nasin lili (short forms)

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
Post Reply
jan Nowo
Posts: 40
Joined: Tue Jun 18, 2013 9:31 am

nasin lili (short forms)

Post by jan Nowo »

Lets us introduce short forms into toki pona.
mi mute o pana e nasin lili tawa toki pona.

Long form: toki Epelanto li ike tawa mi.
Short form: toki Epelanto l'ike tawa mi.

sina toki e seme?

Also, a friend of mine used musi meaning interesting.

I was thinking if sona lukin or at least musi sona would not work better here.
janKipo
Posts: 3064
Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2009 2:20 pm

Re: nasin lili (short forms)

Post by janKipo »

Short forms will almost certainly appear in spoken tp, but, for now, it seems advisable to continue with the unabbreviated forms, especially since the short forms add little to the ease of expression.

'musi' is pretty broad (as are all tp words, of course), so, when the context doesn't narrow matters, some additional words may be needed. thus, 'musi sona' "information kind of entertaining" works nice for "interesting", 'sona lukin', "visually informative", say, seems more precise than mere "interesting" seems to call for, though there are case (aerial photographs of fortresses, for example) where it fits in.
User avatar
janAetherStar
Posts: 146
Joined: Sat May 25, 2013 3:23 am
Contact:

Re: nasin lili (short forms)

Post by janAetherStar »

Haha, I've been doing this in my head sometimes when thinking about tp poetry :)
Some other examples:
j' = jan __, e.g. j'ante for jan ante, j'ona for jan pona.
Skipping out on the last vowel (and/or first consonant) of the first word (or last) of a compound adjective/word, e.g. las'jelo for laso jelo, tom'awa for tomo tawa.
Dropping the last vowel of a verb for 'e' if it's not already 'e', e.g. mol'e for moli e, pal'e for pali e.
Dropping the last vowel of a "non-preposition" (e.g. anpa) (eh don't know what their classification is) that doesn't end in 'i' and dropping the 'p' in 'pi', e.g. anp'i for anpa pi, ins'i for insa pi.

An example of a text I made ages ago with this sort of stuff when needed (ok, bits aren't correct these days, but we all learn new things):
kon li tawa lon insa pi kasi las'jelo.
telo linja li anpa li k'lama li laso.
meli wawa li weka e kon wawa ike
li lukin e ins'i tenpo kama kepeken kiwen.

Even shorter:
kon'i tawa lon ins'i kasi las'jelo.
tel'inj'i anpa li k'lama li laso.
meli waw'i wek'e kon waw'ike
li lukin e ins'i tenp'ama kepe'kiwen. <<I cannot tell you how many times I have wanted to shorted 'kepeken' to 'kepen' or similar... But I digress.
ale li pona. :)
sina o sona e ni.
jan pali pi jan Jesu
Posts: 19
Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2015 2:02 pm

Re: nasin lili (short forms)

Post by jan pali pi jan Jesu »

All words should have a reduced form:
One sylable and starting with a consanent without "N/M" endings.

pali ike lili li lili ala, li mute mute tawa jan sewi suli Jawe.
pe ki lo li lo le, li mu mu ta ja se su Jawe.

sina jo ala jo e kiwen lon poki len sina?
si jo le jo te wi do bo de si?

Speaking this could be intense, and super fast.

mi wile pana e telo tawa poki telo pi waso mute.
mi wi pa te to ta do te pi wa mu.

mi wile e ni: sina tawa!
mi wi te ni: si ta!

mi pilin ike tan ni: sina pana ike tawa mi.
mi bi ki na ni: si pa ki ta mi.

mi wile e ni: ni li pana e pona tawa sina mute!
mi wi te ni: ni li pa te po ta si mu!
janKipo
Posts: 3064
Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2009 2:20 pm

Re: nasin lili (short forms)

Post by janKipo »

But that is only45 words and we can't double (or, actually, triple) up because most words are not environmentally distinct.
jan pali pi jan Jesu
Posts: 19
Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2015 2:02 pm

Re: nasin lili (short forms)

Post by jan pali pi jan Jesu »

janKipo wrote:But that is only45 words and we can't double (or, actually, triple) up because most words are not environmentally distinct.
sina toki e ijo. mi sona ala e ona.
si to e ji. mi so le te no.
janKipo
Posts: 3064
Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2009 2:20 pm

Re: nasin lili (short forms)

Post by janKipo »

But si might be sijelo, to might be tomo, ji is not a legitimate tp syllable, so might be soweli, mi might be mije, the e should be te, which might be telo, no might be noka. And so on. No matter how you meet these particular problems, the fact remains that there are 120+ words in tp and only (in fact) 42 CV syllables. It won't fit.
janKipo
Posts: 3064
Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2009 2:20 pm

Re: nasin lili (short forms)

Post by janKipo »

What is true -- and this goes over to the Crazy Language Changer forum -- is that final vowels are almost always irrelevant, that, with a couple of exception, the difference between e and i and between u and o is not significant, and that third syllables never make a difference. So, tp could become a three-vowel language, composed mainly of CVC monosyllables, with the odd V or VC or CV. A very different, but arguably simpler, language. Uglier, though.
jan pali pi jan Jesu
Posts: 19
Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2015 2:02 pm

Re: nasin lili (short forms)

Post by jan pali pi jan Jesu »

janKipo wrote:But si might be sijelo, to might be tomo, ji is not a legitimate tp syllable, so might be soweli, mi might be mije, the e should be te, which might be telo, no might be noka. And so on. No matter how you meet these particular problems, the fact remains that there are 120+ words in tp and only (in fact) 42 CV syllables. It won't fit.
In order to change all of them to one syllable you would have to add some new phonemes. maybe D and B pls some words would have to be completly changed.
janKipo
Posts: 3064
Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2009 2:20 pm

Re: nasin lili (short forms)

Post by janKipo »

With the full Latin alphabet and no syllable restrictions and even allowing V only words, you still only get 110 words. So, you can double that by allowing final n and then get a little more control. Or you could move to CVC, which gives over 400 forms (and toss in CV. V, VC for even more) and that gets you back to stripped tp that I mentioned above. But the point still escapes me.
Post Reply