What kind of innovation(s) are permissible in tp?

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.
janMato
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Re: What kind of innovation(s) are permissible in tp?

Post by janMato »

re: pidgin and creole
These words are already taken by the mainstream professional linguistic community and seem to mean some of these things depending on who you read:

pidigin:
* a contact language (i.e. language with a social dimension)
speakers try anything, including well formed sentences in L1, L2, using grammar of L1, word soup in every word order until the other person seems to understand the gist.
or it means using the grammar of L1 and the words of L2
Normally don't resemble any particular language because the rules are unstable.

creole:
The language of slaves on a plantantion, when those slaves come from many regions and need to both speak with each other (in any fashion) and with their masters (in something close to the master's language).
The language of adults that slowly over time turn a pidgin into a real language (the story of tok pisin, according to some)
The language of children born into impoverished linguistic environments (Bickerton's analysis, e.g. Hawaiian creole)
Resemble regularized natural languages.

toki pona isn't really a contact language, isn't used on slave plantations, has more formal structure than a pidgin and less structure than a creole.

That is why I have started calling things like toki pona, pidgins and creoles "small languages"
jan-ante
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Re: What kind of innovation(s) are permissible in tp?

Post by jan-ante »

janSilipu wrote:Tp is not a pidgin; at best it has a structure or vocabulary likea pidgin.
i accept, this fits Kuti's purposes. then we should compare tp with pidgins and say is it a "real" or "toy" one
It is not at the confluence of two languages and certainly not of a dominant and an oppressed ones. But, that aside, it cannot develop by adding new vocabulary (this is one of the game parts) nor by expanding grammatical resources (ditto). So it must expand by building up expressions within itself and a tradition on which ( and how) these expansions are made. That the set of such expressions and the situations for their use is open ended means merely that they are not prescribed in advance and that we can always so far think of new ones. If eventually come to an end, then we will have found a limit to what we can say with this base, though not for every base of this size. And, as I said earlier, we may later find that this limit may be overcome from a later stage.
i am sorry i dont understand this. that's amazing: you and jan Mato are both americans, but your languages are so different. do you understand each other, i wonder? so, if you want me to understant you please try to write on jan Mato's dialect of american language.
jan-ante
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Re: What kind of innovation(s) are permissible in tp?

Post by jan-ante »

janMato wrote:re: pidgin and creole
These words are already taken by the mainstream professional linguistic community and seem to mean some of these things depending on who you read:
i accept jan Kipo's correction: Tp is not a pidgin but it has a structure and vocabulary like a pidgin
pidigin:
* a contact language (i.e. language with a social dimension)
speakers try anything, including well formed sentences in L1, L2, using grammar of L1, word soup in every word order until the other person seems to understand the gist.
or it means using the grammar of L1 and the words of L2
not really. the words are normally taken from one language, but the grammar are totally different. pidging are normally isolating languages. e.g., russenorsk (moja på tvoja) is generally isolating, while russian is strongly flective and probably norsk too, you might know better as it is similar with icelandic.
it a way, tp is a contact language, but the contact happende in Sonja's head, not in real life. note, i do not mean that tp is "real" pidgin, it is a "toy" pidgin, or constructed pidgin as we can conclude from Sonja's expalnation:
Historically, when people from different cultures came into contact, one approach to find common ground and share ideas was to develop a basic pidgin language.

Toki Pona continues in this tradition, focusing on universal elements of human life: person, food, water, good, give, sleep, etc. Toki Pona eliminates all more advanced concepts that are not necessary for basic survival and communication.
as you can see jan Sonja directly referres to pidgins, and i follow her.
creole:
...
The language of children born into impoverished linguistic environments (Bickerton's analysis, e.g. Hawaiian creole)
Resemble regularized natural languages.
exactly. imagine the situation of children in "impoverished linguistic environments" of toki pona - a constructed pidgin. they will introduce some innovanions into tp, so that it could give rise to a new creole language.
That is why I have started calling things like toki pona, pidgins and creoles "small languages"
not creoles. they are full scale language with literature, edication, TV, newspapers etc.
janSilipu
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Re: What kind of innovation(s) are permissible in tp?

Post by janSilipu »

Sorry, I write conversational academic (the way I talk)and that can be more than a little puzzling. I'm working on doing everything here in tp, buybackground for that hasn't been achieved yet.
What I mean is that "pidgin" and "creole" are reasonably precise terms, even outside linguistics, and tp doesn't fall within their meanings. It doesn't really have either the grammar or vocabulary of one either; it's an engelang whose blueprint is a minimalist one, with a pack rat vocabulary from a polyglot pissing match (I know more than you -- and stranger). The other part of the plan is to test how far we can go with this limited base. Sticking to this is the game aspect of tp, but the game is Played with a real language.
Kuti
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Re: What kind of innovation(s) are permissible in tp?

Post by Kuti »

janSilipu wrote: but it is a game with a language, not a mere toy.
mmmm interesting

janMato wrote: toki pona isn't really a contact language,
I used it that way
jan-ante wrote: it a way, tp is a contact language, but the contact happende in Sonja's head, not in real life.
I accept, but is internet still real life ? or a part of it
Because contacts happens on internet.
jan-ante wrote: i do not mean that tp is "real" pidgin, it is a "toy" pidgin, or constructed pidgin as we can conclude from Sonja's expalnation
Ah yes a constructed pidgin.
toki pona is a such unusual language that we not always agreed on what it is exactly or could be. Maybe it is something new that never existed before and didn't fit in those categories and required a new one.
jan-ante wrote: creoles. they are full scale language with literature, edication, TV, newspapers etc.
Do we really need all this to exist as a language ?
Side question, does it matter if the language is full scale or not ?
jan-ante
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Re: What kind of innovation(s) are permissible in tp?

Post by jan-ante »

janSilipu wrote: What I mean is that "pidgin" and "creole" are reasonably precise terms, even outside linguistics, and tp doesn't fall within their meanings. It doesn't really have either the grammar or vocabulary of one either;
tp has definitely a pidgin-style grammar, its vocabulary follows the pidgin style too. moreover, according to jan Sonja it was inspired by pidgins and "continues this tradition". therefore it could be classified as constructed pidgin - conpidg.
it's an engelang whose blueprint is a minimalist one, with a pack rat vocabulary from a polyglot pissing match (I know more than you -- and stranger).
buleprint is either engalang or minimalistic but neither pack rat or polyglotic pissing or either.
The other part of the plan is to test how far we can go with this limited base.
which plan?
Sticking to this is the game aspect of tp, but the game is Played with a real language.
what is "real language"? is it opposed to "unreal langage(s)"? please bring some example(s) of either or both or neither.
jan-ante
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Re: What kind of innovation(s) are permissible in tp?

Post by jan-ante »

Kuti wrote: I accept, but is internet still real life ? or a part of it
Because contacts happens on internet.
it is a part of real life and if you contact to someone in the internet through tp, that it is interesting and important. did you use english alongside with tp in this contact? could that person understand english? if yes, then why did you use tp instead? what was the goal of the contact, just fun or more?
Ah yes a constructed pidgin.
toki pona is a such unusual language that we not always agreed on what it is exactly or could be. Maybe it is something new that never existed before and didn't fit in those categories and required a new one.
to my knowledge, it is 1st conpidg ever constructed
jan-ante wrote: creoles. they are full scale language with literature, edication, TV, newspapers etc.
Do we really need all this to exist as a language ?
Side question, does it matter if the language is full scale or not ?
i think we dont need this branch of discussion at all. i mentioned creole languages because they are the next step of pidgin evolution. i.e. under certain and extremely unlikely conditions toki pona could give rise to a new language, like some pidgins gave rise to creoles. but modern tp is NOT a creole language.
Jan KoAla
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Re: What kind of innovation(s) are permissible in tp?

Post by Jan KoAla »

jan-ante wrote:it is a part of real life and if you contact to someone in the internet through tp, that it is interesting and important. did you use english alongside with tp in this contact? could that person understand english? if yes, then why did you use tp instead? what was the goal of the contact, just fun or more?
I have experience with this as well. Chatting in just text but also with voice. It was actually kind of surreal the first time toki pona was the only language I had in common with someone. That said, there are a lot of holes in the conversation and fallback languages, tending on esperanto or english. Especially with numbers, which is what makes me so annoyed.

I know Kuti will defend 'til death that toki pona doesn't need or shouldn't have anything more, but in practice with actual use, toki pona ends up filling in its holes with other languages.

As for not speaking English. I'm fairly new to conlangs, but if I learn a language, (even a bizarre quasi-pidgin-language) I want to use it. To me personally, there should be more "only toki pona" chit-chat here on forums (even if we could start using English). It could help settle this debate and we could see what happens when it's used.
janMato
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Re: What kind of innovation(s) are permissible in tp?

Post by janMato »

Re: toki pona only
It's on my wish list to create a little website that allows anyone to post anything, as long as the text conforms to the toki pona's lexicon, i.e. the 120+ words, Capitalized words using only the toki pona alphabet and any punctuation, whitespace etc. Everywhere else the urge to cheat overwhelms my resolve to use toki pona.

tenpo kama la mi wile sitelen e sitelen pi ilo nanpa ni: jan li ken sitelen e nimi. taso nimi ni li nimi pi toki pona taso.
Kuti
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Re: What kind of innovation(s) are permissible in tp?

Post by Kuti »

janMato wrote: tenpo kama la mi wile sitelen e sitelen pi ilo nanpa ni: jan li ken sitelen e nimi. taso nimi ni li nimi pi toki pona taso.
ni li pona mute. o pali pona e ona. tenpo kama seme la sina sitelen e ni?
jan-ante wrote:it is a part of real life and if you contact to someone in the internet through tp, that it is interesting and important. did you use english alongside with tp in this contact? could that person understand english?
I use english or others languages too. tokiponians tends to use lots of languages. full tp talks happens with people who don't have others languages in common, or with people who wants to use toki pona only like Koala said.
Last week i tried to stick with tp when a contact always relied on english. Seems that she forgot some tp words because she don't use it that much, and she tried to say complex things that cannot be said in toki pona. But i keep answering in toki pona only, for maybe six hours :shock:
jan-ante wrote: if yes, then why did you use tp instead? what was the goal of the contact, just fun or more?
For the english speakers, and even the others, it could be for fun, or for learning the language, and as time pass it becomes friendship and we keep talking about different things in different languages.

Do you only come on this forum or try the others tp places ?
Jan KoAla wrote: It was actually kind of surreal the first time toki pona was the only language I had in common with someone.
:lol:
Ah yes the first time it happend to me with jan Palaman. He knew russian and esperanto. I didn't knew anything about esperanto yet, but only french and english. We only had toki pona in common, so we used this, for one year. Now i learn esperanto and it seems that he learn english, so sometimes we use others languages, but most of the time it is still in toki pona.
It was really weird in audio-chat, at lot of laughing at the begining, maybe for the accents or the "melody" of toki pona, but it went right, and everything became not "natural" but now i feel a bit more confident.
I did other chat with Paul, and he was tranlating what i said into russian to another one who is beginer.
jan-ante wrote: to my knowledge, it is 1st conpidg ever constructed
yay ! :D

Jan KoAla wrote: I know Kuti will defend 'til death that toki pona doesn't need or shouldn't have anything more,
Kuti never dies. I will create a cyber automated cyborg of me that will remain inside the internetz and continue for ever :twisted: mouahaha :twisted:


:roll: :mrgreen:
hum
:geek:
I think that if we takes the risk to let tp evolves, it could be a chance to make this language being talked by more people.
If this assumption is true, i would agree to make some changes.
Jan KoAla wrote: but in practice with actual use, toki pona ends up filling in its holes with other languages.
Especially with numbers, which is what makes me so annoyed.
That is because you push the "game" too far. The aim is not to break the language and go beyond. The aim is to exprim the most with less words and don't cross the line. This is not easy i agree.
It is like in sports. There is short and fast running, and there is long distance running.
You don't run a marathon like a 100m race.
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