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% toki pona (WIP course) % /dev/urandom % march 2020

This is the a series of pages comprising an attempt at an educational course about toki pona, a constructed language originally designed in 2001 and then gradually revised over the years by Sonja Lang.

The language is designed around the ideas of minimalist design and simplifying one's thoughts, with complicated ideas being broken into their basic components. As a result, the language is considered to be incredibly easy to learn, with some people claiming to be able to read it after only days and achieving fluency within a week or two.

With an official vocabulary of around 120 words (plus some new additional words created in the community), a simple grammar and an easy-to-learn phonology, learning toki pona is, in fact, a relatively simple challenge, even compared to other simplified constructed languages, such as Esperanto.

However, with that simplicity also come limitations. Many words have multiple meanings, and a lot of phrases or sentences are ambiguous without context. Expressing many concepts and ideas in toki pona will require one to come up with their own phrases or rephrase them completely (which, as mentioned before, is part of the language's idea).

The language is also designed to be easy to use regardless of one's native language. The sounds and syllable structure used in toki pona are distinct from one another and common across many languages, whereas the vocabulary features words borrowed from many languages across the world.

About this course

There are several good sources to educate yourself about toki pona available already. The most important (and best, in my opinion), is the official toki pona book (also known as "pu") published in 2014 by Sonja Lang herself. It is not free, but it's a well-written book with lots of additional texts to read and it explains the language very well.

Another useful resource is the online course "o kama sona e toki pona!" (learn toki pona!) by Bryant Knight (aka "jan Pije"). It has some differences in how it uses certain words, and the past versions of the course have attracted some controversy, but it's also a well-made course.

My goal here is to try and present a version that tries to account for the different ways people speak and write toki pona and the way it is being used now. My personal style is mostly based on "pu", but with slight adjustments, but other styles will be covered as well.

The page numbered zero will provide basic info on the language's spelling and pronunciation, and each page past that will introduce 10 new words.

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