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(untitled poem about milk tea)

Posted: Fri Mar 06, 2015 11:40 am
by jan_Pusa
This poem is one in a series of four poems I wrote for a teahouse I frequent. Each poem is written in a different language. This is the TP poem (obviously).

jan li kama li weka
tenpo li kama li weka
telo seli telo mama mi li pini
taso sona mi pi sina li weka ala

Re: (untitled poem about milk tea)

Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2015 12:25 pm
by janKipo
jan_Pusa wrote:This poem is one in a series of four poems I wrote for a teahouse I frequent. Each poem is written in a different language. This is the TP poem (obviously).

jan li kama li weka
This got discussed somewhere else, whether 'weka' really does or can mean "go away". It looks like it is coming to whether it is proper or not. The usual would have 'tawa', but this is poetry.
tenpo li kama li weka
telo seli telo mama mi li pini
See above. "my parental wet hot water" I suppose at least 'telo seli pi telo mama mi' maybe with the 'mi' moved down after 'seli' to prevent the mildly unpleasant reading.
taso sona mi pi sina li weka ala
Now is an occasion when one wishes for the oldest meaning of 'pi' to be still in force. But, alas, it is not, so 'pi' must be followed by at least two words and does not mean possession specifically. But then how do you say it 'sona mi sina' looks like your knowledge of me (as does the original, come to that) and 'sona sina mi' is also misinterpretable. Maybe (but I am no good at prosody) 'sona sina li weka ala tan mi' which is still unclear. Nothing seems to be very clear, short of 'ni li awen; mi sona e sina.' and the like.

Re: (untitled poem about milk tea)

Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2015 2:57 pm
by jan_Pusa
This got discussed somewhere else, whether 'weka' really does or can mean "go away". It looks like it is coming to whether it is proper or not. The usual would have 'tawa', but this is poetry.
mi jo e toki ala.
See above. "my parental wet hot water" I suppose at least 'telo seli pi telo mama mi' maybe with the 'mi' moved down after 'seli' to prevent the mildly unpleasant reading.
Now this is an amusing display of ambiguity in TP. telo seli telo mama mi li pini should have meant "my milk tea is consumed" (telo seli=hot liquid, e.g. tea; telo mama=milk). So that's literally "my parent-liquid(ed) hot-liquid".
Now is an occasion when one wishes for the oldest meaning of 'pi' to be still in force...
Should translate to "But my memories of you leave not", that is, 'I will never forget you.

Re: (untitled poem about milk tea)

Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2015 3:16 pm
by jan Pinsen
Interesting phrase, "telo seli telo mama mi"... I think since "telo mama" are a whole, you would want to use "pi" to group them together ("telo seli pi telo mama mi")... the problem being that it will seem like "mi" also is governed by "pi". So, maybe "telo seli mi pi telo mama"?

Toki Pona poetry... I think I like it.

Re: (untitled poem about milk tea)

Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2015 3:49 pm
by janKipo
telo seli telo mama mi. Without 'pi', this groups left repeatedly ((((ts)t)m)m), which is not readily translated efficiently or clearly. The one 'pi' helps a lot but still allows some variations, including whether the 'mi' goes with the whole thing or just 'telo mama' but also what is the relation between the tea and the milk.

sona mi sina li weka ala Again, a semantic not a grammatical problem (once the 'pi' is out of the way). We are nominalizing 'mi sona e sina' and it is just not clear which modifier represents the subject (or possessive) and which the object. I am inclined to think that it is verb-obj-subj and you use verb-subj-obj and there is no rule nor much usage. Even English borrowing is not a lot of help.

mi jo e toki ala "I have no message" is wonderfully ambiguous for "I have nothing to say" or "I haven't heard of it". Since the discussion I mentioned turns out to have been in reference to your previous poem, I suppose it means the former.

Re: (untitled poem about milk tea)

Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2015 3:17 pm
by jan Nowo
tenpo pini la jan Kipo toki e mi: mi moku e telo pimeja wawa.
So I do not get it why he writes poems about tea....

Re: (untitled poem about milk tea)

Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2015 4:22 pm
by janKipo
toki tu wan: wan la toki musi ni li tan jan Pusa li tan ala jan Kipo. tu la jan ken moku e telo pimeja wawa li ken sitelen e ijo pi telo moku. tu wan la nimi 'telo pimeja wawa' li ken sona e ijo mute e telo pi toki Inli 'Kapi' taso ala. kin la nimi ni li ken sona e telo moku. poka la nimi 'telo moku' li ike tawa telo pi toki Inli 'Ti'. ken la 'telo moku loje' anu 'telo moku jelo' anu 'telo lipu' anu ante sama.