confusion for a new member

[janJasu]

hi.

Sorry for not posting in TP, I'm still new and it would take a long time to try and translate.

Also, sorry if this is the wrong board for it, but it's the board which makes me the most confused.

Reading through the forums, I'm seeing a lot of discussion about various words that were not part of the original set, that have been added to TP. However, there seems to have been little consensus about almost all of these new words. Nonetheless, the posts and discussions about many of these words seem to have ceased several months ago. I can't help but being a little confused and very curious about the current "official" dictionary.

In short, can somebody help me out with what to do or where to go to get more information about the new words, or anything else related to TP, really. I'm interested and I want to learn.

Thanks,
jan Jasu

[jan Akesimun]

jan Jasu o. toki! I haven't got to post much on here since I made my account, but I've actually been working for the past few months on getting every toki pona word, origin, and definition down in my dictionary, so I might be able to help you on this.

So far it seems that the most common, Official words are the 123 listed under "Toki Pona words" on the main wiki, with noka (foot, leg) being more or less in a limbo. The word pu on there is also official I guess, but since it's undefined, it's not actually in use right now. The new words (apeja-shame, monsuta-monster(/fear?), pake-obstruct?) are also vaguely defined, and seem like legit toki pona to me, but they haven't been used much outside the threads dedicated to figuring out their meanings.

There's also the question of how legal it would be to use abolished/old poll words like pata (sibling), too, I guess.. But yeah, if you just stick to the official 123, and maybe noka, you should be able to say almost anything you want without having to bother with the other 16ish abolished/new words.

[janKipo]

Definitely 'noka', which seems to me to be too well established to be dropped. For the new words, use them sparingly until we get the official word (which may be quite a while -- its been a long time since we last had anything official).
kama pona tawa toki pona.

For basic information, jan Pije's lesson are still the standard. Work through them and you will be able to hold your own on this site. But mainly, write here often about anything. Your successes will be praised; your errors will be corrected. all with good humor.

[janJasu]

thank you! (How would one say "thank you?")

I suppose one could say I am a "recent graduate" of jan Pije's lessons, but I still do not feel as comfortable with toki pona as I'd like to be. All in good time, practice makes perfect.

Do either of you, or anyone else for that matter, have recommendations on the best places to practice and talk with other jan pi kulupu toki pona?

[janKipo]

'pona!' We don't need to say "please" because tp is assumed to be polite.
I think there is an irc channel for tp, probably '#tokipona', but I don't use it, so can't speak of its quality. For slower. more deliberate practice (maybe better, before you get into conversation, this site is pretty useful. We're used to newbies and none of us is so advanced that we don't remember what that felt like. So we correct and advise and (hopefully) encourage all submitters. We want people to know tp, so we are happy to help.

[janMato]

Here is the link to my research on new and obsolete words and categories in between.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1216&p=6014#p6010

In my opinion, you can never go wrong using to the original 118 words.

Twitter and Toki Lili: http://tokipona.net/tp/Twitter.Aspx

Live journal is a ghost town, but the archive there are invaluable.
The Yahoo mailing list is closed, most messages migrated to this board, likewise, invaluable messages.

Shapado has a lot of promise: http://tokipona.net/tp/Questions.aspx

The toki pona Wikia has some life in it, used to be very active.

[Kuti]

MESSAGE DELETED

[Mako]

jan Jasu o! kama pona!
IMO part of the fun of toki pona is seeing how one can rephrase things. 'noka' is a replacement for Archaic 'jalan' and IMO 'luka anpa' is not the same. some jan pi toki pona refuse to use 'alasa' or 'esun' (using 'kama jo' or 'pana kepeken mani' instead). But jan pi toki pona don't seem to follow the dark path of the Ido-Esperanto wars, which is important.

[janKipo]

Why would one replace 'alasa' with 'kama jo'? One means 'hunt' the other means 'get', two very different events (a process and an achievement for one thing). Maybe 'kama lukin' but even that seems different and more like 'find'.
Folks have learned -- as they had not know at the turn from 19th to 29th century -- that if you don't like a language, you can go start your own, with no particular hostility involved. Except, I suppose if you try to take over the fan base of the original language completely, as Ido did 100 odd years ago or Lojban in the 1990s. Since there is not much of a fan base for almost any non-copyrighted (insofar as possible) conlang at the moment, no fights can be expected. There are quite a few tp spinoffs around, some interesting, some not so, but none serious rivals, because there is nothing to fight over.

[Mako]