3-vowel system

[Sonja Elen Kisa]

Again, I must stress that this is just an "idea". There are noconcrete plans to actually change the phonetics of Toki Pona. But Isee no harm in exploring this idea.If Toki Pona would be converted to a 3-vowel system, here would bethe conversion rules:- e becomes i- u becomes oExcept: je and te which would convert to ja and ta.(This is to avoid an illegal syllable that would lead to an unwantedconsonant change: te>ti>si and je>ji>(w)i.)I agree that, technically, i-u-a would be more linguisticallysymmetrical than i-o-a.... but Toki Pona favours o, and that is quiteapparent in the language already. u would still be a totallyacceptable allophone of o.mi wile moku e telo mute. ale li pona. pali li ike.would become:mi wili moko i talo mota. ali li pona. pali li iki.Seems to work fine and sounds very cute. But the changes are verysignificant!! People who already speak Toki Pona would have toretrain their Toki Pona ears and tongues (mute>mota). I'm not sure ifthat is a good idea after all.Sonja

[vixcafe]

--- In tokipona@y..., "Sonja Elen Kisa" <marraskuu@s...> wrote:> mi wile moku e telo mute. ale li pona. pali li ike.>> would become:>> mi wili moko i talo mota. ali li pona. pali li iki.>> Seems to work fine and sounds very cute. But the changes are very> significant!! People who already speak Toki Pona would have to> retrain their Toki Pona ears and tongues (mute>mota).> I'm not sure if> that is a good idea after all.>Toki, Sonja! It is still early in the game... As there arestill few speakers, such a change is still possible before it goesbig time... For continuity, you could have an "Old Toki Pona"Section in your website... Just an idea!--Viktorohttp://www.geocities.com/vixcafe

[yerricde]

--- In tokipona@y..., "Sonja Elen Kisa" <marraskuu@s...> wrote:> Seems to work fine and sounds very cute. But the changes are very> significant!! People who already speak Toki Pona would have to> retrain their Toki Pona ears and tongues (mute>mota).Some dialects of natural languages have even bigger differencesfrom dialect to dialect: french vs. acadian, mandarin vs.cantonese, english vs. glaswegian...http://www.clyde-valley.com/glasgow/dia ... 45--Damian

[Yvonna Ware]

> mi wile moku e telo mute. ale li pona. pali li ike.>> would become:>> mi wili moko i talo mota. ali li pona. pali li iki.Adam: the difficulty with this is that I really hate trailing 'i' sounds.they make words long and cumbersome. If it was acceptable to 'shorten' the'i' to an 'e' as desired, then I would not have an issue with it (other thanthe annoyance of realearning all that I've gotten so far .Yvonna: I fail to see what it simplifies. The number of vowels and theirpronounciation is very short as it is... shortening the list would only makeit even HARDER to render proper nouns recognizably into TP. I believe thesimplicity gained with the core of TP would be strongly offset by thedifficulty of adapting foreign proper nouns into the language.

[vixcafe]

--- In tokipona@y..., "Yvonna Ware" <yvon@c...> wrote:> > mi wile moku e telo mute. ale li pona. pali li ike.> >> > would become:> >> > mi wili moko i talo mota. ali li pona. pali li iki.>> Adam: the difficulty with this is> that I really hate trailing 'i' sounds.> they make words long and cumbersome.> If it was acceptable to 'shorten' the> 'i' to an 'e' as desired, then I> would not have an issue with it (other than> the annoyance of realearning all that I've gotten so far .A trailing /i/ should not be long. In Toki Pona, only stressedvowels are long (like /e:/ or /i:/).>> Yvonna: I fail to see what it simplifies.> The number of vowels and their> pronounciation is very short as it is...> shortening the list would only make> it even HARDER to render proper nouns> recognizably into TP. I believe the> simplicity gained with the core of TP> would be strongly offset by the> difficulty of adapting foreign proper nouns into the language.A brief look at trivocalic languages like the Peruvian language,Quechua, and the Philippine language, Cebuano, would elevate one'sappreciation of the elegance of having only three vowels. The matterof adapting foreign terms into an indigenous phonology is a matter ofart for phonetically minimal languages; all languages widely distortthe sounds of words which are foreign to it. Note how Englishrenders /karate/ as /k@'rAtI/ or /karaoke/ as /k&rI'@UkI/.--Viktorohttp://www.geocities.com/viktoro

[yerricde]

--- In tokipona@y..., "vixcafe" <vixcafe@y...> wrote:> The matter of adapting foreign terms into an indigenous> phonology is a matter of art for phonetically minimal> languages; all languages widely distort the sounds of words> which are foreign to it [such as Ja <karate> into En].Other languages such as Hebrew, Chinese, and some native Americanlanguages may use a poetic term (such as USA == 'beautifulcountry' or Russia == 'Magog') to translate a foreign proper noun.--Damian

[vixcafe]

--- In tokipona@y..., "yerricde" <oohay@p...> wrote:> languages may use a poetic term (such as USA == 'beautiful> country' [Chinese]This technique would certainly obviate the need for transliterationsby phonetics. Note, in Japanese, USA is "rice country" (written inKanji logographs). But Canada is just "Kanada" (pure phoneticswritten in Katakana syllabary). So Japanese uses both poetics andphonetics. Japanese has almost a minimal set of phonemes (sounds).--Viktorohttp://www.geocities.com/vixcafe

[yves_prudhomme]

--- In tokipona@y..., "Sonja Elen Kisa" <marraskuu@s...> wrote:> Seems to work fine and sounds very cute. But the changes are very> significant!! People who already speak Toki Pona would have to> retrain their Toki Pona ears and tongues (mute>mota). I'm not sureif> that is a good idea after all.Personally, I think it's a _terrible_ idea. Here's why:0) toki pona li toki pona a! ante suli li palaka e ona. o sina kinpona lili e toki pona.(Toki Pona's is reaching a nice maturity. Big changes will muck thatup. You should just work on fine-tuning the language, rather than1) You're making an unnatural transition with the language (down innumber of vowels rather than up). That's going to make the languagekind of palaka.2) It's going to require a lot more fine tuning afterwards.3) It's kind of an academic change. I mean, is it really the number ofvowels that lends toki pona its unique character? Or is it the verysimple syntax and vocabulary?4) You'll kill any momentum behind the language. OK, it's not likeNewsweek is banging down the door about toki pona, but there arepeople learning it (me included). If you shake now, you'll lose a lotof people, and they won't come back.OK, so, that's my rant. I guess my main point is: I'm not going toenjoy toki pona if it changes radically and frequently.~Iwa

[Viktoro]

--- In tokipona@y..., "yves_prudhomme" <yves_prudhomme@y...> wrote:> --- In tokipona@y..., "Sonja Elen Kisa" <marraskuu@s...> wrote:>> > Seems to work fine and sounds very cute. But the changes arevery> > significant!! People who already speak Toki Pona would have to> > retrain their Toki Pona ears and tongues (mute>mota). I'm notsure> if> > that is a good idea after all.>> Personally, I think it's a _terrible_ idea. Here's why:>As a person with an academic interest in Toki Pona, I don't thinkit's a "terrible" idea to switch from 5 vowels to 3 vowels. With 3vowels, Toki Pona would ring more true to the conceptof "Minimalism," a central theme. I don't think it's too late tochange. There are many years ahead and many more people will comeby with an interest in such a language. I think the 3-vowel systemis a GREAT improvement in the language's phonology... If a personhas seen the elegance of the trivocalic essence in languages likeQuechua (Peru) and Cebuano (Philippines), then one would reallyappreciate that simplicity. I think 3 is CUTER than 5! People willsay, "Hey, this language has only three vowels... That's nifty!"But if you have five, people will think, "Hey, five vowels just likeSpanish... How common!"I don't think this is like the Esperanto-Ido shift, but more like aLoglan-Lojban shift in which the sequel would be more improved andmore popular.--Viktorohttp://planetvix.tripod.com

[yves_prudhomme]

--- In tokipona@y..., "Viktoro" <vixcafe@y...> wrote:> As a person with an academic interest in Toki Pona,Well, there's your problem right there.> I don't think it's a "terrible" idea to switch from 5 vowels to 3> vowels.With 3 vowels, Toki Pona would ring more true to the concept> of "Minimalism," a central theme.I'm not saying that, if things were different, toki pona shouldn'thave started off with 3 vowels. Personally, I don't care, and I don'tthink the phonology really changes the spirit of the language thatmuch.The real minimalism in toki pona doesn't come from the number ofpotential words, but the number of actual words, and the simplecontext-driven syntax they are used in.Tweaking the phonology for conlanger aesthetic principles -- add avowel, add a consonant -- would be one thing. But it's not a graveenough error to make that kind of systematic change.I'm just saying: systematic incompatible changes to a language in usewill do it major harm. If you don't want to have people use thelanguage, go crazy. If you do, then don't muck with it too much.All that said, I just spent several hours learning toki pona, and Idon't want to have to learn a whole new one. Especially for atheoretic reason that seems all toki lawa.So if toki pona is going to change drastically, change it two daysago. B-)> I don't think this is like the Esperanto-Ido shift, but more like a> Loglan-Lojban shift in which the sequel would be more improved and> more popular.That's what the Idiots thought about Ido, though.~Iwa