Chinese calendar? (tenpo sike pi jan Sonko)

Tinkerers Anonymous: Some people can't help making changes to "fix" Toki Pona. This is a playground for their ideas.
Tokiponidistoj: Iuj homoj nepre volas fari ŝanĝojn por "ripari" Tokiponon. Jen ludejo por iliaj ideoj.
janTe
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Chinese calendar? (tenpo sike pi jan Sonko)

Post by janTe »

A discussion in another thread made me think about how one would use the traditional Chinese calendar in Toki Pona. (The advantage of the traditional Chinese calendar is that the years aren't numbered; rather, they're assigned a name containing one of five elements and one of 12 animals, resulting in a 60-year cycle.)

In TP, we already have words for the 5 elements:
fire -- seli
water -- telo
earth -- ma
metal -- kiwen
wood -- kisa

And, to my surprise, we already have words for a lot of the animals.

From the draft wiki article on "mani", we have:
Ox -- mani wawa (lit: beast of burden)
Horse -- mani tawa (lit: mount)
Ram -- mani len (lit: livestock raised for fibre)

From the article on "akesi", we have:
Dragon -- akesi suli
Snake -- akesi linja

And we already have:
Rooster -- waso (lit: bird)
Dog -- soweli pona

That just leaves rat, tiger, rabbit, monkey, and pig.

So how would you translate those? I'm going to suggest:
Pig -- mani moku? (As a vegetarian, I hate to say this, but that's basically why pigs are kept as livestock)
Monkey -- soweli nasa?
Rat -- soweli jaki?
Tiger -- soweli suli?
Rabbit -- soweli lili?

(The Vietnamese use "cat" instead of "rabbit", so I somewhat like "soweli suli" for the year of the big cat, and "soweli lili" for the year of the small cat.)

Hmmm, I can't believe the Chinese calendar doesn't have a single kala or pipi :-(

I realise that naming years possibly goes against the spirit of TP, so I'd like to make clear that I'm not suggesting that anyone does this. I'm just wondering how one would do it.
janKipo
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Re: Chinese calendar? (tenpo sike pi jan Sonko)

Post by janKipo »

Year naming is probably more tp than year numbering (we have a lot of names, after all). How well this one would work is another matter. Maybe we should redo the names, using all the available tp terms for the biota -- still not enough: soweli, akesi, pipa, kala, waso, kasi, mani, pan(?). More?
janTe
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Re: Chinese calendar? (tenpo sike pi jan Sonko)

Post by janTe »

Actually, since writing this, I've come up with better names, partly because I discovered that the "pig" is called "elephant" in Thailand, and partly because I discovered the TP word "alasa".

Elephant -- soweli suli (quite obvious. What land mammal is bigger than an elephant?)
Rat/Mouse -- soweli lili (again, what land mammal is smaller than a mouse?)
Tiger -- soweli alasa (predatory mammal?)
Monkey -- soweli nasa (no other animal has such a reputation for craziness, surely)
Rabbit -- soweli unpa (again, what other animal has such a reputation...)

I think "mani moku" could still be used for pig, but I think it could also equally mean cow, which is confusingly similar to ox (they are the same word in Chinese).

I like the idea of TP having its own calendar using kasi, kala, etc., but until there's an official standard, I'll probably use the Chinese/Thai calendar for my own use.

tenpo sike ni li tenpo sike pi mani wawa ma!
Year naming is probably more tp than year numbering
While we're at it, we could also borrow the Japanese names for the days of the week. The Japanese have Sun day (Sunday), Moon day (Monday), Fire day (Tuesday), Water day (Wednesday), Wood day (Thursday), Metal day (Friday), and Earth day (Saturday).

We could use those names in TP too.

tenpo suno suno -- Sunday
tenpo suno mun -- Monday
tenpo suno seli -- Tuesday
tenpo suno telo -- Wednesday
tenpo suno kasi -- Thursday
tenpo suno kiwen -- Friday
tenpo suno ma -- Saturday
janKipo
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Re: Chinese calendar? (tenpo sike pi jan Sonko)

Post by janKipo »

janTe wrote:Actually, since writing this, I've come up with better names, partly because I discovered that the "pig" is called "elephant" in Thailand, and partly because I discovered the TP word "alasa".

Elephant -- soweli suli (quite obvious. What land mammal is bigger than an elephant?)
Rat/Mouse -- soweli lili (again, what land mammal is smaller than a mouse?)
vole, not much else outside of pipa and akesi
Tiger -- soweli alasa (predatory mammal?)
Or, unfortunately, "game animal" -- the modifier/modified relation is very ambiguous (or vague-- take your pick)
Monkey -- soweli nasa (no other animal has such a reputation for craziness, surely)
Actually, March hares ... . Also, we have to be careful here, because some of the things we call monkeys are 'jan' in tp.
Rabbit -- soweli unpa (again, what other animal has such a reputation...)

Other cultures, other stories. doves , for example, in the East (and, remembering the ambiguity of the connection, goats and sheep -- and camels)
I think "mani moku" could still be used for pig, but I think it could also equally mean cow, which is confusingly similar to ox (they are the same word in Chinese).
that old ambiguity: "eating animal" v "eaten animal"
I like the idea of TP having its own calendar using kasi, kala, etc., but until there's an official standard, I'll probably use the Chinese/Thai calendar for my own use.

tenpo sike ni li tenpo sike pi mani wawa ma!
Year naming is probably more tp than year numbering
While we're at it, we could also borrow the Japanese names for the days of the week. The Japanese have Sun day (Sunday), Moon day (Monday), Fire day (Tuesday), Water day (Wednesday), Wood day (Thursday), Metal day (Friday), and Earth day (Saturday).

We could use those names in TP too.

tenpo suno suno -- Sunday
tenpo suno mun -- Monday
tenpo suno seli -- Tuesday
tenpo suno telo -- Wednesday
tenpo suno kasi -- Thursday
tenpo suno kiwen -- Friday
tenpo suno ma -- Saturday
I'm a traditionalist on this -- going back to around Gilgamesh's time, with name changes as the languages change. Five element theory is not so ingrained in my culture (we tend to go with four and a mysterious fifth). Do the planets have universal names?
toto1980
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Re: Chinese calendar? (tenpo sike pi jan Sonko)

Post by toto1980 »

can you tell me since when "mani" means "beast"? i got used to the meaning "money".
janTe
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Re: Chinese calendar? (tenpo sike pi jan Sonko)

Post by janTe »

According to http://en.tokipona.org/wiki/Talk:mani, "mani" can be used to refer to livestock, or animals kept for trade.

It's part of a "draft", so I don't know how official it is, but it makes sense to me. It's an earlier concept of "money" that pre-dates cash.
toto1980
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Re: Chinese calendar? (tenpo sike pi jan Sonko)

Post by toto1980 »

i think just "soweli" or, if needed, "soweli tomo" would be much better and more comprehendable. we aren't living in the earlier civilization after all. by the way, not only cattle was used as money. so i don't think we should make things so complicated and use the word "mani" in such situations. and, beside that, mind that "cattle (or sea-shells or something)" was used for "money" and not vice versa. so it would be more logical to abdicate from the word "mani" and not from "soweli tomo". but i would keep both in their original meaning.
janKipo
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Re: Chinese calendar? (tenpo sike pi jan Sonko)

Post by janKipo »

Well, 'mani' in the old sense didn't fit very well with the tp philosophy; the new sense works much better (the aura of that earlier civilization), Of course, 'mani' doesn't mean just cattle but sheep, goats, camels and camelids. probably pigs and maybe chickens (for small change). True, it does not cover cowry and other money shells as critters, only as units of exchange, but then, they weren't domesticated either. And, to the last point, money was used for cattle, after carrying a couple cows around in your toga got to be too inconvenient. And it is nice to free up 'soweli tomo' for pets (although, in some parts of the world, dogs might slide over the line a bit).
All of which is off the point of this section. What about Native American (First People) names for months (see the new discussion around 'mun' btw to get your longing for the good old days -- last week -- going).
toto1980
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Re: Chinese calendar? (tenpo sike pi jan Sonko)

Post by toto1980 »

pona! tenpo ni la ni li pona tawa mi. ni li nasa lili li ike lili tawa toki mi. taso tenpo kama la mi ken ante pona e pilin mi tawa nimi "mani". ni li pona.
janKipo
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Re: Chinese calendar? (tenpo sike pi jan Sonko)

Post by janKipo »

Lordy, I hope 'tawa' doesn't turn out to be the solution to the "about" problem; it is already overworked.
There is also the problem of a prep phrase modifying a noun phrase -- it isn't yet clear whether it is legit nor how exactly to do it if it is. At present, the 'tawa nimi' bit officially modifies 'ken ante,' which doesn't make a lot of sense.
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