toki ali o... en ijo ante mute

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
Jan KoAla
Posts: 68
Joined: Mon Jul 11, 2011 9:30 pm

toki ali o... en ijo ante mute

Post by Jan KoAla »

I was going to just delete this, but I think I'll leave it here because there are still some good conversations in it. This was written about a week after I jumped in the language. Filled with naivety and unnecessary hostility (caused from staying up all night thinking about this :D )

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Toki everybody!

I'll take this beginning moment here to say it's been an interesting week jumping into ma pi toki pona. I really think it's cool that such a community exists, even if it's not quite what I expected. There are a lot of people who I am humbled by here and that deserve a lot respect, especially when everyone wants to constantly change everything!

That said, I see a pretty big split in the community, and there doesn't seem to be a lot of mixing, just a lot of anger. On one side, there are the people who want to adhere to a philosophy and stay true to the ideas that toki pona is supposed to support.

On the other side are the practical people. They want to be able to actually speak the language.

Now, I personally don't really care at all about some made up people that are supposed to live in the rainforest or somesuch, but I do think that the idea deserves some respect, and it gives toki pona a bit of an interesting culture.

On the other side, we don't need to be able to count to 374232404373627012430 or all the numbers that exist.

That said, we do need some numbers. Both sides of the table on this, if you get past the stubornness, are dealing with it someway. I don't care about anything official, I am talking more about this:

tenpo 25 la mi sike suno.

Which I read in my head as:

tenpo TWENTY-FIVE la mi sike suno.

The numbers are there regardless of whether it's admitted or not. The current official system is anything but simple and reminds me of 374232404373627012430 in it's complexity. I mean tu tu tu tu tu tu tu t tutututuutututu wan means nothing to me. Even if you throw a few lukas in there it's still a headache.

So, I have my own way that I deal with this, because I want to be able to stay in toki pona in my head. I don't care if anyone else does, but I know there are other frustrated people like me, so I'll explain it. I don't want an argument either. If you don't like it, don't use it. If you don't think there should be numbers, don't use them. However, the numbers will continue to exist regardless, and it's nice to have a way to deal with them.

The first thing I like to do is bring back tuli and po, but that's unnecessary, you don't even have to revive them if you don't want. So, I say the numbers like this:

wan 1
tu 2
tuli 3
po 4

luka 5
lukawan 6
lukatu 7
lukatuli 8
lukapo 9

tuluka 10
tulukawan 11
tulukatu 12
tulukatuli 13
tulukapo 14

tuliluka 15
tulilukawan16
tulilukatu 17
tulilukatuli 18
tulilukapo 19

poluka 20
polukawan 21
polukatu 22
polukatuli 23
polukapo 24

jan 25
janwan 26
jantu 27
jantuli 28
janpo 29
janluka 30

tujan 50
tulijan 75
pojan 100
lukajan 125

So, you can see the general rule. I had read somewhere someone suggested "jan" for bigger units and liked that. Keeps "mute" for more general things, and you get a few hands/arms and you have a person :D but I'm more interested in the practical uses of it.

This system is only practical up to about 125, which is more than we really need anyway. I did think it was cute that 125 is about the number of words in toki pona though. This gives us enough numbers to deal with time, days of the week, age, months, among other things!

"taso mi mute li kepeken nanpa suli pi nasin seme!?!?"

Well, I figure the only practical numbers after about 100 are for years and addresses. And for that, with the new makeshift 0-9 digits, just saying them. If you want you can seperate stuff with "en" I guess, but that's not too important.

So,
1999 wan lukapo lukapo luka po (or wan en lukupo en lukapo en lukapo, or tulilukapo en lukapo en lukapo... etc)
2001 tu ala ala wan
2011 tu ala wan wan
1492 wan po lukapo tu

And that's it. Don't bother telling me it's stupid because I'll be using it and teaching it to people because it is needed to avoid many awkward phrases where we currently, just can't say the sentence in toki pona.

I think numbers up to around 100 are important to be able to easily differentiate, because otherwise we just end up in awkward silences in our head. I've seen too, every new person who comes to toki pona seems to come up with their own number system, which is why I'm partially annoyed by myself, but it also provides insight into a real problem with the language currently.

Now, I also think the culture is important to maintain. Most people who want to come up with a system seem to want to deal with ALL REAL NUMBERS, but I'm not very good at math, and it ends up being incredibly math intensive. This is simple, but still quirky, and doesn't have a clear ending. It's vague on purpose. I see toki pona as being about graying up the black and white.

So, I invite you to use this method or not. I think it will be useful to many people, and is a somewhat comprimise between having a complicated math system that is not simple by any stretch of the word and being able to actually speak the language. I will be using it, and I know everyone is saying something to themselves when they see numbers because you can't just ignore them!

pona mute a! jan ali pi toki pona li pona mute mute mute!

PS whoever did the transliteration "rules" for hangeul made a grave error where 어 (ə) is used for "e" instead of 애 (e). Small gripe, but it annoyed me :D I do think that hangeul could be good for toki pona, if people wanted a different writing system. It's not nerdy like tengwar, and it's not complicated like chinese characters or heiroglyphics. However, it's really not important at all :D
Last edited by Jan KoAla on Fri Nov 18, 2011 12:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
janKipo
Posts: 3064
Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2009 2:20 pm

Re: toki ali o... en ijo ante mute

Post by janKipo »

ma pilin pi toki poki li lon ala ma pi kasi suli li lon ma supa pi ma Sanko tan jan Losi.
Gee, we haven't had a number proposal in several weeks; nice to see the old problem is not lost. I don't think it (nor the philosophy v. use issue neither) is tearing the community apart. We just go on faking it when needed and doing our best to avoid the issue. I agree that most of the need for big numbers is addresses (including urls and telephone numbers) and dates, but being able to talk about bills and checks is nice , too, as long as we don't live in a paddy. I've said that I don't see any point in anything but a decimal place system, since that is how the numbers we deal with come, so your half-way-there system is not quite satisfactory (though better than some others, which ignore the basics of our numbers). We probably also need a point, a slash and a dash, but we can make those up pretty easily. We also need alphabet names (for the whole set, not just tp's). I expect something satisfying will evolve, especially if this ever becomes a real problem. Now we just don't do numbers much -- though we occasionally feel constrained by the lack.
Thanks for not adding another writing system.
Jan KoAla
Posts: 68
Joined: Mon Jul 11, 2011 9:30 pm

Re: toki ali o... en ijo ante mute

Post by Jan KoAla »

a a a! ma pilin pi toki pona li suli mute!

I have to say, I was very much suprised by the unusually large number of people making up writing systems... but I figured that's just something about conlangs. The numbers could go a bit further too, I agree, but I don't want to push anything incredibly vast until things are evolved a bit. I just can't convince a friend to learn the language and then try to explain why we can't say numbers larger than two (practically), but you can still write them!

What would the names of the letters in the alphabet be for? I imagined we're just supposed to say their kind of phonetic sound, but I honestly had not thought about it. Do you mean it would be better to have all the letters just be their own words or have each one named after a pre-existing word?
janKipo
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Re: toki ali o... en ijo ante mute

Post by janKipo »

Yes, the archetypal person coming to a conlang translates a bit of the Daodejing (and/or the Bible) and proposes a new writing system in the first week (slight hyperbole, but slight).
Alphabet for all those alphanumeric strings as well as spelling non-tp words which are needed. occasionally.
janMato
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Re: toki ali o... en ijo ante mute

Post by janMato »

Jan KoAla wrote:I'll take this beginning moment here to say it's been an interesting week jumping into ma pi toki pona. I really think it's cool that such a community exists, even if it's not quite what I expected. There are a lot of people who I am humbled by here and that deserve a lot respect, especially when everyone wants to constantly change everything!

That said, I see a pretty big split in the community, and there doesn't seem to be a lot of mixing, just a lot of anger. On one side, there are the people who want to adhere to a philosophy and stay true to the ideas that toki pona is supposed to support.
Did I miss a battle here? I spar a lot with jan Kipo, but I think we both stick to grammar, so it counts a passion rather than flame wars. Politics and religion are dangerous topics, but that is true in any context. I do agree that some people like the philosophy bit and some people say, "well, here is another language, how do we translate arbitrary texts", and I admin I'm in the later camp.

There are some real fights buried in the forums and the old yahoo mailing list, tho, its but nothing compared ZBB.

Body numbers are good (jan), they have lots precedent in other tribal languages.
And that's it. Don't bother telling me it's stupid because I'll be using it and teaching it to people because it is needed to avoid many awkward phrases where we currently, just can't say the sentence in toki pona.
Take a chill pill, we're cool with proposals--and those that aren't should be numb to them by now, they pop up so frequently. I usually put my radical proposals in the "jan nasa li wile ante e toki pona" section to let people know that I have a proposal that is a take it or leave it sort of idea.
PS whoever did the transliteration "rules" for hangeul made a grave error where 어 (ə) is used for "e" instead of 애 (e). Small gripe, but it annoyed me :D I do think that hangeul could be good for toki pona, if people wanted a different writing system. It's not nerdy like tengwar, and it's not complicated like chinese characters or heiroglyphics. However, it's really not important at all :D
Got a link to that? I think there are 2 (or more) places to do latin to hangul transliteration. I'd like to note that on my transliteration page.
Jan KoAla
Posts: 68
Joined: Mon Jul 11, 2011 9:30 pm

Re: toki ali o... en ijo ante mute

Post by Jan KoAla »

I didn't mean to sound so sarcastic, I've just been reading a lot of the old posts from yahoo and livejournal and whatnot. I didn't know things had mellowed out, so sorry for sounding that way, I was prepared to be in a much more hositle environment :D

I was expecting a rush of people telling me why I shouldn't try to think about numbers, so I wanted to pre-emtively strike all those complaints!

I also know that it is probably really annoying to have a bunch of people always come in and suggest new things, so I wanted to just kind of come in, make my point and not argue about it. It's good to know that that was stupid of me though! hahaha

This page here, although it doesn't work anymore really: http://www.tokipona.bravehost.com/experiments.html

I know they made the mistake there because I see the mistake here: http://www.freewebs.com/silverwings_88/ and she says she learned of it from the other site.

I can't find the other one, but I remember using a transliterating someone made that worked, but had the mistake, and I've seen at least one person who I assume used it.
Kuti
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Re: toki ali o... en ijo ante mute

Post by Kuti »

Your system is interesting for what it is, but i won't use it. I really hate maths and numbers, that that is why i love toki pona :lol:
Jan KoAla wrote: On one side, there are the people who want to adhere to a philosophy and stay true to the ideas that toki pona is supposed to support.
On the other side are the practical people. They want to be able to actually speak the language.
I felt i'm on both sides :?
Jan KoAla wrote: Even if you throw a few lukas in there it's still a headache.
hehe ^^ The headache is the turning point on the tp phylosophy. If you want to avoid the headache you can think without numbers ;)
Jan KoAla wrote: And that's it. Don't bother telling me it's stupid because I'll be using it and teaching it to people because it is needed to avoid many awkward phrases where we currently, just can't say the sentence in toki pona.
It is not stupid at all, it is just unofficial. There are plenty of number systems around.
janKipo wrote: I expect something satisfying will evolve, especially if this ever becomes a real problem.
I can understant the lack of numbers is a problem for some people, but not for me. It is releasing :P
Jan KoAla
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Joined: Mon Jul 11, 2011 9:30 pm

Re: toki ali o... en ijo ante mute

Post by Jan KoAla »

Hey guys, I want to apologize again for kind of stepping out of line and being so rude.

That said, I would like to talk about this in a more civil manner, as I am curious. I just got frustrated with the lack of completeness that I felt.

So, how do you guys cope with the numbers issue?

when you read: "tenpo 25 la mi sike suno." What do you say to yourself? And I know janMato mentioned it in another thread, but do you really think that it'd be impossible to have the lessons at least in toki pona as well? I find it useful to look at a grammar for a language, in the language.

I think part of what IRC and twitter makes using toki pona "better" is that, in the limited amount that I've seen, there isn't as much immediate critizism that is usually highly semantic in nature. Mistakes are kind of allowed to just happen too. What do you guys think though?
janMato
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Re: toki ali o... en ijo ante mute

Post by janMato »

Jan KoAla wrote:Hey guys, I want to apologize again for kind of stepping out of line and being so rude.
No prob.
Jan KoAla wrote:So, how do you guys cope with the numbers issue?
I usually use the official system that jan Sonja proposed and write them as if they are roman numerals. So my age is MLLLTT. The Roman numeral system falls apart at about about 150 or 300 or so.
Jan KoAla wrote:when you read: "tenpo 25 la mi sike suno." What do you say to yourself?
If I was in the mood to get with the program, I would pick a construction that relied on a characteristic feature of people who are 25 years old. The tempo X la phrase can be read as "The time/time period characterized by X", e.g. tenpo pimejea la = at night.

tenpo pini pi kama sona suli la mi kama wan. I got married after I finished college (i.e. when I was in the low twenties)
tenpo open pi weka pi linja lawa la mi kama wan. About the time I started to lose my hair, I became single. (Contronyms! Great fun.)

Jan KoAla wrote:And I know janMato mentioned it in another thread, but do you really think that it'd be impossible to have the lessons at least in toki pona as well? I find it useful to look at a grammar for a language, in the language.
mi akesi suli. I'm an unrepentant crocodile. (Esperanto slang. You an esperantist or general conlanger?)
Jan KoAla wrote:I think part of what IRC and twitter makes using toki pona "better" is that, in the limited amount that I've seen, there isn't as much immediate critizism that is usually highly semantic in nature. Mistakes are kind of allowed to just happen too. What do you guys think though?
To say something in is to implicitly wrap it in a "Is it correct if I say '.....'?" This took me a while to get used to when I showed up in toki pona land. But having recently taken a trip to Qo'noS, land of the tlhIngans, I can say the situation is much the same there. The whole point of lojban is to communicate clearly, so the "no you didn't say X you said Y" is really common there. It's on my to do list to find out about na'vi--the board there is split between the non-lingusticly minded fandom and those who seem to have already moved on to using Na'vi all the time. It's hard to follow whats going on. It looks like the na'vi are discussing grammar in na'vi though, I've seen linguistic jargon in word lists.
Jan KoAla
Posts: 68
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Re: toki ali o... en ijo ante mute

Post by Jan KoAla »

thanks for the responses! It's interesting to me.

I've never cared for conlangs, this is the first time I've kind of attempted a leap into one. So, I have no idea what you said regarding the esperanto expression! :D
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