kinship terms in toki pona

[janMato]

Ah, that is canon. But it is also canon in the jan Pije lessons that age is # of times that one circles the sun (whilst standing on earth).

It is clearly obvious to anyone who looks up that:

tenpo suno pini la akesi suli li moke e suno. tenpo suno sin la mama sewi suno li pana e suno lili sin tan kulupu pi mun lili.

And similarly, by looking to the horizon

mi mute ale li lon ma supa. jan li tawa selo pi ma supa li tawa mute li anpa li kama ala tawa ma ante.

The language spec doesn't make it clear what extra-linguistic knowledge we should use to form phrases-- those of a hypothetical primitive society, those of programmers who live in Arlington, Virginia, USA, those of some hypotetheical culturally neutral society like in lojban, maybe we should make up a fictional world for the toki ponans like the conworlders do or like has been done in the 365 tomorrows story. It just isn't in the spec.

[janKipo]

'sike suno' is used for ages, without the 'tenpo' or rather with it in a different form: 'tenpo seme la sina sike e suno?' 'tenpo mute mute la'

[jan Ote]

Yes, the question about age is from the canon, from jan Pije's lessons. But I don't like it and never have have used it. There are two reasons:

1. It forces a super-natural, cosmic point of view and complicated way of thinking:
    I know, from others, that the planet makes circles around the Sun in the space;
    I'm standing on the planet
    thus I'm making rounds around the sun
    I don't feel that I'm circling.
    I know how many of them have passed, only because of seasons (and calendars)
   instead of personal and simple point of view
    e.g. ''how many summers/rainy seasons have you seen?"
2. The question itself is not useful -- an answer expressed in standard, recommended toki pona way ("mute") is not useful at all.

'sike suno' is used for ages, without the 'tenpo' or rather with it in a different form: 'tenpo seme la sina sike e suno?'

 tenpo pi mute seme la sina sike e suno?
 "Times of what amount (la) you circled the sun?"
But this question doesn't contain 'sike suno' nor any expression for 'year' itself. And 'tenpo' here is not for 'a period' (like in 'year' concept), but for 'an instance for some event' ("once", "twice", "3 times"). It has different meaning!
Both jan Sonja (Wiki, old site) and jan Pije (manual) use in their dictionaries (words for time units) only one and exactly the same expression for 'year': "tenpo sike". They don't use "sike suno" nor "tenpo sike suno".
Google says:
"tenpo sike" (without "suno" at the end) -- 364 results
"tenpo sike suno" -- 71 results
Total: 435 results
"sike suno" (without "tenpo" in front) -- only 62 results

jan Mato, could you tell us what does your corpus say?

[janKipo]

I think I have lost the thread of this discussion (if I ever had it).
'tenpo sike' "cyclical time" or "time of a cycle" is the standard expression for "year" What the cycle is is not specified: earth around sun, sun returning to the same zodiacal house, seasons starting over again, the Nile flooding, and so on. For some reason, age is put in the form of how many times has one circled the sun: 'tenpo seme la sina sike e suno' instead of 'tenpo sike seme la sina lon' or some such. Of course, the problems with 'la' phrases -- and 'seme' -- would make both of these problematic, were they not cliche's. So, the 'seme' doesn't immediately suggest numbers and we might want to gussy it up a bit to cover that (in ordinary case, not these). But even if the numbers are guaranteed, there is the question (generally, not here presumably) of the distinction between "for such a period" and "on so many occasions". Now, it happens that these two question more or less agree in the case of ages (or are off by at most a year). In general, not so much.
But what does this have to do with kinship terms?

[janMato]

On any reply one can change the subject. The message will still be in the same thread though. Starting new threads has its disadvantages as well-- often it takes a few days for people to notice the thread exists. Existing threads tend to have more opportunities for carrying forward the discussion, even if it has wandered far from the original question. Speaking of questions...I just posted on on shapado.

[jan Ote]

I am sorry for chaos.

Back to the subject of the thread:

http://en.tokipona.org/w/index.php?titl ... oldid=1437

"raising a kid is what makes you a parent, not conceiving the kid.", jan Sonja

Foster parents are "mama" but biological parents are not. So what are they?

They are "mama" or are not. It depends on context and on the speaker, I suppose.

TP expressions for family members don't indicate whether they are describing blood relations or not:

1. parent
the person or animal who procreates or gives birth to a child; parent, mother, father
2. caretaker
the person who nurtures, raises or cares for a child; parent, mother, father, legal guardian, wet nurse, nurturer, childcare worker, babysitter, caretaker

In most cases parents are raising their own biological children, so usually there is no problem. Or children are not risen at all, for most of akesi, pipi or kala.
We may say, that 'biological parent' is the main, default meaning of mama noun/modifier (cf: 'telo mama', "ona li kama mama''). The same way English "mother" is rather a biological parent, even if somethimes is not. Both in tp and English we need a context or some additional description to distinguish between these two if we want to.

transitive verb
to act or serve as a mama to; to raise, cultivate, parent, care for

 jan Pena anu jan Ika li mama sina?
 Pena or Ika is your mother?
 jan Pena li mama e mi. ona li mama mi.
 Pena raised me. She is my mother.
 jan Ika li mama ala e mi. taso ona li mama (pi) sijelo mi.
 Ika didn't raise me. But she is my mother-by-body.

[janKipo]

Nice. ("raising" not "rising" the young, "Is Pena or..." )
Definitely leave the 'pi' in; the VP is then an NP and quite clear, "my bodily raised" is obscure, though probaby would filter down to the same thing.