocus]

Yeah, she’s a fellow Canadian. And quite an interesting person, too!

[@goodiesohhi]

#CanadaGang

[@Val.Kyrie.]

Toronto is more like a collection of massive cities rather than a town 😋

[@tobuscusradiationfox9799]

uh Toronto is a state

[@xippo]

@@tobuscusradiationfox9799 it's part of a province called Ontario

[@oldcowbb]

cant wait to see quantum theory in Toki pona

[@anubisu1024]

We would need ten or more words for describing the word "quantum theory" in Toki Pona...

[@oiSinCryo]

Would “sitelen sona pi ijo lili” (A sculpture of wisdom of small body) works? Edit: sijelo -> ijo : yeah, completely forgot that ijo exists.

[@anubisu1024]

I'm not a expert of Toki Pona, but I think it can be just "toki ijo lili" (thought about small things), or even just "oko lili" (small eye), from the point of view of Toki Pona. It's so interesting to think how every difficult term would be described in Toki Pona.

[@pauljackson3491]

How does quantum theory differ from atomic theory? I would add something like movement, I don't know any words, or even better unknown, to describe QT. Well actually 'movement' would be more like heat.

[@MrPoornakumar]

oldcowbb! I think Mathematics works, to complement.

[@MrQuadriplegicSnailman]

I have a feeling this is how early languages were formed. It's easy to see how compound words that are used often can become simplified into their own words.

[@julesmasseffectmusic]

Early language was Run Duck Food Fuck And fuck off. That was enough until we domesticated the dog.

[@javierhillier4252]

Yeah it’s the step you make in a naturalistic language conlang which is the the proto language from here you add those words up to make prefixes suffixes affixes infixes and more

[@ronizuckerman7785]

Finally a language I can fully learn

[@munichmapper3245]

Same

[@the-bruh.cum5]

But can not fully use edit: I no longer believe this statement I said a year ago

[@canalmuerto1004]

@@the-bruh.cum5 i mean, technically you can

[@timomastosalo]

@@the-bruh.cum5 You can, just hold on -

[@ValkyRiver]

3:21 "Mi kute e kalama musi" Hiragana: み くて え からま むし. Katakana: ミ クテ エ カラマ ムシ.

[@xp_studios7804]

I will now refer to music exclusively as "recreational sound"

[@AvidCobbleYT]

Lol

[@qdaniele97]

This definition fits perfectly in the mind of three-years-old me slamming pot lids together for the enjoyment of my parents' ears.

[@zorphorias1523]

It's actually the same in Mandarin! 音乐 can be teanslated as a "fun sound"

[@C1418OS]

Me too!

[@blakksheep736]

@@qdaniele97 "enjoyment"

[@GotPotatoes24]

The average dog can learn 165 words. Guess who's teaching their next dog Toki Pona?

[@zackbuildit88]

YES! You can set up a talking board for your dog so it can press buttons to also say stuff too!

[@itsROMPERS...]

If only you could teach it grammar and context.

[@Anonymous-df8it]

Did it work?

[@zackbuildit88]

@@itsROMPERS... dogs will just learn that stuff automatically

[@Imanioa]

@@zackbuildit88 FR?

[@KarmasAB123]

This could be a good language for two people to learn who have very different native languages when they just want to have casual conversation, but it would suck for talking about anything particularly complicated or abstract.

[@omekapo]

actually toki pona is very good for abstract things updating in february 2024: im pretty sure talking about more abstract things in toki pona is actually mostly limited by your skill in the language. i think i have a better understanding of “abstract” now.

[@КрымЭтоРоссия]

But in my opinion, if we will update toki pona, and add a lot of words, it will be less abstract, and a little more complex, but not stupid! Mama mije!

[@abocwsg2328]

toki pona li ike ala, sona sina li ike, o pali e nimi sin ala, that would defeat the whole point of toki pona. lipu sina li pakala

[@shuvodipbarua6001]

they should use this language for the gibberish-sounding dialogues in games like Zelda, SIms etc.

[@michaelkochalka3251]

The Sims has it's own real (constructed) language, it's called simlish

[@shuvodipbarua6001]

@@michaelkochalka3251 oh cool, didn't know that

[@daahorse1652]

@@michaelkochalka3251 Yes but also no. It's a language but simlish has no structure at all so it's just gibberish.

[@AckzaTV]

so an NPC language?

[@shuvodipbarua6001]

@@AckzaTV That's what I was thinking, yes.

[@robbiecoombes1649]

I'm teaching this to my friends so we can talk about people without them knowing

[@avlabari346]

I decided to learn just to do same thing lol it can work quite well if you are in the same environment with your friends. But when you read toki pona its hard to make guess.

[@thedyslexicdemon9307]

Yes, me and my friend are learning it together as well

[@simplywendy7216]

My point exactly😹😹

[@ashaler__]

i want to do this

[@thewhovianhippo7103]

I'ma force my friends to do it and then we can make our own slang versions

[@ylhajee]

I would like to think that this is how language started. A small set of words and simple grammar that could still be used to communicate. And then people slowly invented more words, or blended together long compound words to form new unique words. But it's probably a lot more complicated than that.

[@livedandletdie]

It isn't though... However it's incredibly similar to how language must have started, because languages started of simple. However toki pona is far from naturalistic, it has words for good and ungood which are non-natural notions, hence completely unnatural due to being overly simplistic yet only using high notion terminology for it's word base.

[@flugschulerfluglehrer]

@The Major Some might think the main purpose of language is transporting information. To make it short. It is not. There are many more effective forms of transmitting information, e.g. showing what you mean in deed. The main purpose of language is socializing. Therefor moral judgment and teaching values is a base function of language. Imagine two homi habilis. To transfer technology they showed the younger how to hit a stone. But to warn from dangers, language is perfect. „Mama good. Enemy dangerous (non good).“ Go bring wood for fire good. No fire, animal nogood will eat you, nonogood!

[@alfyryan6949]

I believe if this language were to be taught in schools, maybe in about a century or two it would have undergone extensive elaboration, as any language would in developing a canon of literature.

[@davigurgel2040]

that's basically how a pidgeon turns into a creole. native speakers learn the language of the dominator only enough to be able to communicate, and then their kids add more vocabulary and grammar structures to it

[@W_Qimuel]

@@alfyryan6949 It wouldn't take a century, tho. Not even a generation. By the time those kids graduated from school, the language would have undergone considerable expansion.

[@wohdinhel]

The “kalama musi” example is interesting because it is *exactly* the same as the Sinitic word for music, 音楽, literally “sound entertainment”. I wonder how many more such compounds are mirrored in Chinese/Japanese.

[@omekapo]

well sound entertainment is “musi kalama”

[@unexpected2475]

Also the TP word for person (jan) is literally identical to the Cantonese word for person minus tone (jan4).

[@huseyinuguralacatli5064]

or "telo kili" for juice is just "fruit water" and we use "meyve suyu" in Turkish for juice (meyve=fruit, su=water)

[@RadkeMaiden]

Except it's not, because the 樂 in 音樂 doesn't mean entertainment. It means "music." The 樂 meaning entertainment is pronounced differently in Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, and Japanese and should be considered as a separate word that happens to share the same character.

[@Nameless_Individual]

​@@RadkeMaiden In Japanese it generally is used in words that mean fun/enjoyable, anticipation, comfort, etc. (as well as music)

[@justin.booth.]

To the people who say that you could never use such a simple language to express all the difficult ideas needed everyday, you should read Randall Munroe's Thing Explainer. If he can go through nuclear fission reactors with only the 1000 most common English words, surely this language could work for 99% of normal communication.

[@blugaledoh2669]

The language toki pona will just become more complex. While simple languages can be used colloquially and even express complex theme, it is naturally that the speaker would developed more unique words and grammars to specified greater clarity.

[@thepip3599]

I was totally thinking about that book the whole time I was watching the video!

[@Ondohir]

@@blugaledoh2669 that is somewhat true, but is important to concider that (most) people who speak Toki Pona speak it because they are interested by the simplicity of the language. I think this will at least slow the increase of complexity significantly

[@yourowndealer]

That's not true. Toki Pona is too simple to be used in normal conversations. First of all, many basic things require more than 1 word. So a toki pona speaker would need to say more just for simple everyday concepts. Secondly, it can't represent advanced scientific vocabulary. You just can't create many complex necessary advanced scientific words in Toki Pona and if you do it will be a waste to say sentences for that 1 thing. Also 1000 is a lot bigger than 123. This language cannot be used in a society, because if it does, it's vocabulary will increase. It's very dumb to say Toki Pona can work. It's not impossible to communicate but it's very inefficient. It's just too simple

[@elenagibbons4719]

@@yourowndealer did you even watch the video? the whole point is they often put words together to mean another thing. it was also never intended to be the language for anything, it’s just fun

[@hentehoo27]

Interestingly, about 15% of the words used in Toki Pona come from Finnish, here are some examples: ike - cruel (from Finnish "ilkeä") kala - fish of other creature living in water (Finnish "kala") kasi - plant, vegetable (Finnish "kasvi") kin - English prefix "too" (in Finnish "-kin", like " _minuakin_ paleltaa", translates as "I'm freezing _too_ " kiwen - rock, stone (Finnish "kivi") linja - line (Finnish "linja") lipu - flag/card (Finnish "lippu") ma - land (Finnish "maa") mije - man (Finnish "mies") nena - nose, hill (Finnish "nenä") nimi - name (Finnish "nimi") pimeja -dark (Finnish pimeä) sama - same (Finnish "sama") sina - you (singular) (Finnish "sinä") suli - big (Finnish "suuri") walo - light (Finnish "valo") wawa - strong/strength (Finnish "vahva")

[@justafeather4630]

Hente Hoo I find it interesting too! I've been teaching myself Finnish for a few weeks now and to me, the way of how Finnish words are structured seems very simple. Not saying that this is bad! But the spelling itself is already as simple as it can get. And obviously, this offers a great opportunity to take some vocabulary from :)

[@lordpinochetuttp3819]

Linja and Nimi are from English Line and Name.

[@rafeverao4105]

"Some." With such a small vocabulary, and the percentage being so small, this may be a complete list of Finnish-stemmed Toki Pona.

[@billyguns6975]

I like how the 1st word looks like IKEA, and it means cruel. :p

[@daki2223]

"ike" is similar to "ikke" in Norwegian

[@RammusTheArmordillo]

It's crazy how much it looks inspired from Japanese. word order, subject and objects markers, optional markers for gender and plural, simple phonology, and even compound words.

[@AllisonGhost]

Noticed that immediately as well! It's a really good system imo

[@avalinah]

Haha, I came to say the same thing :)

[@DeborahGoldenflower]

It might be that some of the traits you know from Japanese are common! I know very little about Japanese, but I think I could draw a lot of similarities between Toki Pona and Haitian Creole (a language I do speak). In relation to your comment, I would say that the use of separate devices to indicate gender, number, and tense stood out to me the most. But then, he did say that there's some inspiration from Acadian French for Toki Pona, so that influence could be at play here.

[@carcharoclesmegalodon6904]

It has pretty much the exact opposite word-order to Japanese though. (And pretends not to have compounds xD)

[@mokuthetree8509]

My l name means food, I’m literally food the tree now, I’m edible :(

[@searose6192]

I appreciate the simplicity and I imagine it would be excellent exercise to spend time translating into this.

[@alexkuhn5078]

This language is astonishingly similar to Japanese, except for the fact that it's SVO instead of SOV. Also, interestingly, the English word orange referred to the fruit first, and the color second. Prior to that connection, we used the term 'yellow-red'

[@bruhtonbruhkkinson6848]

check out Māori you will be surprised how similar it is to Japanese

[@AndorianBlues]

my understanding is most shades of orange were considered shades of red. There's some artifacts of this left in the language, for example people with naturally orange hair are described as having red hair.

[@xXxSkyViperxXx]

both japonic and austronesian languages have a penchant for simple consonant-vowel syllabled words

[@serenolopez-darwin1975]

Japanese isn't SOV though it's just XV. You can use OSV just as well as SOV depending on context of the sentence.

[@justiny2215]

Actually Toki Pona can help you learn Chinese because they are similar .

[@foolish137]

Writing a story with this sounds fun. Imagine all the wordplay possibilities.

[@qwertyuiop.lkjhgfdsa]

mi moku, for one

[@suhaila6204]

Imagine they go to google translate, but google can't detect the words😂😂😂

[@jan_Simiman]

@@qwertyuiop.lkjhgfdsa mi ni a. I did this. last year I wrote "o moku pona". It's a 'scary' story that made use of this ambiguity. It was fun indeed.

[@JaxontheOkay]

@@jan_Simiman mystery is the best part of horror! now i'm inspired lol

[@CandiceGoddard]

It doesn't seem fun to me at all because it would actually make it too complex and long winded to say simple things. The fact is that the reason for jargon and wide lexicon is actually to simplify language. This seems simple and might have worked in a primitive culture where there was less complex technology, culture etc, etc but I don't personally see how it would be fun to write long prose in this language or even to use it as an alien language as I was thinking when I first started watching the video. It seems a lot like Japanese. Probably better to just write in that, then at least the story would have a wider base or readers and people would definitely understand it.

[@ValkyRiver]

Due to the sounds of Toki Pona, you can actually write it in Japanese kana. For example: トキポナ Note: this is a transliteration, not an “exact” or “perfect” transcription with kana, though toki pona’s phonology and phonotactics are close to Japanese as to not have to make too many changes. 1. L in toki pona becomes the similar-sounding R in kana; e.g. /la/ becomes ラ; 2. For /je/, /we/, /wi/, there is the non-native イェ, ウェ, and ウィ; 3. シ and ツ work for /si/ and /tu/ if you ignore the Japanese sound shifts to “shi” and “tsu”.

[@tree427]

トキポナ語

[@Heundeullim]

トキポナ語

[@monke6475]

တိုကီ ပိုနာ

[@unknxownxvoxid]

トキポナ

[@antifa_communist]

What does it say?

[@OurHourglass]

This seems like it would be EXTREMELY useful as a middle-ground lingua franca to explain concepts and teach other languages. If I, as an English speaker, dedicate myself to mastering the 126 words of Toki Pona, then I could learn another language somewhat easier from another Toki Pona speaker, even if their English is spotty. It could function as a linguistic band-aid of sorts.

[@-whackd]

Every public school in the world should have a 1 day class on it.

[@filipedias7284]

​@@-whackdlike c'mon man it's just a hundred-sth words 😭

[@TotalWannabe]

It's extremely unessesary. Most civilized countries learn English anyway.

[@MeepChangeling]

Or just learn English, and thus know the international language of business, and the language of the internet, and the most common second language on Earth...

[@Nameless_Individual]

@@TotalWannabe English is extremely difficult for other languages. Long consonant clusters, completely unguessable spelling, insanely redundant tense system and completely incompatible phonology.

[@Langfocus]

What's up with the 2 dislikes the video got literally within 5 seconds of release? lol

[@MrtDrk16]

Cuz they see you rollin

[@AshtonSnapp]

＼(^o^)／ I don’t know!

[@putnopvut]

It's those rampant bots that see Toki Pona and immediately dogpile on that dislike

[@matthewbitter532]

Probably it's because you haven't made a language profile or comparison video in a while.

[@rdespradel]

Ili estas Volapukistoj !!!

[@mateusznowak603]

It's good that you are doing vdeos about languages that you find interesting and peculiar, rather than those sugested by the comment section . Keep up te good work!

[@Langfocus]

Thanks! Yes, that's really the only way I can keep doing this, and I'm sure the videos are better when my heart is in them.

[@mateusznowak603]

That's a really good answer. Don't bother what others are saying and just keep doing what you love!

[@adino20]

Ya... what he finds interesting... EXCEPT THAT ONE OF HIS TOP PATREAON’S NAME IS LITERALLY “TOKI PONA“. HE’S BEEN BRIBED!!!!

[@jankima8646]

Imagine a native speaker of Ithkuil learning toki pona!

[@LLWN84]

Or a native speaker of toki pona learning Ithkuil! xD

[@jankima8646]

@@MiMiBrokenbourgh I beg your pardon?

[@anonb4632]

@@LLWN84 Or Lojban.

[@acutechicken5798]

@Sturm [ʃtʊɐ̯m] It would probably be hard for an Ithkuil speaker because there would be too much ambiguity.

[@doaa7941]

@@acutechicken5798 dealing with ambiguity should be easier than having to learn 96 cases though

[@GreenFanBoy]

I remember hearing about this. The main problem is to convey complex thoughts in something that is made for simple thoughts, just like much more complicated languages tend to lack ways to convey simple thoughts. But it's always good to learn a language!

[@Patchouli59]

Imagine if everybody in the world (uneducated and illiterate included) would learn the 123 words, we would all be able to talk with each other. Okay, not about complicated or sciency stuff, but we would be able to communicate with anybody from anywhere ❤

[@jdb6026]

This would be good for survival stuff yanno. Like getting around or asking for help or looking for the water closet. Langauge doesn't have to be complex. It just need to get the main point across.

[@LakhnBer]

...provided that we could all figure out what the necessary long-winded constructs mean. I suspect that the chance for wrong inferences or just plain incomprehension are pretty great. After all, Esperanto was constructed to be an easily-learned second language, though I believe that it's considered Eurocentric. And it has a rich vocabulary with clear rules for building words with well-defined modifiers. But it has several competitors in that arena, and I'm likely to get into a religious war here...

[@ericolens3]

Its called a lingua franca, what you're referring to. But sadly in a world of elitism. Someone must be a leader, so idk if the humanitarian aspects of language's utility would be overshadowed by the association of poor people using it. The over population of 3rd worlders, the poor people of any given nation, and so on... It would be like Latin but the opposite. The language of the poor rather than the language of the elite. Also literacy and phonics would need to be kept CONSTANT. Which sadly it wont. There needs to be a unifying body that would keep the regional speakers from branching off. Toe may toe, toe mah toe (US/UK) Al ooh men um, al ooh men ee un, (US/UK) And we're both literate nations with a literacy rate over 70%. (Idk the actual figure so I'm lowballing it) (Per google, USA is 88% and UK is 99% but I call that Bullocks) What would you then expect from isolated nations, with lower literacy. Matter of fact lets only use USA and its regional accents and word choice. Soda, coke, pop. Or crawfish/crayfish. Or how the valley girls of California FORCIBLY RUIN WORDS by intentionally putting an accent on the wrong syllable. Or doing that inflection thing for a sentence. Or the country twang. Or the heavy accent of People from Bah'Stahn. Best case scenario it would halfway unify us. But sadly unless we FREEZE THE LANGUAGE and make it only a business language, it will evolve.

[@overdose8329]

No you can’t. This language by trying to be simple in its vocabulary has created a needlessly complex and long nightmare of compound words

[@yourowndealer]

It won't work. Even basic conversations would be lengthy. Toki Pona is not suitable for conversation because of which in real life, it's vocabulary will increase. So nobody is going to communicate with just 123 words. And learning some couple hundred words is never going to hurt even a little.

[@AvrahamYairStern]

Toki Pona sounds quite a bit like a Polynesian language, I think it might be the way that there are a limited amount of letters in the alphabet and that every word must be made of alternating consonants and vowels, a pattern seen in Polynesian languages such as Hawaiian and Marquesan, so I quite like the sound of it because of that.

[@gideon903]

jan Sonja has said she thinks of toki pona as being spoken by people on a small island, living on a beach. that's why there are different words for fish, reptiles, land animals, and people, but all technology is indicated with "ilo" - tool.

[@AndorianBlues]

Doesn't have diphthongs or long vowels though, to me the liberal use of both is one of the most distinctive features of Polynesian languages. No glottal stop either, although not all Polynesian languages have the glottal stop

[@drx5226]

אה ישראלי

[@AvrahamYairStern]

@@drx5226 שלום, אני לא ישראלי, אבל אתה כן?

[@amazingabby25]

@@AvrahamYairStern where are you from than Avram?

[@VishalVNavekar]

When you try to make a language simpler, it actually becomes ambiguous and thus more complex, Some indian languages tried to make their scripts simpler by removing alphabets , but they actually became more complex as two different sounds would have same spelling, Which was not the case earlier when they used to read exactly as it is written …

[@38-jishjilson89]

Tamil?

[@VishalVNavekar]

@@38-jishjilson89 yes Tamil script

[@38-jishjilson89]

@@VishalVNavekar Removing the letters backfired though. The letters that were removed came back and are still popular except one : ஶ (श).

[@kadalavan4589]

on a general note removing many symbols to make things simpletr will create ambiguity yes but not with tamizh. reasoning being, tamizh is pretty phonetically consistent; if the k comes at the start it is always a k (except in sanskrit or arabic loans) and medially it is G/X/h/' . this applies to most symbols in tamizh; the purpose of keeping around seperate symbols for p and b or th and dh are lost when you have phonetic consistency as this. but if you use a lot of sanskrit words this can get problematic and that is why we have grantha characters. malayalam has k kh g gh symbols seperately but the kh g and gh letters are only used in sanskrit for eg. pohudhal(to go ) is written poku using the symbol for k in place of g just like in tamizh but only in sanskrit words like gruham and gambhiram are the g or gh letters used.

[@kadalavan4589]

@@38-jishjilson89 which letters were removed? the grantha ones? didn't we always use them even at the height of EV naicker's time?

[@enaxtry]

So it's basically a language based on descriptions formed from basic words. It's very interesting, it forces you to really think about stuff. I like it

[@floot727]

Lobster: marine creature with strong sharp hands (kala pi luka kiki wawa)

[@alphamorion4314]

I was thinking the same thing! You really need to think about what you want to convey, so using such a "limited" word pool to chose from, you are somewhat forced to think in a nuanced way, while also being pretty creative

[@kylesimone6140]

im late but would a crab be sea spider?@@floot727

[@floot727]

@@kylesimone6140 you could call it a bug "fish" or a sea bug, good idea

[@omekapo]

yeah that’s actually really accurate!

[@a.a2904]

Wow ! that is some complex simplicity 😂😂

[@ShivenYT]

Ahmad Alyamour 😂 I wanted to write something like this... toki pona is simple but human thoughts are complex

[@DAAI741]

He basically covered the entire language.

[@a.a2904]

Adam Brown yep😂

[@estaciopimentel9530]

one phrase to say a fruit D:

[@sosasees]

pona ike

[@cernowaingreenman]

"Breaking thoughts down into simpler parts" is a tool I use when interpreting, that is, when I don't know the vocabulary I need in the receptor language. One time I needed to ask if a person who was sick was jaundiced. But I didn't know how to say "jaundiced" in the other language, so I broke it down to ask "have your eyes or skin been yellow?" So, breaking things down into simpler language is something you can use anytime. And, Paul, keep us the good work! I enjoyed this video on Toki Pona and now want to learn it.

[@Victorsandergamer]

i do it all the time on my own language when i forget words

[@bleddynwolf8463]

@@Victorsandergamer same! my school in wales actually taught us to do this because it was welsh medium and 99% of us were first language english speakers, whenever we had to read/write/speak welsh it was in this supper simplified low vocab version, our secondry school was mortified at our shite welsh skills... ahh good times

[@edgepixel8467]

This is mandatory English usage on the Bulgarian seaside. Don't try to inquire in correct English about what kind of "soft drinks" they may have on sell. Just say "one Pepsi," like a considerate tourist. And stay away from "currency," just say "money."

[@Nostalgia-pc6hb]

"I made yellow water "means I went pee.

[@yoyo_ftw]

"mi pali e telo jelo"

[@daki2223]

Lmao

[@TheEricEricson]

"mi pana e telo jelo" is probably better

[@15DS]

@Grace Slagle lmao thats way too funny

[@AvidCobbleYT]

"I emit yellow water"

[@piercexlr878]

This seems like an interesting start for someone who wanted to start learning languages. A lot less memory intensive but still has you exercising ways of making sense of things that don't directly translate.

[@Pfhorrest]

I find it interesting to realize through etymology how much we already do some things like this language in our natural languages. Like the word "language" itself, which basically means "tonguing". You know, that thing you do with your tongue, to make noises, to communicate with. Tonguing. Language.

[@yossarian_had_a_sister]

in Russian these two words - tongue and language - are absolutely identical

[@samneibauer4241]

@@yossarian_had_a_sister In English, languages can be called tongues when speaking about them. This is a very regular translation that's used in the Bible

[@jan_Masewin]

the tongue/language thing seems to be a widespread Indoeuropean thing

[@kadalavan4589]

@@jan_Masewin in some dravidian languages the word tongue can replace language but only if it comes after the name of the language itself or in explicit reference to it like: "itthamiź ńávil" (in this tamizh tongue) where 'ńa' is the root word for tongue

[@imperial2252]

geography = earth charting

[@chiarac2747]

amazing! I wish it was on Duolingo!

[@devbali-q6f]

The shortest course ever

[@swedneck]

​@@devbali-q6f "here are the 123 base words, descriptive words go after object words, congratulations you now speak toki pona"

[@yehudatheodoros6547]

bruh you could learn this in a week or even days, or seriously one day if you have enough time

[@isaachorgan]

watch 12 days of toki pona by jan Misali

[@Conglomeration]

@@isaachorgan or learning toki pona in a fortnight

[@maulanamahardika4239]

The simplicity is intriguing As a native Indonesian speaker, minimal tenses means we used to always guess the context of our sentences It also similar to Japanese, which we weebs already familiar with So, yeah, I might try to learn Toki Pona

[@massive.nerd.potential]

Friend directly translating to Good Person is so wholesome, I love it

[@Nikku4211]

Paul: Well, you don't eat water... Ice: Hold my bottle.

[@cueiyo6906]

XD UNDERRATED

[@jakubpociecha8819]

So you eat ice cubes?

[@djsaidez271]

@@jakubpociecha8819 who doesn't?

[@jakubpociecha8819]

@@djsaidez271 I do...on accident

[@jahinzee]

mi moku e telo kiwen

[@DadInTaiwan]

I've loved languages since I was a teenager (many years ago) and I have to admit that I'd never heard of Toki Pona before this video. It's fascinating. Thanks for introducing it!

[@floot727]

O kama pona lon kulupu pi toki pona!

[@vitalyvolkov1618]

It would be amazing to see how toki pona would have developed further as a 'living' language. Imagine (as a thought experiment) a community that would decide to speak tokipona only in their daily life. Inevitably, more complexe lexical and grammatical structures would emerge over time. When passed to children, it would change even further, developing some irregularities, idioms, etc. Or have I just described the development of a creole language?

[@remicou8420]

you might be interested in seeing "viossa"

[@memyname1771]

Considering the structure mirrors a few languages I am familiar with, I don't see complexity arising. Japanese and Korean have both been around for a very long time with similar structure, that is, using particles to define the structure of sentences. I do see the importation of technical words from other languages to avoid long and complex descriptions of simple commonly used items. If my "moving room" (car) has a problem that I need to explain to the mechanic, an imported word would point to the problem quicker than spending an hour of his time explaining with the limited vocabulary. If I wanted to see the baseball game rather than basket ball, football, American football, cricket, volleyball, or any other kind of ball, the Japanese have solved this with the imported word, "besuboru".

[@الماحي-ه3ح]

@@memyname1771 ارى انه يوجد لدي حل وسط وهو اختراع لغة جديدة لديها مفردات كثيرة وتكون سهلة مثل الإسبرنتو لكن على عكس الاسبرنتو لن تكون اوربية تماما بل ستكون عالمية لانني سوف استخدم اللغات العربية الفارسية التركية السنسكريتية اليابانية الملايو السواحلية الهوسية اللاتينية والالمانية والبولندية الايرلندية هذه القائمة ليست دائمة ويمكنني تبديلها بلغات اخرى القواعد الصوتيات A E I O U Y W B P F T D R L M N H K Z J ترتيب الجملة: SVO الجمع: يكون بتكرار الكلمة التصريف:يكون باضافة بادئات لدلالة على الزمن وهي Ya: للماضي ta: للحاضر ay: للمستقبل فيكون التصريف كالتالي: S +(ya -ta-ay) V + C

[@vict0riathefangirl]

"Telo nasa" "Silly water" "Yeah, my uncle is a Silly-wateraholic." 💀💀

[@Sapien_6]

jan poka pi mama mi li jan pi wile telo nasa.

[@MK-ex4pb]

Thinking about toki pona and it's origins, it's something ascetics might use. To them, many things don't matter. Orange vs mango is irrelevant. Fruit water is good either way. They try to eliminate such distinctions, and focus elsewhere

[@rogerwilco2]

Until you try to make a cake. Or do any complex task of engineering.

[@omekapo]

this is a perfect example of toki ponas philosophy.

[@omekapo]

@@rogerwilco2 hey thats a good idea. ill try making a cake in toki pona only with my brother. :>

[@prof.redwood9818]

It looks like a Polynesian language in terms of how the words are spelled

[@sophroniel]

Doctor Craft Channel And it sounds a lot like one too imo

[@XXRolando2008]

Except that Hawaiian doesn't have the S sound.

[@yadielnieves2894]

Also seeing how there are minimal consonant clusters and a vowel as every other letter. Kind of reminded me of Indonesian. Selamat Malam

[@Kettvnen]

Prof. Redwood also the phonology

[@jakebasmati]

There are more likes on this comment than the number of words in Toki Pona. (effective November 2018)

[@martinus_mars]

i got really excited after hearing the word 'sina' since its most likely derived from the finnish word 'sinä' what also means 'you' (im finnish)

[@kasra72389]

Yeah, toki pona has a lot of finnish vocab. Another one is "kala" which means "fish".

[@pocketlanguages]

I noticed that, too. I'm learning Estonian and they have sina.

[@raizin4908]

There's actually quite a few words from Finnish. For example: ilkeä → ike (bad, wrong) kala → kala (fish, water creature) lippu → lipu (flat object, card, book, text, document) pimeä → pimeja (black, dark) suuri → suli (big, large, long) vahva → wawa (strong, powerful, energetic) kierteishäntäkarhu → kijetesantakalu (any animal from the Procyonidae family, such as raccoons, coatis, kinkajous, olingos, ringtails and cacomistles) and more! The last one was an April fool's joke from the creator of the language. :P

[@JeanLoupRSmith]

Tämä oli mielellänikin :)

[@josephujoostaa4462]

mara553 same

[@sahulianhooligan7046]

Toki Pona reminds me of what pidgin languages look like in their early form. The vocabulary of pidgin languages are basic since their main purposes is used in trading/bartering context between different language speakers. But when pidgins become creolized, that's when numerous loan words are taken from various legitimate languages to overcome the basic nature of pidgin. Toki Pona however is like a pidgin language that wants to be a creole language so bad but refuses to go through the creolization process.

[@lelandgrover5328]

Draws its vocabulary from English, Tok Pisin, Finnish, Georgian, Dutch, Acadian French, Esperanto, Croatian, Mandarin and Cantonese wow what a wonderfully random list of languages to absorb vocabulary from.

[@ashlaskash]

The natural language with the smallest vocabulary is Sranan, an English-derived creole language used as the lingua franca of Suriname. It has ~340 words, which cover a multitude of different topics in a way that's easy and convenient. Toki Pona has roughly a third of that, and doesn't. Coming from someone that used to use Toki Pona on a regular basis, it needs to have at least twice the word count to be practical as an everyday language.

[@omijica]

Sranan dictionaries have much more than 340 words!

[@adrianhernandez2959]

The language has about 357 words and some of those words can be simplified.

[@pedrojioia]

you no knowledge what you say, language good be most good language life you no man think enough for speak good language, you no say true

[@antonpershin998]

If you use quadruple chains you can make ~100^4 "words"

[@ashlaskash]

@@bigyeet18 Using an unncessary number of words to convey basic ideas doesn't seem very minimalist to me.

[@carolchen2320]

I can’t speak for other languages but , as a native Mandarin speaker, I can really see where some of the inspiration came from for this language. In Mandarin, it’s all about a character being multiple parts of grammar and constructing them to build larger words.

[@peachy_talisman]

this level of simplicity is actually genius for creating your own language in order to avoid the confusing complexity of english

[@synkronized]

this is a joke right😭

[@peachy_talisman]

@@synkronized bro what do u think 🤦‍♀️

[@VanCamelCat]

I can only imagine how terribly-tasting mistakes can happen very often when using recipes made in this language 😅

[@yargolocus4853]

just get some "temporary blocks", "attack balls", "liquid" and "earth apples" and you got a soup

[@VanCamelCat]

@@yargolocus4853 😂 🤣

[@turnipsociety706]

moku li moku

[@VanCamelCat]

@@turnipsociety706 is that like, a whole recipe? 😉

[@omekapo]

a sort of funny mix up thats common is “anpa” meaning under and “unpa” meaning sex.

[@InicianteExperiente]

Love constructed languages, thank you for doing videos like this

[@stlouisramsfan03]

Maurilio Junior I have over 20 conlangs. (:

[@thisismycoolnickname]

Check out Nao then, it's also a minimalistic language but unlike tokipona it builds the words logically and does not have an actual restriction on the number of words.

[@G_Confalonieri]

"Telo" is a slang word in Argentina to refer to hotels, specifically those to go a couple of hours with your mate.

[@AbsoluteAbsurd]

this is unrelated but the idea behind this language.. makes me want to write a song about it. Pure simplicity. I like it.

[@MosesWNY]

This language is mind-blowing!! This channel has expanded my knowledge of languages to a next level. Thanks, Paul!

[@hceercs8246]

I would love to see a slightly broader version of this. I feel like increasing it to only about 500 words would make it totally useable.

[@الماحي-ه3ح]

If the proposal is implemented, it resembles the language of a 3-year-old child

[@الماحي-ه3ح]

بكل بساطة يمكننا جعلها لغة كاملة لشخص بسيط يعيش في الريف دون تطور التقني

[@davidguy209]

this language reminds me of 'Newspeak' from 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' by George Orwell. for anyone unfamiliar with the story, Newspeak was a minimalistic language designed to reduce the population's ability to reason, thus their ability to challenge the government's authority. a terrifying concept.

[@parthiancapitalist2733]

David Guy oh, I'm gonna do the opposite then. I'll make a language that makes us have working direct democracy, but is it also possible to make a language that makes communism work?

[@XY4X]

@@parthiancapitalist2733 Why is that people with political compass profile pictures are always the most insufferable?

[@komencanto]

WTF toki pona is not meant to be a native language! AKA you have to think in your native language and then translate it. People like me who support it becoming an international auxiliary language only want it to be used in certain contexts, like tourism and small talk. That's what it's practical for, and it's loads simpler and easier to learn than its competition.

[@livedandletdie]

Chan R it's not usable in any situation, it's hardly efficient at what it does, it's too ambiguous. Friend is literally good person, and as such it's really limited already, and that's just a 2 component word it has no cases, it has no affixes, nothing at all that makes information compact and understandable at a higher level. If you want to make a sentence that has complexity, then you need to make it extremely long just to fit the meaning of a single word in another language.

[@Ordelog]

I understand the concept, but newspeak was meant to eventually completely replace all other language, whereas toki pona is meant to complement it. This is a key difference. Toki Pona could also be used to practice non linguistic thought.

[@tammyt3434]

"There's no individual word for telephone..." technically, that's the case in English.

[@RichConnerGMN]

telephone

[@Eic17H]

@@RichConnerGMN farsound

[@jenniferwilson9579]

Wow, never heard of this constructed language! Thanks for presenting.

[@Ethouris96]

I can see people identify many words in their languages, so I also found some words from Polish: ona = she oko = eye Also "mi", tho likely seems to be common with some other languages, is the dative form of the first person singular pronoun.

[@synkronized]

i think this is because she took from Serbo-Croatian, and slavic languages are similar to each other

[@BizarreBits]

Mama mije that is a spicy meatball

[@titoistickibokelj1294]

"Mama mije..." is on Serbo-croat "My mother is..."

[@ikemoon127]

Oh no... o moku ala e sike soweli pi mama mije mi!

[@lordpinochetuttp3819]

+AWSMcube Ahahahaha

[@elemenopi9239]

*dad meat🅱️all too hot*

[@slamwall9057]

Now I know how you know so much about languages!

[@ShadowStray_]

In a hypothetical situation where we met intelligent aliens, I think Toki Pona would be the best language to communicate in because it is simple enough for them to learn and understand and also we wouldn’t have to choose a non conlang as the language used to communicate

[@noTgoodm0m]

6:41 In Russian we don't say "thirsty" too, instead of like in Toki Pona, but without "water" word. Example: Я хочу пить(Ya khochu pit') Я-i/me, Хочу-want, пить-to drink. Хочется пить(khochetsa pit')- thirsty.

[@0ijrc]

the only criticism i have for this video is that you capitalised the sentences. In toki pona capitals are used for non-toki pona words

[@AllisonGhost]

😳ナイス

[@lpnp9477]

@@AllisonGhost アイ ノ カタ ツ

[@AllisonGhost]

@@lpnp9477 「アイノカタチ」？

[@fuwayuru]

@@AllisonGhost Ai no Katatsu? Ai no Katachi? What does random katakana have to do with toki pona??? (Bear in mind that I don't speak/hold a strong interest in toki pona, but I do speak Japanese)

[@AllisonGhost]

@@fuwayuru The first comment I wrote is just saying "nice" in Japanese, which is just a joke on how toki pona uses capitals for loanwords in a similar way to how katakana is used. The LPNP person I assume saw me say that and referenced the name of a song or an anime or something I am not familiar with, so I looked it up to see what they are referencing, but I think they spelled it wrong so I was trying to ask if they meant Katachi rather than Katatsu because i have no idea what they meant by either one, but nothing comes up for the カタツ spelling... (and i noticed they used spaces, so I dont assume they have a strong grasp on Japanese and probably just swapped a character or something.)

[@blckgrd]

i'd love to see a dissection/examination of the fantasy languages of Tolkien or Roddenberry in this Constructed languages series :)

[@brt5273]

This is better than Esperanto for a universal, basic, AUXILIARY language that would be quick and easy for anyone to learn. The thing about a simplistic language such as this, it could be an effective bridge for teaching and learning the basics of other language vocabularies, when neither teacher nor student understands the other's respective language, as well as a simple mode of communication for travelers.

[@n30hrtgdv]

I just started learning it and it's quite fun and cute, a bit more complex than you'd expect since you have to get clever with the word combinations. Also as some others have pointed out: it feels like a proto-proto language, I can imagine hunter-gatherers using something like this to communicate. Finally, I think trying to be too specific defeats the purpose of Toki Pona: if I'm drinking juice, does it matter exactly which one I'm drinking? does your day dramatically change based on whether you drink tea o coffee? To me the appeal of the language is that is stripes away the curtain of details and let's you see the big picture; if I'm enjoying a drink with my friends, it doesn't matter which drink it is: "mi telo e moku"

[@amitbentsur6947]

Where can you learn this lamguage?

[@wiegraf9009]

It could definitely matter if you're allergic to some juices and not others like me...

[@biglexica7339]

@@amitbentsur6947 there's an online community called ma pona pi toki pona which is helpful

[@ThouPrinter]

Okay but how do you describe what you want to the waiter?

[@DiegoJacomussi]

This language really reminded me of Sign Languages in general, the structure is not that diferent. I think it could be a really nice subject for a video, although I recognize it probably isn’t the kind of subject Paul wants to present. But, man, would that be cool!

[@jakenorum3815]

This is amazing! I love how peaceful it is! Do not stress or think too much of the future and just calm down!

[@SGtheArtist17]

Yoooo! I recently met a person who talked to me about it! He was completely obsessed with it! Nice to see a more in-depth video about it!

[@madeleine61509]

There's a game in France called Cro-magnon which is the typical "make the rest of the group guess your word" type games- similar to Pictionary or Charades- but one of the rounds involves you using an incredibly limited word-set (I believe roughly 60 words?) to make people guess. So for example, if your word was "taupe" (mole in English) you could say "small animal under ground no seeing". This language and its heavy reliance on compound nouns reminds me of that.

[@Mnogojazyk]

It seems that instead of an extensive vocabulary, Toki Pona relies on ad hoc definitions. Is this correct?

[@Morphimus]

Pretty much, yeah.

[@RoyMcAvoy]

How is that gonna simplify communication? Two people might be thinking about the same thing but the words combination they choose to convey their intentions might be a totally different combinations. This will leads to miscommunication.

[@jan_Masewin]

you have to systematically repurpose words in order to talk abt anything specific

[@0011usagi]

​@@RoyMcAvoy Context and standardization (let's agree to use this "ad hoc definition" to talk about this "thing", or more naturally, the shortest/most convenient way to talk about something becomes the norm) like with any language. But with this simple, easy to learn basis, two people, even if their dialects are different, could communicate quite effectively compared to not having any vocabulary in common (like could be the case for an english-only speaker trying to communicate with a mandarin-only speaker).

[@nitrodark7027]

No tpki ppna doesn't rely on ad hoc

[@secondakira]

Thanks for the video! I found the concept of this language so fascinating that I started learning immediately after watching this! Two days in I already know half the vocabulary. lol Not sure if I'll ever use it, but it's a lot of fun progressing so fast in a language.

[@Langfocus]

Nice! That’s good to hear. 👍

[@goldstargloww]

i have a few things to say here as a tokiponist myself ^^ first, capital letters in toki pona only ever are used for proper nouns - "Seli suno li seli e tomo mi." would actually be "seli suno li seli e tomo mi" also! the literal translation given of that sentence is incorrect; i'll break it sown here "seli suno" - here, seli is a noun and suno is an adjective; seli that is in someway suno. suno means sun, light, or star, while seli means heat, warmth, or fire - so, light that is in some way warm - this is most accurately translated to english as warm sunlight "tomo mi" - tomo that is in some way mi; structure that is in some way i/me/my/mine - best translated as house or home so, the whole sentence would be "the sunlight warms my house", or similar

[@ryanohlson4181]

Really love this channel! this was a really interesting video. While I know the nature of and purpose of programming languages and communicative languages are entirely different, this kind of reminds me of the programming language Brainfuck. Essentially, it's a Turing-complete programming language, which means it can theoretically be used to write any conceivable program, but it only has eight commands, which are each represented by a single character. The intention in it's creation is obviously very different from Toki Pona, but the minimalism is similar, and they're similar in their impracticality when tackling more complex subjects. The real difference in philosophy is that Brainfuck, as the name implies, was designed to be challenging and obtuse, but fully functional for any application, as a challenge to any who try to learn to use it, whereas Toki Pona seeks to be practical and efficient for the most common and essential of applications to benefit the speaker, and falls apart in more technical or specific conversation, partly by design, and partly by necessity in order to fulfill it's primary purpose.

[@PainterVierax]

Nice thought but as you said Brainfuck is meant to be unpractical and challenging. To me, Toki pona is more like assemblers : very few words/commands to learn, straight to the thought (or the timing of the machine) but becomes harder to understand/express the more you want to go into complexity.

[@pipipiwalopimeja]

Very nice video! My only two criticism would be that "li" is a predicate marker, "en" is the subject marker but is not used when there is only one subject. This is important because "ona li wile moku li wile lape" meaning "they want to eat and want to sleep" would mean "they and food-desires want to sleep" ("en" is used like this: "mi en sina li wile moku" = "me and you want to sleep")

[@unclepodger]

3:45 "Well you don't eat water" Actually in Bengali, we _do_ eat water.

[@ranjanbiswas3233]

Those who can't speak proper bangla says it. It always pisses me off. শুদ্ধ বাংলা যারা বলতে পারেনা তারাই বলে জল/পানি খাই। এটা সবসময় বিরক্তিকর লাগে।

[@ThisIsAlmondz]

In Shanghainese also

[@kaioocarvalho]

In Brazil, we usually drink water, but when we eat 'water', it's actually a ton of alcohol!

[@friendlyneighborhoodcrackh6059]

This should absolutely be taught in schools as at the very least a choice for foreign language. You would likely be conversative after only a semester, unlike with other FL classes. Communication is probably pretty slow and not particularly suited for complex communication, but would be incredible as an “in case of emergency” language if enough people worldwide picked it up.

[@thehedorn823]

Lojban would be another equally unique constructed language to discuss. It's based on predicate logic and strives for total grammatical unambiguity. .i .e'u do ka'e ba zi casnu la lojban.

[@pereboom9631]

a a a a! toki Loban li ike li ike lukin a! mi lukin e toki Loban, la mi pana e telo oko. taso, mi lukin e toki pona (toki ni li pona!) la uta mi li jo e lukin pi kili palisa jelo. toki pona li pakala e toki Loban!

[@Morphimus]

@@pereboom9631 sina nasa. toki pona li pona mute, taso toki Losupan li pona kin. mi wile e ni: jan pi toki pali li utala ala. jan pi toki pona en jan pi toki Losupan li ken kama e jan pona. 😀

[@goodiesohhi]

This language seems to really struggle if we get abstract though. I understand the language isn't meant for academic or anything beyond daily usage but imagine sciences in this language?

[@Char444]

@Jakonate 😂

[@Hastur-ss3nr]

​@Jakonate could also use wan to mean unit or particle, something like "seli poka ni pali telo: wan kon en wan pona" In addition, wouldn't "ijo lili mute" be "many small things" and not "very small thing"? I'd go for "ijo pi lili mute" to say "very small thing". (I simply described hydrogen as unit of positive or particle of positive since with the context of the subject being chemistry, it's pretty clear you don't mean a "unit of good", and the main isotope of hydrogen is so thoroughly connected to just being positive that we call it "protium" in English)

[@Mp57navy]

@Jakonate So yeah, you gain simplicity and lack of vocabulary but also longer sentences. In plain English the sentence would be "O2 plus H2 makes H2O". No dancing around the subject with obscure explanations, because of a lack of words. Might as well speak in Morse code.

[@arianatorsworld3621]

science class would be so confusing

[@ericjohnson6634]

Maths would also be a problem, since we'd be limited to one, two, and lots 😕

[@astrodonunt]

Sorry sorry sorry instant kulupu rage here but..... The official book was not the start of the language!! The original rendition of tp had, as far as I recall, 118 words and was released in 2001. jan Sonja made a handful of new words, deleted some, so on and so forth until it resembled around 120-125 (some counts go as high as 136 but they include some really useless extinct words that were just replaced later on). The words that have "popped up" since pu are just words that the community had already been using which pu tried to remove or combine with other words, and discussion as to the necessary words go on to this day (with some people even reviving a few of the otherwise extinct words). In fact jan Sonja says that that's just how she uses toki pona in the book. Also a finicky detail, you don't start your sentences with caps, those are reserved for the unofficial words like names. mi sitelen la mi open kepeken nimi lili.

[@astrodonunt]

Wooow I shouldn't write on a whim ever again haha. Just know that I am really glad this video has been made! :)

[@kasra72389]

jan Mali o! toki!

[@XXRolando2008]

123 words looks nicer tho.

[@kasra72389]

Meh, mi la 120 words looks nice, but the word for most idiolects is usually 125~130

[@海達覺得你好嘅ハイ田はあ]

toki pona li jo e nimi 120 taso jo e nanpa tu taso

[@jenniferbangs]

I am so impressed with how well this was presented. I found it so fascinating and easy to understand. Well done!!

[@princessKeithz]

this is so cool, I am building a fantasy language for my characters and I was constructing it very similarly to this but with a bit bigger of a vocabulary and a weird/complex pronunciation rule, never knew there were any languages already like this! Awesome!

[@الماحي-ه3ح]

اريد تعلمها راسلني

[@chanteshante]

This language seems very interesting to creat stuff with artisticaly, for example a comic or dubbed animation, since it's so simple it wold be easy for people to translate and get a grasp of it even if they are doing it with a dictionary instead of previous knowledge. (I'm an artist so I'm thinking about trying it out a bit)

[@VoidRep]

do it!

[@HBMmaster]

@ me next time lol

[@海達覺得你好嘅ハイ田はあ]

Conlang Critic i knew you'd be here

[@errorite6653]

löl

[@66LordLoss66]

toki pona li ike mute

[@noggenfogger1324]

Conlang Critic H e l l o , I d i d n o t e x p e c t y o u r p r e s e n c e h e r e . V Ö Ř Ę

[@DTux5249]

jan Misali a! tenpo mi oko ni la mi wile oko e sina ;)

[@Frabjous1]

For some reason I love the way you say “Toki Pona”

[@TheMono313]

I didn't know the existence of this language, thanks for your video, it was very interesting !

[@watchmakerful]

These phonology and grammar are somewhat similar to Japanese...

[@treeskers]

it’s compatible with a ton of languages

[@daki2223]

That's the point

[@fnln3011]

"weird to say you are food" toki pona speakers really must get caught off gaurd by cannibals

[@The_Glitchy_Fox]

They should add a word for "enjoy" to this language to help simplify sentences. "is good for me" can be easily taken out of context even if you see the context directly in front of you

[@beefromashroom]

this is so cool! and so interesting and inspiring as someone who's obsessed with fictional languages, I might look into the rules of toki pona to try develop the language I'm making! I intended my language to be pretty simple, mostly so I can actually create it before I get bored/unmotivated, and the way toki pona works will definitely help me

[@carcharoclesmegalodon6904]

I suspect if you make it so simple it won't be usable, you'll also lose interest in it rather quickly.

[@beefromashroom]

@@carcharoclesmegalodon6904 I mean it's just a fun thing I'm doing for myself, doesn't really matter how usable it is. I do want to make it usable, but it doesn't need to be complex

[@RichConnerGMN]

nice pfp

[@user-bo3mp8un6c]

This is so simple that it ends up being more complicated.

[@Joe-GMY]

This funny language seems to be more complex than simple if you have to interpret every single word to understand what it actually wants to tell you.

[@bluefox8011]

it's too bad this isn't used or seen anywhere that I know. this video is the only way I learned about this. how neat.

[@myowncomputerstuff]

Enjoyed the language and video so much that I manually encoded every Toki Pona vocab word, phrase, and sentence from this video into the internet's largest translation hub site, Glosbe.

[@sendia4744]

In the 1960's, Dr Barnett Russell invented a language called "Suma - the 1000 Word Universal Language" and Toki Pona sounds/seems a lot like it. Here's a sentence in Suma and you'll see that it's word structure is very much like Toki Pona: "Asa mi liti to kasi tuma demo ibe Suma siko, kuma memi". - which literally means "If you want to ask some thing about Suma grammar, please write". I'll bet the inventor of Toki Pona was familiar with Suma.

[@jgxrt988]

"Mi pilin" That sounds weird in Spanish

[@jgxrt988]

@República de España sí

[@eldesconocido5734]

KSKSKSKSK 😂 hell yeah

[@СергейПлугатырёв]

What's wrong with it?

[@shenglongisback4688]

@@СергейПлугатырёв i think it might mean pissing or urinating??

[@СергейПлугатырёв]

@@shenglongisback4688 Thanks