What was the minimal phonology challenge?Mako wrote:I heard about Toki Pona years ago (around 2003, the time of the minimal phonology challenge),
After watching a lecture series recently, what I found remarkable is that often toki pona is more evolved and complex than real life auxlangs (the pidgens and creoles) that non-intellectuals use when they need to communicate with lots of people amongst whom each is unwilling to learn the other's language. For example toki pona marks SVO twice, once with particles and once with sentence position, pidgens and creoles are more likely to be neutral (marked neither by order or particles).Mako wrote:TP, as it stands, is too ambiguous for auxiliary language use.
Does it help, hurt or no effect? I think this angle is unique among conlangs, although if I was going to write a conlang, I'd base it on cognitive therapy and include grammaticalizations that make it easier to detect common defective thought patterns (expecting the worst with out supporting evidence, etc)Mako wrote:I do use it for....and emotional health.
toki pona's designer made no claims for suitablity as an auxlang, and only one person has been seriously suggesting tp be used as an auxlang (you know who you are!) over the last year.Mako wrote:It seems to me that Toki Pona has conflicting goals in being minimalist (125 words is still a small number) and an auxiliary language (which demands more roots than TP currently has).
toki pona's goals and sweet spot for useful usages are perpendicular to Esperanto's.
As for ambiguity, well written toki pona gets the ambiguity down to manageable levels. There are over 1000+ set phrases that are used in toki pona which have meanings more specific than the words individually, (jan pona, jan lawa), so the number of things you can say in one word is really misleading as to how many ...dare I say it... lexemes toki pona has.