Japanese inspired dialect of toki pona

Tinkerers Anonymous: Some people can't help making changes to "fix" Toki Pona. This is a playground for their ideas.
Tokiponidistoj: Iuj homoj nepre volas fari ŝanĝojn por "ripari" Tokiponon. Jen ludejo por iliaj ideoj.
Post Reply
User avatar
jan Seloki
Posts: 56
Joined: Mon Aug 12, 2019 1:51 pm

Japanese inspired dialect of toki pona

Post by jan Seloki »

I've always liked the look of kanji (and toki pona seems to be inspired by Japanese anyway) so I created a language that is mostly toki pona, but with some of elements of Japanese & with a few changes to reduce ambiguity a little. It's still a WIP. The grammar & vocabulary are the same as toki pona except the following:
・私/みさ(misa) I/me. because mi (み) is confused with other words/kanji, mainly 見 (mi/see)
・か(ka) indicates a question. (replaces 'anu seme' at the end of a sentence.)
(君)話え語良か?(sina)toki e toki pona ka?
Do (you) speak toki pona?
・から* (kara)from/of
人から土ミウェカ
jan kara ma Mewika (person from America)

・の (no) common use of 'pi'. from Japanese.
人の良見
jan no pona lukin (person of good looks)

・達/たし(tasi) plural. from Japanese 'tachi'
私達/人達/人多
misa tasi/jan tasi/jan mute
us,we / people / many people
mute (多) is still 'many'. The point is having a way to distinguish between multiple/plural & many.

・と(to) 'and' replaces 'e' to join direct objects followed by the direct. from Japanese.
'mi moku e kili e telo' becomes
私食え果と食え水。misa moku e kili to moku e telo.
I eat fruit and drink water. も(mo) is similar, but と is more commonly used as 'and'. も is more like 'also'.
私食え果も食え水
私食え果。彼り食え果。misa moku e kili. ona li moku e kili mo.
I eat fruit. They also eat fruit.
The Japanese equivalent would be:
果物を食べる。 果物食べます。kudamono o taberu. kudamono mo tabemasu.

I kinda of think of 'え' (e) as being equivalent to ’る’ used to form (some) verbs. 見る(miru) means 'to see'. The toki pona equivalent would be 見え (lukin e). 見(lukin) alone could be a look/view, just as 食(moku) means food, but 食え果(moku e kili) means "to eat fruit". 食べる(taberu) means "to eat" in Japanese.

*kala (fish) would also be spelled as から(kara) in hiragana, but would use the kanji 魚. から (from) would be written in hiragana.
I created it with the Idea of writing it in kanji/kana, but it can be written with latin. The Japanese keyboard on Chrome OS allows you to create a custom dictionary so it's possible to type とき ぽな and get 語良 (toki pona). I also use 言, 話, or 語 for toki depending on whether it's a quote/phrase, speech, or language further remove.

言良 good quote/poetry
話良 good speech/complement
語良 good language


I kinda like how Japanese does tenses. た (ta) is added after the verb or ました(mashita) is added to the end of the sentence, for past tense.
車を見たですか? kuruma o mita desu ka? did (you) see the car?
車を見ましたですか?kuruma o mi mashita desu ka? did (you) see the car?
There doesn't seem to really be a future-tense in Japanese.
た(ta) could be used for past tense (tenpo pini) & て(te) could be future tense (tenpo kama)
私食た。君食た?mi moku-ta.sina moku ta?
I ate. did you eat?
私食て。mi moku-te.
I will eat.

ら(la) can still be used when neccesary, but is not needed always needed to simply state past/future tense like eat/ate or see/saw.
時黒ら私眠え。 tenpo pimeja la misa lape e. | I sleep at night
私眠たえ misa lape ta e | I slept.

I use 'sino' instead of 'sin' for the same reason I used 'misa' instead of 'mi'. It's easier to train the dictionary it to display the correct kanji when I use misa & sino. 'tu' could be replaced with 'tun' for the same reason. Otherwise it defaults to つ (tsu).

You could even go a step further & omit the personal pronouns when not needed. toki pona loves minimalism right?
食た。食たか? moku ta. moku ta ka?
I ate. Did you eat?
食たえ果と食たえ水。moku ta e kili to moku ta e telo.
I ate the fruit & drank the water.
人り有え人上ら人り要物無。
ین لی یۆ إ ین سوی لا ین لی ئولی أۆ إ ئیو ألا
.ין לי יו א ין סוי לה ין לי וילה ייו אלה
ܝܲܢ ܠܝܼ ܝܘܿ ܥܹ ܝܲܢ ܣܹܘܝܼ ܠܲܐ ܝܲܢ ܠܝܼ ܘܝܼܠܹܥ ܝܼܝܘܿ ܐܲܠܲܐ.
ญนํลีโญเอะญนํเศะวีลญนํลีวีเละอีโญอล.
Post Reply