41 lines
1.6 KiB
Plaintext
41 lines
1.6 KiB
Plaintext
* Toki Pona
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Toki Pona is a minimalist, constructed language made by Sonja Lang. The language
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is based on a small vocabulary of roughly 137 words which can take on different
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meanings depending on the context they are used in. Expressing more complex
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concepts is done by breaking it down and explaining it in simpler terms. For
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example, {programming} is "toki ilo", or "machine talk".
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** Syntax
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It is easier to understand sentence structure once one has understood compound
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words. In Toki Pona, a noun or verb is modified by adding more words at the
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end. Toki Pona itself is a phrase meaning "language good/simple", which
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translates to "good/simple language". Almost every word can act as a modifier
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this way, which means the typical distinction between verbs, nouns, and
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adjectives is not applicable.
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Instead, Toki Pona uses two particles to distinguish the subject from the verb
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from the object in a sentence, li and e (the language also uses SVO word order):
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===
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ona li toki e toki pona.|(Third person pronoun) speak(s) Toki Pona.
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===
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Omitting the e particle makes li mean 'to be':
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===
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soweli li lon tomo.|The animal is in the house.
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nasin li linja.|The path is long.
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===
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** Writing system
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Toki Pona is typically written with the Latin alphabet, but there is also an
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official set of logograms. Moreover, a slew of other writing systems have been {https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZPpSo9jOMjHi9HeBbPY56J7SPPP8rTULBPZ3GvApqW4
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created by the community}, most notable of which is perhaps the "sitelen
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sitelen" writing system.
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{../resources/img/tp-hieroglyphs.png Logograms for the first 120 words}
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{https://tokipona.org The official website}
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