How to say: "We are humans and we are from Earth"

[janMato]

There is a discussion already going on at livejournal: http://tokipona.livejournal.com/70435.html

But not everyone visit livejournal everyday. I think the shortest is mi jan li tan ma. And there are lots of good options for a long form that actually has some information in it (i.e. could be understood without knowing in advance that the sentence is "we are humans and we are from Earth"

[jan Akesimun]

mi mute li jan li tan sike.. Tewa(?).

Didn't know anyone still used toki pona on LJ.

[janSilipu]

I guess a planet is strictly a mun, but it is not clear how much we can rely on this apparently interplanetary message. For example, would not a speaking species on any planet claim that they are jan, persons? Even if we thought of them as akesi?

[janMato]

Good point. Xenobiology is unexplored in toki pona.

For example, is Spock soweli or jan? Vulcans seem to be able to interbreed with humans.
Jabba the Hut is clearly akesi.
Just about everyone in Star Gate is jan, even if they appear to be a different species or from a different galaxy.

The message, imho, is trying to make a distinction. We're people (you aren't). We're from earth (you aren't).

So if jan is all 2 legged creatures, and they are Vulcans, then we aren't making a very clear distinction-- as if we said "We're living beings"

Same thing goes for naming our planet. If we don't have a word that contrasts with what the aliens live on, then we'd get the vacuous observation "Hey alien, we are living beings from, some planet somewhere"

They will receive our radio transmission and be all so excited and then when they translate it they say, "They guys are boring-- nothing to say."

[jan Kapiwe]

Good to know aliens learned Toki Pona! But, seriously, that is just useful to books translations, and I don't think that TP was made to be informative.

[pakala]

mi jan mute li kama tan ma Earth.

[janKipo]

As noted frequently here, this is sort of tautologous and thus not very informative. And "Earth" become 'Elutu' or so. It is not clear what would be better; a physical description of us and Earth? a ecological description of us in Earth's biota and a positional description if the planet? The answer you give does have one virtue -- maybe enough -- in that it says we are sentient and capable of using language, which might be important information for aliens (whether to out advantage or not depends). Maybe also that we are not capable of direct mental communication.

[janSilipu]

In principle, any character with a speaking role is a jan. He/she/it may also be something else, whether something tp can express or not.

[janTali]

[janMato]

>mi ale li jan soweli. mi ale li tan ma.
>We are all werewolves. We come from the countryside”.

Yes. It means that. It also means "we all are people of the human sort. We all are from the earth". It means a lot of other things, too.

>FWIW, my translation is mi ale li jan li lon ma wan.

That means, "We all are people on one land"
It also means "We are somebody on the first outdoor area"

This exercise can be done with any gloss of a toki pona sentence where you swap out translated words with one of the other possible definitions of a word.

telo nasa is also "foolish sauce" The language puts most of the burden of discarding unlikely meanings on the listener.