lipu-sona/pages/tokipona/8a.md

% page 8a - creating toki pona unofficial words % /dev/urandom % march 2020

To learn how to adapt names into unofficial words, first you have to know how toki pona's phonology works. The language's words consist of a series of syllables assembled under a (C)V(N) system. This means that each syllable consists of an optional consonant, then a vowel, then a nasal (the "n" sound).

In addition, the sequences "ji", "ti", "wo" and "wu" turn into "i", "si", "o" and "u".

Here's a table of all possible syllables.

a	e	i	o	u	an	en	in	on	un
a	e	i	o	u	an	en	in	on	un
ja	je		jo	ju	jan	jen		jon	jun
ka	ke	ki	ko	ku	kan	ken	kin	kon	kun
la	le	li	lo	lu	lan	len	lin	lon	lun
ma	me	mi	mo	mu	man	men	min	mon	mun
na	ne	ni	no	nu	nan	nen	nin	non	nun
pa	pe	pi	po	pu	pan	pen	pin	pon	pun
sa	se	si	so	su	san	sen	sin	son	sun
ta	te		to	tu	tan	ten		ton	tun
wa	we	wi			wan	wen	win

Another rule is that you can't follow a vowel sound by a vowel sound, and you can't follow a nasal "n" sound with a "m" or another "n".

Consonant sounds that don't exist in toki pona are replaced with similar sounds. For example, Rome (Roma) turns into "ma tomo Loma" and Jakarta turns into "ma tomo Sakata".

consonant	sounds it can represent
j	y
k	k, g, sometimes h, French r
l	l, r
m	m
n	n, syllable-final m
p	p, b, f, sometimes v
s	s, z, j, ch, sh, zh, ts, x
t	t, d
w	v, w, sometimes r

To deal with several consonant or vowel sounds in a row, you can either remove one of them or add an extra one.

For names of cities, it's best to use pronunciations that people in that city would use. For example, the city of Toronto, Canada is transcribed in the official book as "ma tomo Towano", not "ma tomo Tolonto".

There are other rules, and interpretations of them differ. The "o kama sona e toki pona!" course features this list of rules, and the official book has its own.

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