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52 lines
2.5 KiB
Markdown
52 lines
2.5 KiB
Markdown
% toki pona page 0 - introduction
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% /dev/urandom
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% march 2020
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# About toki pona
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This is the first (or 0th, in this case) in a series of pages about the *toki
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pona*, a constructed language originally designed in 2001 and then gradually
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revised over the years by Sonja Lang.
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The language is designed around the ideas of minimalist design and simplifying
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one's thoughts, with complicated ideas being broken into their basic components.
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As a result, the language is considered to be incredibly easy to learn, with
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some people claiming to be able to read it after only days and achieving fluency
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within a week or two.
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With an official vocabulary of around 120 words (plus some new additional
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words created in the community), a simple grammar and an easy-to-learn phonology,
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learning toki pona is, in fact, a relatively simple challenge, even compared to
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other simplified constructed languages, such as Esperanto.
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However, with that simplicity also come limitations. Many words have multiple
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meanings, and a lot of phrases or sentences are ambiguous without context.
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Expressing many concepts and ideas in toki pona will require one to come up with
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their own phrases or rephrase them completely (which, as mentioned before, is
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part of the language's idea).
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The language is also designed to be easy to use regardless of one's native
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language. The sounds and syllable structure used in toki pona are distinct from
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one another and common across many languages, whereas the vocabulary features
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words borrowed from many languages across the world.
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# About this course
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There are several good sources to educate yourself about toki pona available
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already. The most important (and best, in my opinion), is the [official toki
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pona book](https://tokipona.org/) (also known as "pu") published in 2014 by
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Sonja Lang herself. It is not free, but it's a well-written book with lots of
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additional texts to read and it explains the language very well.
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Another useful resource is the online course ["o kama sona e toki
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pona!"](http://tokipona.net/tp/janpije/okamasona.php) (learn
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toki pona!) by Bryant Knight (aka "jan Pije"). It has some differences in how it
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uses certain words, and the past versions of the course have attracted some
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controversy, but it's also a well-made course.
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My goal here is to try and present a version that tries to account for the
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different ways people speak and write toki pona and the way it is being used
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now. My personal style is mostly based on "pu", but with slight adjustments, but
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other styles will be covered as well.
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[Next page](1.html)
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