Name "toki pona", its usage and assumptions

Language learning: How to speak Toki Pona, translation problems, advice, memory aids, tools and methods to learn Toki Pona and other languages faster
Lingva lernado: Kiel paroli Tokiponon, tradukproblemoj, konsiloj, memoraj helpiloj, iloj kaj metodoj por pli rapide lerni Tokiponon kaj aliajn lingvojn
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jan Pilo
Posts: 42
Joined: Thu Apr 21, 2016 9:59 am
Location: Polska

Name "toki pona", its usage and assumptions

Post by jan Pilo »

I have received a T-shirt from my wife on my birthday. She wanted to make a surprise but she doesn't speak tp. That's why she ordered it with a text from some net site.
1.
It contains such a text: 'o toki e toki pona'. For me it makes sense, but probably a different one than intention. "Say good texts" "Speak good stuff" (DO, so referring to the content, not a language channel)

2.
Going further:
"ona li toki e toki pona, kepeken toki pona. toki Posuka ona li pona." "He says good stuff using proper/ correct language. His Polish is good." (at least good with regard to gramar, style etc.)
But in support of the causal-historical theories of reference 'toki pona' is in practice used almost exclusively as the proper name of this particular language. This fact creates a tension between the functional proper noun (see above practice) and the grammatical one (no capital letters).

3.
It makes me to ask a question " in which aspect is the 'toki pona' uniquely good ?" I guess, the ultimate claim is that it is the "toki pona" with regard to simplicity, good structure, transparent logic, level of syntactic apriorism and intuitivity, easiness of phonetics etc. But the claim of "the only objectively good / simple semantics", would be too much, I suppose.
Or maybe the name usage indicates or claims that in practice there can be many "good languages" but so far only this one?

4.
It is funny when unaware people use the word "toki pona" in other languages. Saying "Toki Pona is a bad language." would be a kind of contradiction (at least while skipping the possible gap between origin and current meaning in natural languages.)
It reminds me the situation when as a ten-years-old boy I told my brother that his name in Latin would be "sevus bonus" and mine "dominus bonus". The trick didn't work very long though. :-)
Piotr M.
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