whither toki pona?

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janMato
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Re: whither toki pona?

Post by janMato »

Mako wrote:I heard about Toki Pona years ago (around 2003, the time of the minimal phonology challenge),
What was the minimal phonology challenge?
Mako wrote:TP, as it stands, is too ambiguous for auxiliary language use.
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:I do use it for....and emotional health.
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: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 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.

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.
janKipo
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Re: whither toki pona?

Post by janKipo »

Have you been in touch with the Language Creation Society, a support group for conlangers (who tend to feel rather alone in their work)?
I am not sure that tp has any intention of being an auxlang in the usual sense, i.e., for international communication of a general sort (we all know where English is, after all). But it does have some claim to being a aid to psychological well being. While the evidence is anecdotal, the claim seems plausible (though not as much, perhaps, as for a language which is a bit more positive). It is, of course, a tool for examining minimality in language, and -- again with reservations -- seems to be working fairly well, if occasionally frustratingly.
Mako
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Re: whither toki pona?

Post by Mako »

janKipo wrote:Have you been in touch with the Language Creation Society, a support group for conlangers (who tend to feel rather alone in their work)?
I am not sure that tp has any intention of being an auxlang in the usual sense, i.e., for international communication of a general sort (we all know where English is, after all). But it does have some claim to being a aid to psychological well being. While the evidence is anecdotal, the claim seems plausible (though not as much, perhaps, as for a language which is a bit more positive). It is, of course, a tool for examining minimality in language, and -- again with reservations -- seems to be working fairly well, if occasionally frustratingly.
I don't know if the first question was addressed to me. I don't feel particularly alone (although it would be nice to meet some other conlangers face-to-face). My spin on the "less positive" criticism: TP assumes you're alive and happy unless you say otherwise. As for minimality, I bookmarked several other minimal languages to track their progress - I'm skeptical but interested.
janKipo
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Re: whither toki pona?

Post by janKipo »

Yes, the question was for you. I am glad you don't feel alone, but the several hundred years of conlanging experience at one LCS meeting can be quite useful (I gather. I'm not a conlanger myself, but a professional epigone).
I'd like to borrow your bookmarks sometime; I have a few on board but have not made a systematic search for these, just what I come to by chance (tp spinoffs, philosophical languages, various comments here and elsewhere.)
The minimality question has to be relative to what the final result is: "the smallest language that can...". tp's aims are modest. that it can get you through most non-technical situations with good communication. Not that you can define everything in it, but that you can get people to get or do what you have in mind.
The idea that tp assumes a happy state is a good approach, so it only needs to have words for the anomalous events. Hmmmm! But we do still need to talk about quotidian events and, since they are most common, they should not require long paraphrases.
Mako
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Re: whither toki pona?

Post by Mako »

janKipo wrote:Yes, the question was for you. I am glad you don't feel alone, but the several hundred years of conlanging experience at one LCS meeting can be quite useful (I gather. I'm not a conlanger myself, but a professional epigone).
I'd like to borrow your bookmarks sometime; I have a few on board but have not made a systematic search for these, just what I come to by chance (tp spinoffs, philosophical languages, various comments here and elsewhere.)
The minimality question has to be relative to what the final result is: "the smallest language that can...". tp's aims are modest. that it can get you through most non-technical situations with good communication. Not that you can define everything in it, but that you can get people to get or do what you have in mind.
The idea that tp assumes a happy state is a good approach, so it only needs to have words for the anomalous events. Hmmmm! But we do still need to talk about quotidian events and, since they are most common, they should not require long paraphrases.
One point at a time:
1. My impression was that the LCS was a quasi-commercial enterprise, and I wasn't interested in that. Is it more like a guild? I'm already a member of FrathWiki and am considering joining ConlangWiki as well (I have many, many sketchlangs which I would like to expand in directions dissimilar to my usual direction). But it's true: I have never met another conlanger in person.
2. My search has been random. I compulsively bookmark interesting sites and delete it later if I'm no longer interested. I used YouTube as well. I feel that a minimal language may be possible, but it needs strict testing of its hypothesis. "mu" is going too far IMO. I am planning to e-mail the creators with simple sample texts (what were early TP proof texts?). If the minimal language is functional, the creator should be able to write or create the message. I _am_ willing to share the links.
3. I agree: there needs to be a way to say these things.
janKipo
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Re: whither toki pona?

Post by janKipo »

I'm not sure what "quasi commercial" is, but LCS is a registered non-profit. Ir's advantage over various internet based groups is that it does (well, has in the past at least) hold meetings for face-to-face time with other practitioners, including some of the best and many of the newbies. It also runs a contact agency to bring together people who make languages with people who want to use them for various purposes (mainly at the moment movies and tv show).
Appreciate any hints I can get about other languages. I am wrapped up in tp now, but it looks like it will soon be all tied up in a bow.
tp is not bad at ordinary things, but it does occasionally require some work, which might have been avoided.
Mako
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Re: whither toki pona?

Post by Mako »

janMato wrote:
Mako wrote:I heard about Toki Pona years ago (around 2003, the time of the minimal phonology challenge),
What was the minimal phonology challenge?
Mako wrote:TP, as it stands, is too ambiguous for auxiliary language use.
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:I do use it for....and emotional health.
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: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 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.

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.
1. I may be wrong about the year, but minimal phonology challenge was a challenge to construct a conlang using only the phonemes ptkmnlsaiu (Toki Pona may have been the inspiration for the contest) I didn't feel up to it, but I put together a 9-consonant, 3-vowel phonology. Even then, it was not until early 2010 that I constructed Na'gifi Fasu'xa (/g/=[N]) from that phonology - one of its descendents (tentatively named Na'nihi-Hahu'ha) will meet that goal (pk'mnhaiu). I have to finish Na'gifi Fasu'xa to a satisfactory degree. Then I will have satisfied my 15-year-long love of VSO conlangs (except for the language of the Transpositive Men, which doesn't work in any other order).

2. It helps. But I also find it harder to avoid the uncomfortable truths.

3. Ah. One rogue was confusing me on the auxlang angle.

4. Unlike (most?) other languages, "jan pona" can mean "friend", but also "good person (whom I don't know personally)" or "attractive person". "jan lawa" in context could mean "leader", but also "host (who is sitting at the head of the table") after an initial "jan pi supa monsi lawa pi supa moku".
janMato
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Re: whither toki pona?

Post by janMato »

Mako wrote:1. I may be wrong about the year, but minimal phonology challenge was a challenge to construct a conlang using only the phonemes ptkmnlsaiu (Toki Pona may have been the inspiration for the contest) I didn't feel up to it, but I put together a 9-consonant, 3-vowel phonology. Even then, it was not until early 2010 that I constructed Na'gifi Fasu'xa (/g/=[N]) from that phonology - one of its descendents (tentatively named Na'nihi-Hahu'ha) will meet that goal (pk'mnhaiu). I have to finish Na'gifi Fasu'xa to a satisfactory degree. Then I will have satisfied my 15-year-long love of VSO conlangs (except for the language of the Transpositive Men, which doesn't work in any other order).
I couldn't find much on Na'gifi Fasu'xa-- have you published the reference grammar to the web? What is "the language of Transpositive Men"? Google thinks it has something to do with transgendered males with AIDS (honest!).
Mako wrote:4. Unlike (most?) other languages, "jan pona" can mean "friend", but also "good person (whom I don't know personally)" or "attractive person". "jan lawa" in context could mean "leader", but also "host (who is sitting at the head of the table") after an initial "jan pi supa monsi lawa pi supa moku".
jan pona has been talked to death elsewhere-- imho it is a fixed phrase like blackbird, which one automatically hears as a particular species and only on second thought a generic bird of a particular color. That is true by the frequency in the corpus as well as the language's specification.

Here is a reasonable version of host (who literally is sitting at the head of the table)
mi pana e pona tawa jan ni: jan li awen lon lawa pi supa moku. I gave my thanks to the man who was sat at the head of the table.

If I needed to refer to the host of a party, I'd probably do
jan lawa pi kulupu musi li pana e telo pona e moku pona tawa mi mute. The host (leader of the party) gave us good food and drink.

There is an interesting question about how to re-use phrases that are entire sentences-- for example eclipse is "mun li pimeje e suno." There are few places where entire sentences can be placed ("S la S", "S e ni: S", " S prep-phrase ni: S", "S. ni li ...")

pi overlay. This breaks down when pi overlays a particle followed by only one word, and loses a lot of information.
jan pi awen pi lawa pi supa moku li pana e pona tawa mi mute. The host thanked us.
jan pi awen pi lon lawa pi supa moku li pana e pona tawa mi mute. This recovers the prepositional phrase, but the device is a community innovation.
jan awen pi lon lawa pi supa moku li pana e pona tawa mi mute. Awen started out as a verb. There it is now in modifier position (and in the above two examples in noun postion). It is a prototypical verb (ie. infrequently used in the sense of a noun or modifier), so the natural interpretation is "staying", "sitting"-- an instance of the action of the verb. Here it is okay, but with other words that are in more than one category, you can't use the prototypical lexical category to decide if a modifier means the modifier sense or the verb sense.
janKipo
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Re: whither toki pona?

Post by janKipo »

Well, 'awen' is probably a modal (M) rather than just a verb (V) but that doesn't change anything significant. Most tp words can (and many do) occur in several roles. The trick is to find a typology that allows us to predict with some precision what will happen when a word from one class is used in the native role of another class. Some general rules are clear, other phenomena don't yet seem to fit any roles. 'awen', as a vt, means "to keep, preserve", possibly also to "to guard, keep safe" and so on. So, as a noun, one expects it to mean, inter alia, "canned goods, preservation, waiting, ward, constancy, inertia, ..." As a modifier, one would expect "constant, steady, persistent, safe, enduring, ..." "sitting" doesn't seem to come in and that is because tp doesn't do collapsed relative clauses well (at all, probably). But there are a number of other possibilities, I'm sure, both for 'awen' and for "person at the head of the table" (itself a problematic expression). I would just use 'lon' since it is a very temporary job.
To be sure, several tp phrases have canned meanings that are hard to get around. But the official line is still that these are nonce forms pressed into service for immediate needs and not fixed. And we can tear them apart, in most cases, with a bit of context (as always). I think they should all be listed (have you done a run to find such critters? My list is hopelessly dated.), but officially as exemplars of how to do it, not as rules about what is to be done.
Mako
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Re: whither toki pona?

Post by Mako »

janMato wrote:
Mako wrote:1. I may be wrong about the year, but minimal phonology challenge was a challenge to construct a conlang using only the phonemes ptkmnlsaiu (Toki Pona may have been the inspiration for the contest) I didn't feel up to it, but I put together a 9-consonant, 3-vowel phonology. Even then, it was not until early 2010 that I constructed Na'gifi Fasu'xa (/g/=[N]) from that phonology - one of its descendents (tentatively named Na'nihi-Hahu'ha) will meet that goal (pk'mnhaiu). I have to finish Na'gifi Fasu'xa to a satisfactory degree. Then I will have satisfied my 15-year-long love of VSO conlangs (except for the language of the Transpositive Men, which doesn't work in any other order).
I couldn't find much on Na'gifi Fasu'xa-- have you published the reference grammar to the web? What is "the language of Transpositive Men"? Google thinks it has something to do with transgendered males with AIDS (honest!).
Some of the details on the Pínaax are on the conculture yahoo list. I'm posting the language at FrathWiki (under Náŋifi Fasúxa) at

http://wiki.frath.net/N%C3%A1%C5%8Bifi_Fas%C3%BAxa

As for the Transpositive Men, I can believe that Google would lean that way. The Transpositive Men are part of the same universe, but have an even more bizarre language (there's a reason I classified them as hominids rather than humans).
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