convention for lipu toki pi pana (letters)

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Tomaniki
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convention for lipu toki pi pana (letters)

Post by Tomaniki »

Is there a convention for writing a letter in toki pona? If not, I am curious as to what such convention would be. My guess is it would vary somewhat from English's convention, due to the grammatical differences between it and toki pona. We begin with Dear Bobby,; however, I see a simple jan Papi o, toki! would work fine there. As for the conclusion, say "Your friend, Dominick" would look odd in toki pona:
jan pona sina,
jan Tomaniki
The reason this looks odd is because, in English, the conclusion acts like appositive (not to mention sentence fragment). toki pona does not have any appositives, plus a sentence fragment violates the strict sentence rules. I suggest we end our letter with a simple sentence that makes clear who is the speaker by giving the speaker's name, while also adding that the speaker is the recipient's friend:
mi jan pona sina li jan Tomaniki.
Perhaps a short additional sentence (pona!) could be used to finalize the letter. Saying "I am your friend and Dominick" might be confused for being a new body paragraph. However, being convention, the unusual way we express it will be justified in that there is no other way to say it. A modern English-speaker would probably think it would be odd if someone used the word "sincerely" in everyday conversation; however the word does not seem odd in even informal letters because we are so used to it.

sina pilin seme?
janMato
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Re: convention for lipu toki pi pana (letters)

Post by janMato »

I concur. I used to use "toki!" and "mi tawa" but, online they didn't sound right. In particular, I'm not going anywhere. I'm continuing to sit on my ass in front a glowing screen. So maybe something like:

jan Soso o lukin! So and So, lookie here, I sent you a letter!

and for less informal endings, something like "mi pini" or "ni li ala" I'm done, that's all.

mi pini.
Jan KoAla
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Re: convention for lipu toki pi pana (letters)

Post by Jan KoAla »

I've thought about similar things as well.

For me, "toki" seems kind of an odd greeting, but so is "Hello" so that's fine.

However, I've thought that the use of things like "suno pona" or something could work as alternatives too. However, it kind of misses the point of "dear ...." So, maybe something like:

jan X o,
blah blah blah blah

I don't think there needs to be a greeting on the "Dear ..." line.

As for the ending. I've always felt "mi tawa" to be a bit bizarre. In the spirit of toki pona it makes sense for "goodbye" to simply mean "I'm leaving", but it leaves a bad taste in my brain. So, I've started using "lon pona" as a kind of more respectful and nice conterpart to "tawa pona". I think it could work well for letters as well.
Kuti
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Re: convention for lipu toki pi pana (letters)

Post by Kuti »

«lon pona» li pona
mi pilin e ni:
«lipu ni li pini» anu «toki mi li pini»
Tomaniki
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Re: convention for lipu toki pi pana (letters)

Post by Tomaniki »

janMato wrote:jan Soso o lukin! So and So, lookie here, I sent you a letter!
«o lukin!» li tawa pona e mi. «o toki!» kin li pona.
Jan KoAla wrote:So, I've started using "lon pona" as a kind of more respectful and nice conterpart to "tawa pona". I think it could work well for letters as well.
ni li pona e mi. taso «lon» li nimi lili suli (interjection) ala.
Kuti wrote:mi pilin e ni:
«lipu ni li pini» anu «toki mi li pini»
pona kin! ni li pini pona. taso sina pana e nimi lon seme? ni li ijo pi nanpa wan anu ijo pini ni: sina toki?
janMato
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Re: convention for lipu toki pi pana (letters)

Post by janMato »

«o lukin!» li tawa pona e mi. «o toki!» kin li pona.
«o lukin!» li pona tawa mi. «o toki!» kin li pona.
X li pona tawa Y == Y likes X, it's a well established & pretty official convention.
ni li pona e mi. taso «lon» li nimi lili suli (interjection) ala.
Be wary of the part of speech guidance on the classic word list. Toki pona, like English, uses zero derivation where ever possible, i.e. taking one word of one POS and using as another. POS comes from where a word shows up in a sentence and not so much the dictionary. "lon" is one of the more common translations of "Amen!" and the like, both in the corpus and in forum discussions.
pona kin! ni li pini pona. taso sina pana e nimi lon seme? ni li ijo pi nanpa wan anu ijo pini ni: sina toki?
Um, I might not understand you because it looks like you're asking a question with an obvious answer. At the end of a letter, the suggestion is say in toki pona, "The letter is finished" or "I'm done talking". Saying it first would force a different meaning, like maybe you are writing a letter to relate how you just finished a lecture or writing a novel.
Tomaniki
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Re: convention for lipu toki pi pana (letters)

Post by Tomaniki »

janMato wrote:
«o lukin!» li tawa pona e mi. «o toki!» kin li pona.
«o lukin!» li pona tawa mi. «o toki!» kin li pona.
X li pona tawa Y == Y likes X, it's a well established & pretty official convention.
Thank you. I was aware of that convention but forgot it. Looks like I got tawa and pona mixed up. Thanks for pointing that out to me.
janMato wrote:
ni li pona e mi. taso «lon» li nimi lili suli (interjection) ala.
Be wary of the part of speech guidance on the classic word list. Toki pona, like English, uses zero derivation where ever possible, i.e. taking one word of one POS and using as another. POS comes from where a word shows up in a sentence and not so much the dictionary. "lon" is one of the more common translations of "Amen!" and the like, both in the corpus and in forum discussions.
Hmm, that's interesting info about parts of speech. Thanks.
janMato wrote:
pona kin! ni li pini pona. taso sina pana e nimi lon seme? ni li ijo pi nanpa wan anu ijo pini ni: sina toki?
Um, I might not understand you because it looks like you're asking a question with an obvious answer. At the end of a letter, the suggestion is say in toki pona, "The letter is finished" or "I'm done talking". Saying it first would force a different meaning, like maybe you are writing a letter to relate how you just finished a lecture or writing a novel.
Oh, by ijo, I meant name. Sorry, that was vague. I meant to ask something to the effect of, "Should the name come first or last?" Not the conclusion. For example (in English, pardon):

a.
Hello, so-and-so.
My name is Dominick.
{{Insert body paragraphs here.}}
The letter ends. (lipu ni li pini)
b.
Hello, so-and-so.
{{Insert body paragraphs here.}}
The letter ends.
My name is Dominick.
To me, choice a makes more sense, but choice b is the normal convention for letters. I don't understand why we write our names at the end of the letter, though. It's like, "Oh, by the way, my name is Dominick, and you've been reading my letter this whole time, but you did not know until now." I think for toki pona, choice a makes more sense. It is more simplistic, which follows the principles of toki pona. Also, this allows us the chance not to adopt a convention which makes no sense.
janMato
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Re: convention for lipu toki pi pana (letters)

Post by janMato »

Okay, that makes more sense. Good point, I haven't even noticed that "my name is ..." doesn't really make sense. That what we get for not examining these fossilized conventions. At the top of the page it should say "my name is ..." because that may be in question-- maybe you're a citizen writing a government official, far away.

When we sign a letter in English, we're saying "Matthew has said this" or some equivalent sentiment.

o jan lawa!

mi jan Mato li wile ala pana e mani suli tawa jan lawa. taso mi wile pana e mani lili. ni li pona ala pona tawa sina?

nimi mi li pini,

jan Mato li sitelen e nimi ni.
janSilipu
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Re: convention for lipu toki pi pana (letters)

Post by janSilipu »

There is much to be said for the ancient system "Gaius Tullius Cicero to Gaius Julius Caesar , Greetings". . In tp that comes out as something like 'Jan Silipu li pana e ni tawa Jan Mato. Toki'. Paul and others tended to elaborate on both names and on the greeting, but the basic pattern remains. And, of course, could (and would) be abbreviated: 'Jan Silipu tawa Jan Mato, toki'.
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