sin pi toki nanpa tan jan Sonja

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
jan_Loliko
Posts: 5
Joined: Sat Oct 03, 2009 4:49 am
Location: ma tomo Pajatoli lon ma Epanja
Contact:

sin pi toki nanpa tan jan Sonja

Post by jan_Loliko »

mi lon lipu sin pi toki pona li lon tomo toki sin li pilin pona mute. sona toki sin pi toki pona li kama. ni li pona mute kin. taso sona sin pi nimi pi nanpa suli li pona lili tawa mi tan ni: mi pilin pona la ona li sona pona ala. nimi "mute" li sama nanpa luka luka luka luka tan seme? nimi "ale" li ken nanpa suli lili lon tenpo ni, taso nanpa ante li ken suli mute kin: nanpa "ale" li nanpa ale ala kin! ona li ike ala ike?

tenpo ni la mi toki e ni: toki luka tu li mute pi toki tu tu tu wan anu toki luka wan en toki luka ante? ona li ken toki e ijo suli tu ni lon toki Inli: seven languages anu two sign languages. tenpo mute la ona li ken ala ike. taso tenpo lili la ona li ken ike mute. jan li toki e nimi "luka" la jan ante pi sitelen toki ala li ken ala ken sona e nimi "nimi luka"? tenpo ni la nimi "luka" li sama nimi nanpa ale. taso mi sona ala e ni: ona li pona ala pona? mi pilin e ni: ona li ike mute.
jan-ante
Posts: 541
Joined: Fri Oct 02, 2009 4:05 pm

Re: sin pi toki nanpa tan jan Sonja

Post by jan-ante »

nimi "mute" li sama nanpa luka luka luka luka tan seme? nimi "ale" li ken nanpa suli lili lon tenpo ni, taso nanpa ante li ken suli mute kin: nanpa "ale" li nanpa ale ala kin! ona li ike ala ike?

tenpo ni la mi toki e ni: toki luka tu li mute pi toki tu tu tu wan anu toki luka wan en toki luka ante? ona li ken toki e ijo suli tu ni lon toki Inli: seven languages anu two sign languages. tenpo mute la ona li ken ala ike. taso tenpo lili la ona li ken ike mute. jan li toki e nimi "luka" la jan ante pi sitelen toki ala li ken ala ken sona e nimi "nimi luka"? tenpo ni la nimi "luka" li sama nimi nanpa ale. taso mi sona ala e ni: ona li pona ala pona? mi pilin e ni: ona li ike mute.
toki ni li nasa tawa mi. o kepeken e toki Inli

As for Sonja's new invention, her mistake is the decimal system. numbers 100 and 20 are its derivates.
jan Sonja o! I suggest you yo abandon this system as it is too big for such a minimalistic language as toki pona. Consider a trinary system with inversed order (or Arabic order) of digits:
ala - 0
wan - 1
tu - 2
ala wan - 3
wan wan - 4
wan tu - 5
ala tu - 6
wan tu - 7
tu tu -8
ala ala wan - 9 - mute?
wan ala wan - 10
tu ala wan - 11
ala wan wan - 12
wan wan wan - 13
...
ala ala ala ala wan - 81 - ale?
Ose
Posts: 15
Joined: Fri Oct 02, 2009 2:13 pm
Location: ma Kinla

Re: sin pi toki nanpa tan jan Sonja

Post by Ose »

jan Sonja li toki e ni: jan li wile toki suli la ona li ken kepeken e nasin ni.
nasin ni li pona lili tawa ona. taso ona li wile kulupu pona pi toki pona.

sina wile ala kepeken e nasin nanpa sin la, o kepeken ala e nasin sin!

ale li pona,

jan Ose
mi ken kepeken e toki pona e toki Kinla e toki Inli
janKipo
Posts: 3064
Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2009 2:20 pm

Re: sin pi toki nanpa tan jan Sonja

Post by janKipo »

My glee knew bounds when I read jan Sonja's suggrestion for nanpa suli. It was too much and
too little; it conceded that the nanpasulists had a valid complaint but it gave them nowhere
enough to satisfy. They want millions and billions and trillions ands she gave scores and
hundreds.

But the real problem is with the concession. Do we, in fact, need big numbers, not only in Lao-lao
land but in ordinary life? Well, sure, we have to write checks or pay bills some way, balance our
accounts. That reminds me that 'mani' is the most glaringly ill-advised word in the 123 (is that
what we are up to?); it doesn't fit into the imagined world (see something in one of those old guys'
books, maybe even the DDJ). But anyhow, let's consider what is involved here really: you have
to match what the bill says (or at least what it allows you to get away with). What that number is is
irrelevant. In short numbers in these kinds of transaction are just a shorthand for comparing tally
sticks (or knots or beads or whatever). The Woomaroonga or whatever may not know how many
spears he has, but he knows when one is missing and when he has an extra. Numbers are a way
of speeding things up and and going to higher and higher levels of transactions, but these are not
parts of ordinary life: I can't really say I can perceive the difference between a million and a billion
beyond that one is bigger than the other. I don't get a better grasp of the size of the universe if I
am told the number of light-years (which I also don't grasp) it is across nor of an electron if I know
its size in whatever-meters (what comes after "pico"?). "Huge" and "ginormous" do it for me for
all practical purposes.

But without big numbers, you can't do mathematics in tp. No, you do mathematics in
mathematic-speak (or -write), another language altogether. Why would you want to do it in tp,
which is ill-suited for the purpose? (And, of course, you actually can do math in tp, though at infinite
tediosity, since arithmetic -- Turing version, at least -- comes down to comparisons and adding
one).

The one thing we really need big numbers for is addresses (real street addresses, telephone
numbers, etc.). But these are just names and thus off-line adjectives. Writing them is no problem
at all, since we can use the familiar notation; for speaking, maybe a standardized way of reading
that notation in tp. That is an addition (not strictly to the language, because these things are just
proper names, not quantifiers [wehatever people will inevitably try to do with them]) which would
be more in line with tp philosophy than adding a few more number words and feeding the
ravening hunger of the nanpasulists.

Besides, using 'mute' and 'ale' in this way introduces yet more ambiguities into language which
already sometimes taxes one's garden-pathing patience.
User avatar
jan Ote
Posts: 424
Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2009 1:15 am
Location: ma Posuka
Contact:

Re: sin pi toki nanpa tan jan Sonja

Post by jan Ote »

jan-ante wrote:As for Sonja's new invention, her mistake is the decimal system. numbers 100 and 20 are its derivates.
I'm not sure. 20 is one of universal numbers for humans, the number of 'fingers' (in many languages there are no separate words for fingers and toes. You can name them all using one word). Then 100 is 5x20 (a hand times fingers).
jan-ante wrote:jan Sonja o!I suggest you yo abandon this system as it is too big for such a minimalistic language as toki pona. Consider a trinary system with inversed order (or Arabic order) of digits:
I agree with janKipo that toki pona doesn't need big numbers at all. Even small ones. nanpa li ike - ANY number, the idea of number itselft is somewhat against toki pona philosophy.
See for example: http://tokipl.wikidot.com/art-nanpa (sorry, in Polish only, but contains some links you may find interesting). So called "advanced numbers" are not recommended, are for those that cannot bear absence of numbers. What difference does it make: trinary or decimal? nanpa mute li ike mute.
jan-ante
Posts: 541
Joined: Fri Oct 02, 2009 4:05 pm

Re: sin pi toki nanpa tan jan Sonja

Post by jan-ante »

jak Ote wrote: I'm not sure. 20 is one of universal numbers for humans, the number of 'fingers' (in many languages there are no separate words for fingers and toes. You can name them all using one word). Then 100 is 5x20 (a hand times fingers).
yes, the numer of fingers is the source of oru decimal system. 20 is a round number in this system, but not 9 or 81
I agree with janKipo that toki pona doesn't need big numbers at all. Even small ones. nanpa li ike - ANY number, the idea of number itselft is somewhat against toki pona philosophy.
i have to disagree with him. in his post he overlooked the most important application of numbers in the internet communication - age. it is one of the most popular topics in chat (alongside with sex and location). i dont think that jan Kipo could readily express his age in toki pona manner - luka luka luka... something.
the second application is the year of event. here we need to manage with numbers like 1000, or we could start a new era of toki pona, starting from 1978 or 2001.
nanpa li ike - ANY number, the idea of number itselft is somewhat against toki pona philosophy.
not only the nanpa. according to Sonja mani li ike (and i 100% agree with her), but she has this word in the dictionary and went further, introducing esun (mi pilin e ni: esun li wan pi nasin mani. ona li ike kin)
it appears that Sonja does not follow this philosophy too strictly, 君子貞而不諒
sorry, in Polish only
ja rozumeju malo. but this is not a problem: machine translation between slavic languages works fine
What difference does it make: trinary or decimal?
1. o weka e ike mi: nimi "trinary" li nimi nasa. nimi "ternary" li nimi Inli pona
2. that is a big question, you can read here a little, but the best article in wikipedia is in russian, so use a machine translation ;).
briefly, with ternary system you dont need the special words for 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and the expressions are much shorter than in binary system
janKipo
Posts: 3064
Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2009 2:20 pm

Re: sin pi toki nanpa tan jan Sonja

Post by janKipo »

Dates are, of course, just addresses in time, so a solution for addresses generally solves dates as well. Age is admittedly a bit trickier, but I am at an age where the details don't seem very important (my wife, for example, is ten years younger than I am, but we think of ourselves as be contemporaries -- except on trivia contests, where I can do the 40s). The internet age problem is more acute -- How can I tell a 13-year-old that I am 16 and get her to meet me in the dark? We don't even have good triage(or quartage or ...) terms: infant, prepub. tweener, teen, legal, adult, middle aged, geezer, though we could get them at some cost in wordage. We could go by milestones in our culture (guys don't have long pants times any more, but girls have bras and the like and we can think of something, driving, voting, drinking -- legally, ..., social security, elder care...),Or, of course, we can say when we were born (see above -- not that that problem has been solved yet)

I like "trinary;" it goes well with "binary," and the "-al" forms don't work at this level. I suspect this goes back to missing "ternus" on some pop quiz in my youth.

I agree that 'mani' doesn't belong, but note that it is no necessary part of 'esun.' which is, I gather, about trading. i.e., swapping. And money, when it was real, was meant as a vicar for goods and services to be used in trading in this way. Now that money has no real meaning (as witness the disappearance of trillions that were totally free from any goods or services -- and their replacement by others almost equally unfounded), it has no role in esun or only a very remote one.
janKipo
Posts: 3064
Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2009 2:20 pm

Re: sin pi toki nanpa tan jan Sonja

Post by janKipo »

Oh, and talking about the Superior Man is not likely to have much influence on a Daoist oriented site.
jan-ante
Posts: 541
Joined: Fri Oct 02, 2009 4:05 pm

Re: sin pi toki nanpa tan jan Sonja

Post by jan-ante »

Dates are, of course, just addresses in time
interesting idea
The internet age problem is more acute -- How can I tell a 13-year-old that I am 16 and get her to meet me in the dark? We don't even have good triage(or quartage or ...) terms: infant, prepub. tweener, teen, legal, adult, middle aged, geezer, though we could get them at some cost in wordage.
so what? is it a reason to abandon "nanpa suli"?
I like "trinary;" it goes well with "binary," and the "-al" forms don't work at this level.
my reasoning was almost like this, but later i discovered my mistake
I agree that 'mani' doesn't belong, but note that it is no necessary part of 'esun.' which is, I gather, about trading. i.e., swapping.
one more interesting idea. but if so, should we define esun as exchange?
And money, when it was real, was meant as a vicar for goods and services to be used in trading in this way.
what is vicar? in my dictionary, it is a rank in church hierarchy. was he somebody like moderator, inspector, controller?
Oh, and talking about the Superior Man is not likely to have much influence on a Daoist oriented site.
i dont think so. i think that real Daoist is indeed a 君子
janKipo
Posts: 3064
Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2009 2:20 pm

Re: sin pi toki nanpa tan jan Sonja

Post by janKipo »

jan-ante wrote:
Dates are, of course, just addresses in time
interesting idea

Hardly original; the point is that all we need is a way to read off numerals to get this main use of numbers.
The internet age problem is more acute -- How can I tell a 13-year-old that I am 16 and get her to meet me in the dark? We don't even have good triage(or quartage or ...) terms: infant, prepub. tweener, teen, legal, adult, middle aged, geezer, though we could get them at some cost in wordage.
so what? is it a reason to abandon "nanpa suli"?

Actually, it is the best reason I know of at the moment to use nanpa pi suli lili
I like "trinary;" it goes well with "binary," and the "-al" forms don't work at this level.
my reasoning was almost like this, but later i discovered my mistake

I'm not sure it is a mistake; at most, non-standard usage. And clearer (I have to remember all these secondary forms: is 'ter' from 'tri' or 'tetra'?).
I agree that 'mani' doesn't belong, but note that it is no necessary part of 'esun.' which is, I gather, about trading. i.e., swapping.
one more interesting idea. but if so, should we define esun as exchange?

I like 'swap' better or even just 'trade'
And money, when it was real, was meant as a vicar for goods and services to be used in trading in this way.
what is vicar? in my dictionary, it is a rank in church hierarchy. was he somebody like moderator, inspector, controller?

"One how stands in for, substitutes for, real officers, with only derivative, not actual power : your example is one who subs for a rector, or, of course, the Pope who subs for Christ in some contexts, related to 'vice-' The point is money is in lieu of actually giving the other something useful or doing something useful for them and was presumably gotten for giving or doing for someone else (ultimately -- the chain gets pretty long in modern times and often doesn't exist at all).
Oh, and talking about the Superior Man is not likely to have much influence on a Daoist oriented site.
i dont think so. i think that real Daoist is indeed a 君子
But the expression is originally (well, in this sense) a Confucian one and one of those old guys (Li Er or Zhuang ...)had some rather telling things to say about it in that context.
Post Reply