Toki Pona (/ˈtoʊkiˈpoʊnə/;toki pona,[a]pronounced[ˈtokiˈpona]ⓘ, translated as 'the language of good') is aphilosophical andartistic constructed language designed for its small vocabulary, simplicity, and ease of acquisition. It was created by Canadian translator andpolyglot Sonja Lang with the stated purpose of simplifying her thoughts and communication. The first drafts were published online in 2001, while the complete form was published in the 2014 bookToki Pona: The Language of Good (referred to aslipu pu in Toki Pona). Lang also released a supplementary dictionary, theToki Pona Dictionary (referred to aslipu ku), in July 2021,describing the language as used by its community of speakers. In 2024, a third book was released, a Toki Pona adaptation ofThe Wonderful Wizard of Oz, written inSitelen Pona.
Toki Pona is anisolating language with only 14phonemes and an underlying feature ofminimalism. It focuses on simple, near-universal concepts to maximize expression from very few words. InToki Pona: The Language of Good, Lang presents around 120 words, while the laterToki Pona Dictionary lists 137 "essential" words and a small number of less-used ones.[b] Its words are easy to pronounce across language backgrounds, which allows it to serve as a bridge of sorts for people of different cultures. However, it was not created as aninternational auxiliary language. Partly inspired byTaoist philosophy, the language is designed to help users concentrate on basic things and to promote positive thinking, in accordance with theSapir–Whorf hypothesis. Despite the small vocabulary, speakers can understand and communicate, mainly relying oncontext, combinations of words, and expository sentences to express more specific meanings.
After its initial creation, a small community of speakers developed in the early 2000s. While activity mainly takes place online inchat rooms, onsocial media, and in other online groups, there have been a few organized in-person meetups.
The name of the language has two parts:toki'language', derived fromTok Pisintok, which itself comes fromEnglishtalk; andpona'good, simple', fromEsperantobona, fromLatinbonus.[† 3] The nametoki pona therefore means 'good language', 'the language of good' and 'simple language', emphasizing that the language encourages speakers to find joy in simplicity.[5]
Toki Pona was designed both as a personal artistic language[6] and a philosophical language focused on minimalism.[2] It is designed to express maximal meaning with minimal complexity.[7] Inspired bypidgins, it focuses on simple concepts and elements that are common among cultures. Its minimal vocabulary and 14 phonemes are devised to be easy to pronounce for speakers of various language backgrounds.[3][1][4]
Partly inspired by Taoist philosophy,[8] another goal of Toki Pona is to help its speakers focus on the essentials by reducing complex concepts to basic elements.[3] From these simple notions, more complex ideas can be built up by simple combining.[2] This allows the users to see the fundamental nature and effect of the ideas expressed. It was designed for the speakers to become aware of the present moment and pay more attention to the surroundings and the words people use.[3] According to its author, Toki Pona is meant to be "fun and cute".[9]
On the basis of theSapir–Whorf hypothesis, which states that a language influences the way its speakers think and behave,[4][8] Toki Pona was designed to induce positive thinking.[10]
Although it was not intended as an international auxiliary language, a worldwide online community uses it for communication.[11][3]
Toki Pona was developed by the Canadian polyglot and translatorSonja Lang (formerly Sonja Elen Kisa). Born in 1978 inMoncton,New Brunswick,[12] Lang grew up in a bilingual family; her mother spoke French, and her father spoke English. During and after her high school years, she became fluent in five languages, includingEsperanto. Esperanto was the inspiration for her creation of constructed languages.[13]
In 2001, Lang was experiencingdepression and started working on Toki Pona as a way to simplify her thoughts.[5] In the same year, an early version of the language was published online, and it quickly gained popularity.[4] An early community formed in aYahoo group created by Lang. She was inspired byhunter-gatherers, saying in an interview withThe Atlantic: "I thought, what would it have been like to just be a person in nature, interacting with things in a primitive way?"[3]
The first book on the language,Toki Pona: The Language of Good
In 2014, Lang released her first book on the language,Toki Pona: The Language of Good, which features 120 main words, plus 3 words presented as synonyms of these,[c] and provides a completed form of the language based on how Lang used the language at the time. In 2016, the book was also published in French.[14][6]
In 2015, YouTuber jan Misali uploaded a series titled12 Days ofsona pi toki pona, which proved influential.[16]
After two failed applications for anISO 639-3 code, a third request was filed in August 2021, which resulted in the ISO 639-3 codetok being adopted in January 2022.[17][6]
Toki Pona was the subject of some scientific works,[1][18][19][20][21] and it has also been used forartificial intelligence and software tools,[14] as well as a therapeutic method for eliminating negative thinking by having patients keep track of their thoughts in the language.[4] In 2010, it was chosen for the first version of the vocabulary for theROILA project. The purpose of the study was to investigate the use of anartificial language on the accuracy ofmachine speech recognition, and it was revealed that the modified vocabulary of Toki Pona significantly outperformed English.[22]
In February of 2024, Lang released the bookThe Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Toki Pona edition), the first in a planned series of illustrated storybooks written in Sitelen Pona (referred to collectively aslipu su).[23]
The statistical vowel spread is fairly typical when compared with other languages.[1] Counting each word once, 32% of vowels are/a/, 25% are/i/, with/e/ and/o/ a bit over 15% each, and 10% are/u/.[1] The usage frequency in a 10kB sample of texts was slightly more skewed: 34%/a/, 30%/i/, 15% each/e/ and/o/, and 6%/u/.[25]
Of the syllable-initial consonants,/l/ is the most common, at 20% total;/k,s,p/ are over 10%, then the nasals/m,n/ (not counting final n), with the least common, at little more than 5% each, being/t,w,j/. The high frequency of/l/ and low frequency of/t/ is somewhat unusual among the world's languages.[1]
The first syllable of a word follows the form (C)V(N), i.e. an optional consonant, a vowel, and an optional final nasal. Subsequent syllables follow the same form, except that the leading consonant is required. Syllables can thus be CV, CVN, V, or VN.[14] As in most languages, CV is the most common syllable type, at 75% (counting each word once).[1]
The following sequences are not allowed: */wu,wo,ji,ti,wun,won,jin,tin/, nor may a syllable's final nasal occur before/m/ or/n/ in the same word.[1][14]
Proper nouns are usually converted into Toki Pona proper adjectives using a set of guidelines. The native, or even colloquial, pronunciation is used as the basis for the subsequent sound conversion. Thus, English becomesInli and John becomesSan.
Because of its small phoneme inventory, Toki Pona allows for extensiveallophonic variation. For example,/ptk/ may be pronounced[bdɡ] as well as[ptk],/s/ as[z] or[ʃ] as well as[s],/l/ as[ɾ] as well as[l], and vowels may be either long or short.[1]
Furthermore, while written asn, the nasal at the end of a syllable can be pronounced as any nasal stop, and it is normally assimilated to the following consonant.[1]
Besides the Latin alphabet, which is the most common way of writing the language, many alternative writing systems have been developed for and adapted to Toki Pona.[1] Most successful and widespread are twologographic writing systems,Sitelen Pona and Sitelen Sitelen. Both were included in the bookToki Pona: The Language of Good.
Sitelen Pona hieroglyphs fromToki Pona: The Language of Good by Sonja Lang
Sitelen Pona (lit.'good/simple writing/drawing')[11] is alogographic writing system devised by Lang as an alternative writing system for Toki Pona, and first published in her bookToki Pona: The Language of Good in 2014. As a logography, each word is represented by its own symbol. It has been described as "a hieroglyphic-like script that makes use of squiggles and other childlike shapes".[26]
Symbols representing a singleadjective may be written inside or above the symbol for the preceding word that they modify. The symbol of the language is written in Sitelen Pona, with the symbol (pona) written inside the symbol (toki).[6]
Some words aregrammatical particles, while the others arecontent words withlexical meanings. The content words do not fall into well definedparts of speech; they may be used as nouns, verbs, modifiers, orinterjections.[1][8] A content word's position in a sentence determines its role, allowing the limited number of words to serve many purposes.[14] Thus, the wordmoku means "to eat" in the verb position, but means "food" (that which is eaten) in the noun position, and might mean "edible" (of or relating to eating) as an adjective.[8]
Toki Pona has more complicated sentence structures as well.Prepositional phrases follow theobjects. The particlela ends a phrase orclause that comes before thesubject to add additional context.[14]
A sentence may be an interjection, statement, wish/command, or question.[8]
For example, interjections such asa,ala,ike,jaki,mu,pakala,pona,toki, etc. can stand alone as a sentence.[8]
Statements follow the normal structure ofsubject-predicate with an optionalla phrase at the beginning. The wordli precedes the predicate unless the subject ismi orsina.[14] Themarkere comes before direct objects. Moreli ande markers can present more predicates and direct objects respectively.Vocative phrases come before the main sentence and are marked witho at the end of the phrase, after the addressee.[8][14]
In commands, the wordo comes before a verb to express a second-person command. It can also replaceli, or come after the subjectsmi orsina, to express wishes.
Toki Pona has four basic pronouns:mi (first person),sina (second person),ona (third person), andni (demonstrative). Number andgender are not specified by default, but they can be specified with additional modifiers to the pronouns.
Noun phrases express concepts beyond Toki Pona's basic vocabulary. Each Sitelen Pona symbol in the above image represents one word.
With such a small vocabulary, Toki Pona relies heavily onnoun phrases, where a noun is modified by a following word, to make more complex meanings. A typical example is combiningjan (person) withutala (fight) to makejan utala (fighter, soldier, warrior).(see§ Modifiers)
Nouns do notdecline according to number.jan can meanperson, people, humanity, somebody depending on context.[1]
Toki Pona does not use isolated proper nouns; instead, they must modify a preceding noun. For this reason, they may be called "proper adjectives" or simply "proper words" instead of "proper nouns". For example, names of people and places are used as modifiers of the common word for "person" and "place", e.g.ma Kanata (lit.'Canada land') orjan Lisa (lit.'Lisa person').[1]
When a second modifier is added to a phrase, for examplejan pona mute, it modifies all that comes before it, sojan pona mute might meanmany good people, with bothpona (good) andmute (many) modifyingjan (person). The particlepi is placed before two or more modifiers to group them into another phrase that functions as a unit to modify the head: Injan pi pona mute,pona mute as a unit meansmuch goodness, to together meanvery good person.mute modifiespona, andpona mute as a whole modifiesjan.[1][14]
Toki Pona does not inflect verbs according to person, tense, mood, or voice, as the language features noinflection whatsoever. Person is indicated by the subject of the verb; time is indicated through context or by a temporal adverb in the sentence.[1]
Prepositions can be used in the predicate in place of a regular verb.[27]
Toki Pona has five words for colors:pimeja (black),walo (white),loje (red),jelo (yellow), andlaso (blue and green). Although the simplified conceptualization of colors tends to exclude a number of colors that are commonly expressed in Western languages, speakers sometimes may combine these five words to make more specific descriptions of certain colors. For instance, "purple" may be represented by combininglaso andloje. The phraselaso loje means "a reddish shade of blue" andloje laso means "a bluish shade of red".[1]
The simplest number system uses these five words to express any amount necessary. For numbers larger than two, speakers would usemute which meansmany.[1]
Body parts in Toki Pona. The wordsoko,uta,lawa,luka, andnoka have Slavic, particularlySerbo-Croatian roots:oko,usta,glava,ruka, andnoga.
Some words have obsoletesynonyms. For example,nena replacedkapa (protuberance) early in the language's development for unknown reasons.[† 4][† 5] Later, the pronounona replacediki (he, she, it, they), which was sometimes confused withike (bad). Similarly,ali was added as an alternative toale (all) to avoid confusion withala (no, not) among people whoreduce unstressed vowels, though both forms are still used.[15]
Originally,oko meanteye andlukin was used as a verbto see. InToki Pona: The Language of Good, the meanings were merged intolukin,oko being the alternative.[14]
Words that were simply removed from the lexicon includeleko (block, stairs),monsuta (monster, fear),majuna (old),kipisi (cut), andpata (sibling).[† 4][† 5] These words were considered outdated because they were not included in the official book.[† 4] However,oko,leko,monsuta, andkipisi retained enough usage in the community that they were re-included in the lexicon asnimi ku suli inToki Pona Dictionary.[† 6]
Besidesnena andona, which replaced existing words, a few words were added to the original 118:pan (grain, bread, pasta, rice),esun (market, shop, trade),alasa (hunt, gather), andnamako (extra, additional, spice), another word forsin (new, fresh).[† 2]
Many of these derivations are transparent. For example,toki (speech, language) is similar to Tok Pisintok and its English sourcetalk, whilepona (good, positive), from Esperantobona, reflects genericRomancebon,buona, Englishbonus, etc. However, the changes in pronunciation required by the simple phonetic system often make the origins of other words more difficult to see. The wordlape (sleep, rest), for example, comes from Dutchslapen and is cognate with Englishsleep;kijetesantakalu (any animal from the superfamilyMusteloidea) from Finnishkierteishäntäkarhu;kepeken (use) is somewhat distorted from Dutchgebruiken, andakesi fromhagedis (lizard) is scarcely recognizable. (Because*ti is an illegal syllable in Toki Pona, Dutchdi becomessi.)[† 3][† 5]
Although only 14 words (12%) are listed as derived from English, a large number of the Tok Pisin, Esperanto, and other words are transparently cognate with English, raising the English-friendly portion of the vocabulary to about 30%. The portions of the lexicon from other languages are 15% Tok Pisin, 14% Finnish, 14% Esperanto, 12% Serbo-Croatian, 10% Acadian French, 9% Dutch, 8% Georgian, 5% Mandarin, 3% Cantonese; one word each fromWelsh,Tongan (an English borrowing) andAkan, fourphonesthetic words (two which are found in English, one fromJapanese, and one which was made up); and one other made-up word (the grammatical particlee).[† 3]
Signed Toki Pona, ortoki pona luka, is amanually coded form of Toki Pona.[6] Each word and letter has its ownsign, which is distinguished by thehandshape,location of the hand on the body,palm or finger orientation, and the usage of one or both hands. Most signs are performed with the right hand at the required location. A few signs, however, are performed with both hands in a symmetrical way. To form a sentence, each of the signs is performed using the grammar and word order of Toki Pona.
A more naturalistic constructed sign language calledluka pona also exists,[23] and is more widely used in the Toki Pona community thantoki pona luka. It is a separate language with its own grammar, but has a vocabulary that generally parallels Toki Pona.luka pona's signs have increasediconicity as compared totoki pona luka, and many signs are loan-words from natural sign languages. Its grammar issubject-object-verb, and, like natural sign languages, it makes use ofclassifier constructions andsigning space.[† 7] InToki Pona Dictionary, Sonja Lang recommends learningluka pona instead oftoki pona luka.
The language is fairly well known amongEsperantists, who often offer courses and conversation groups at their meetups.[1] In 2007, Lang said that at least 100 people speak Toki Pona fluently and estimated that a few hundred have a basic knowledge of the language.[4][29] One-hour courses of Toki Pona were taught on various occasions by theMassachusetts Institute of Technology during theirIndependent Activities Period.[4]
The language is used mainly online on social media, in forums, and other online groups.[29] Users of the language are spread out across multiple platforms. AYahoo! group existed from about 2002 to 2009, when it moved to a forum on aphpBB site.[30] For a short time there was aWikipedia written in Toki Pona (calledlipu Wikipesija). It was closed in 2005[31] and moved toWikia/Fandom, and then moved from Fandom to an independent website on 23 April 2021.
The largest groups exist onFacebook,Discord, andReddit. Two large groups exist on Facebook: one designated for conversation in Toki Pona and English, and the other for conversation in only Toki Pona.[32] The former of the two is the more popular.
Memrise has user-created materials for learning Toki Pona.[33]
Logo of the first registered zine in Toki Pona,lipu tenpo
There are a few published books and many other works in Toki Pona. Most of the published works are language-learning books for beginners likeakesi seli lili andmeli olin moli. Many other works are translations of original literature in other languages.
An original poem abouttime byjan Jasun, which won first place in a 2023 poetry contest.[† 8]
ona li wawa li lawa li tawa ali la ona li ken awen ala ona li mute li suli li lon li kama e moli li weka e kon tenpo li lili e musi e mi e ken pali ali pi jan pali ni tenpo li moku e tenpo mi sona mi wile e tenpo tan wile mi pona
The opening lines of the novel Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, translated by jan Kala, and written in Sitelen Pona by jan Majeka
The opening lines ofjan Sitata byjan Kala,[† 9] a 2022 Toki Pona translation of the novelSiddhartha byHermann Hesse, follow below. The text usesinterpuncts as markers for end of the sentence.
jan Sitata li sama waso alasa li pona lukin li jan lili pi jan sona sewi · ona en jan sama Kowinta pi jan sona sewi ante li kama suli lon pimeja tomo, lon suno pi telo linja, lon poka pi tomo tawa telo, lon pimeja pi ma kasi Sawa, lon pimeja pi kasi kili · jan Sitata li lon telo la ona li pana sewi li telo e sijelo kepeken nasin sewi · suno li pimeja lili e selo walo ona · jan Sitata li lon ma kasi kili la kasi li pimeja e lukin ona · ona li musi li kute e kalama pi mama meli ona · ona li nasin sewi li kute e toki pi mama sona ona ·
Back-translation in English:
Siddhartha was like a bird of prey, handsome, and the child of a religious scholar. He and his fellow Govinda, who was from another religious scholar, grew up in the shade of the house, in the sun of the river, near the boats, in the shade of the Salwald forest, in the shade of the fruit tree. When Siddhartha was in the water, he gave sacred offerings and washed himself in the holy manner. The sun tanned his pale skin. When Siddhartha was in the fruit tree grove, the trees shaded his eyes. He played, and heard the song of his mother. He followed the sacred ways, and listened to the teachings of his learned father.
^abcdeRogers, Steven D. (2011). "Part I: Made-Up Languages – Toki pona".A Dictionary of Made-Up Languages. United States of America: Adams Media.ISBN978-1440528170.
^abcdefGalán Rodríguez, Carmen (31 December 2023). "Toki Pona: el haiku del pensamiento" [Toki Pona: The Haiku of Thought]. In Pinilla Gómez, Raquel; Sarmiento Guede, José Ramón; Becerra García, Javier (eds.).El júbilo de la palabra [The Joy of Language] (in Spanish) (1ª ed.). Dykinson. pp. 109–128.doi:10.14679/2565.ISBN978-84-1170-697-1.
^abcColuzzi, Paolo (3 June 2022). "How learning Toki Pona may help improving communication strategies in a foreign or second language".Language Problems and Language Planning.46 (1). John Benjamins Publishing Company:78–98.doi:10.1075/lplp.00086.col.S2CID249350572.
^"3-60 - Toki Pona".en.tokipona.org. 15 November 2009. Archived fromthe original on 15 November 2009. Retrieved27 April 2022.
^abcdefghijklFabbri, Renato (July 2018). "Basic concepts and tools for the Toki Pona minimal and constructed language".ACM Transactions on Asian and Low-Resource Language Information Processing.arXiv:1712.09359.
^abMarsh, Stefanie (6 September 2007). "Now you're really speaking my language".The Times. London, England. p. 2.
^Martin, Matthew (11 March 2018)."Conlang SE".Fake languages by a fake linguist. Archived fromthe original on 12 November 2019. Retrieved20 October 2019.
^van Steenbergen, Jan (2018)."A new era in the history of language invention"(PDF).Linguapax Review. Vol. 6. p. 154.Archived(PDF) from the original on 24 April 2022. Retrieved9 July 2020.In the past, there have been Wikipedia editions in Toki Pona and Klingon as well, but both were closed and deleted in 2005.
^Knežević, Nenad (2018)."Constructed languages in the whirlwind of the digital revolution".Језик, књижевност и технологија (Jezik, književnost i tehnologija) / Language, Literature and Technology: Proceedings from the Sixth International Conference at the Faculty of Foreign Languages, 19–20 May 2017. Алфа БК универзитет (Alfa BK univerzitet): 16.ISBN978-86-6461-023-0 – via ResearchGate.
^Bramley, Ellie Violet (8 January 2015)."What happened when I tried to learn Toki Pona in 48 hours using memes".The Guardian. London.Archived from the original on 15 November 2023. Retrieved25 March 2024.Only around 100 people in the world understand this language. This is Toki Pona, created in 2001 by Sonja Lang, a Toronto-based linguist, and I'm one of a group of 17 who recently took on a challenge to learn it in 48 hours. [...] To attempt it, we gathered in the East London warehouse that is the head office of Memrise, an online platform for language-learning.
Lang, Sonja (2022).Tokipono: La lingvo de bono [Toki Pona: The Language of Good] (in Esperanto). Translated by van der Meulen, Spencer. Tawhid (published 1 October 2022).ISBN978-0978292355.
Lang, Sonja (2021).Toki Pona Dictionary. Illustrated by Vacon Sartirani. Tawhid.ISBN978-0978292362.
Cárdenas, Eliazar Parra (2013).Toki pona en 76 ilustritaj lecionoj [Toki Pona in 76 illustrated lessons] (in Esperanto). Translated by Blahuš, Marek. Partizánske, Slovakia: Espero.ISBN978-80-89366-20-0.
Toki Pona Stories: akesi seli lili [The Little Dragon]. 2020.ISBN979-8637271252.
Samys, Ret (6 September 2021).ma pi kulupu tu [The Land of Two Peoples] (in German). Berlin, Germany: Holtzbrinck Publishing Group.ISBN9783754161654.Archived from the original on 27 June 2022. Retrieved27 June 2022.
Samys, Ret (6 September 2021).ma pi kulupu tu [The Land of Two Peoples]. Berlin, Germany: Holtzbrinck Publishing Group.ISBN9783754161647.Archived from the original on 27 June 2022. Retrieved27 June 2022.
