About the "Toki Pona: The Simple Way Of Life" book

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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janTepanNetaPelin
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Re: About the "Toki Pona: The Simple Way Of Life" book

Post by janTepanNetaPelin »

KNTRO wrote:Hello all,

Has anyone read a book titled Toki Pona: The Simple Way Of Life? It's somehow based on the Toki Pona: The Language Of Good book, but there's a lot of strange things that don't appear in the official book. For instance, a couple of words, like these ones:
monsuta = monster
namako = spice [i.e., a different meaning of sin]
kipisi = to cut
Are these words official after all? :|
toki, jan KNTRO o!

No, they are not official, since the official book is the one written by Sonja Lang (Toki Pona: The Language of Good).

Cheers! :)
https://github.com/stefichjo/toki-pona (mi sitelen e lipu ni pi toki pona)
mi jan Tepan. mi pu. mi weka e jan nasa Kipo e jan nasa Lope.
janKipo
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Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2009 2:20 pm

Re: About the "Toki Pona: The Simple Way Of Life" book

Post by janKipo »

Strictly speaking, there is no official anything in toki pona, since there is no one with the authority (nor any body to give them the authority) to decide issues. Sonja ha considerable prestige and is listened to (when she deigns to speak) but, as even Lope shows, her pronouncements are often challenged or simply ignore if they go against other factors, like popular usage or common sense. What remains is that all the words that people use which are not on some “official list” are words that Sonja either once used in tp or, at least, considered using at some point. Some people picked them up and use them, others didn’t and don’t (and may not even recognize them). There are also some minor differences about the grammars of some words even on the official lists. It is probably a good idea, if you read a lot of tp, to have a fairly lose attitude toward “official” and be able to recognize and interpret a range of variations.
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