Word counting and a word for life

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janPasi
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Re: Word counting and a word for life

Post by janPasi »

janMato wrote:"*soweli mi o mi wile ala e ni: sina moku e soweli Monkowi pu pan lon poki"
Hopelessly off-topic again, but would you please explain what "pu pan" in that sentence stands for? What is this word "pu" anyway? It seems to be popping up every so often.
janMato
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Re: Word counting and a word for life

Post by janMato »

There is blog post out there, not by Sonja, and the French wikipedia tp article. that lists the meanings for the very most recent words, like namako and pu-- it is so specific that it seems like the writer must have gotten a direct communication from Sonja. It said pu is like a virgule. According to wikipedia, there are many uses for things that look like commas and one is offsetting a clause. There are many sorts of clauses, but I proposed this could be a way to offset a phrases with a verb + optional direct object that modifies the head noun in the same way that pi offsets noun phrases that modify the head noun. jan Kipo (if I dare put words in his mouth) doesn't like the idea and feels it is unnecessary because ordinary modifiers should be able to do that job, eg. waso tawa (running bird, but also bird of trips), where as waso pu tawa (running bird and not the trip's bird, or the trippy bird or the bird of the travel). It's a community innovation of mine as afaik, I've never seen anyone copy me.

li pan is from the discussion above where I said that rather than creating a new word for life, we should overload an existing word. I said pan is a good choice because life and bread are far enough away from each other semantically that in a reading one or the other meaning could safely be rejected.

cf. mi sona e sina. I understand you, I'll teach you, I know you, etc. It is hard to know which of these to reject as non-sense as they all make some sense. If we wanted a verb to mean "I see right through you" (i.e. I understand you so well that I know you are lying" then "li sona" would be a poor candidate for that phrase.
janKipo
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Re: Word counting and a word for life

Post by janKipo »

I have never figured out how a virgule might be used in tp, but I don't see it as a way toward relative clauses either. 'pu' remains a mystery, as far as I can tell.
'soweli mi o.' btw (without the period we get a very strange wish.
I doubt that this is the sense of "live" you want (assuming that is what 'pan' is going for) since 'lon' is perfect for it. Do gerbils come from Mongolia?
janMatelen
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Re: Word counting and a word for life

Post by janMatelen »

Maybe wawa could be used for life. "Energy" and "life" are different enough not to be easily mixed up in context, but it's not too much of a stretch IMO: "energy" to "liveliness" to "life".

Also, gerbils do indeed come from Mongolia.
janMato
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Re: Word counting and a word for life

Post by janMato »

meli taso li ken pana e wawa sin?

I don't know why but wawa doesn't seem like it should be in the same semantic field as life in a biological sense. Works perfect for robots and roombas.

jan pi ilo sona li pana e wawa tawa jan ilo. The engineer brought the robot to life.

jan sona Pankusitanu li pana e wawa tawa sijelo moli li pali e jan monsuta sin! Dr. Frankenstein gave life to the dead body and created a new monster!

mi kama tawa tomo mi li wawa e ilo Wunpa. ilo ni li pona e supa lon anpa noka mi. I came home turned on the roomba and it cleaned the floor.
janPasi
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Re: Word counting and a word for life

Post by janPasi »

janMatelen wrote:Maybe wawa could be used for life. "Energy" and "life" are different enough not to be easily mixed up in context, but it's not too much of a stretch IMO: "energy" to "liveliness" to "life".
Maybe wawa could be combined with some other word to give it some more substance as to what kind of strength or power one is talking about? "wawa kon" comes to my mind, as in "air like strength" ~ "spirit". I'm not really sure at all that I can grasp the fundamental meaning of tp words, but to me that seems to describe "life" :D
janMato
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Re: Word counting and a word for life

Post by janMato »

wawa kon sounds poetic. (and on second though, also pneumatic)

Isese li meli sewi li jan sewi mun li pana e wawa kon tawa jan sewi Orose. jan sewi Orose li jan sewi suno. jan tu ni li pali li awen e wawa kon ale li awen e jan ona mute tan moli.

The goddess Isis, a moon goddess, gave birth to Horus, the god of the sun. Together, Isis and Horus created and sustained all life and were the saviors of their people.
Kuti
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Re: Word counting and a word for life

Post by Kuti »

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ari
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Re: Word counting and a word for life

Post by ari »

To be alive is to sense and to act. What about "pilin en pali" for the word "to live" in toki pona? For example I would translate "today is a good day to live" to toki pona "tenpo ni li tenpo pona tawa pilin en pali"
janKipo
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Re: Word counting and a word for life

Post by janKipo »

Back to Mato's for a moment
'wawa kon' "spiritual power" (in some weak sense of "spiritual") or so, maybe. But 'pana e wawa kon' tawa jan sewi Orose' sounds like Horus already existed and then she gave him an added power. "Give birth to" is just 'pana'. (see earlier Mato examples) 'awen' is good for "sustain" but less good for "save", for which, in this case, 'tan' alone seems to work (or maybe 'weka').
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