Hacker News Reader

Comment by koolala | Hacker News Reader

'Toki Pona' has been slowly making strides as a good world language. Not as a replacement for English of course but as a modern Esperanto.

View on HN

I found Toki Pona to be way too simple and there's too much ambiguity. It's a neat idea though. I like Esperanto better.

Do you find Esperanto is closer to a full language? Does it avoid the burden of learning a full language? To me I am excited by the potential to learn a whole language in a day. Like learning the entire syntax of C vs. C++. To at least know the words well enough to enter into a language world and begin writing and parsing programs with the full syntax. Maybe we are not at the '1 day' learning stage yet but the potential seems there.

The big question is really if its possible to 'think' in the language. Have you been able to get into the stage where its like thinking? But then your thought feels limited? I feel like people have proven its possible to think in it though I'm not there yet. I am still at the puzzle stage. Thinking it in unlocks abilities like how AI are now are able to think in terms of human language.

I definitely consider Esperanto to be a full language. I like how the vocabulary is based on a prefix/suffix system that reduces the amount of words you have to know, and the grammar is very simple and consistent.

> The big question is really if its possible to 'think' in the language. Have you been able to get into the stage where its like thinking?

I was approaching that stage when I was learning it, but I'm a bit rusty now since I haven't used it in a while. There are definitely people at that level though. Check out Esperanto youtubers like Evildea.

> But then your thought feels limited?

Usually if you can't think of a word, you can insert the English word in your thinking and make a mental note to look up the vocabulary later.

It's a really fun language. It's a shame there aren't more speakers.

After I commented I realized you're referring to Toki Pona in the second part of your comment. Yeah you're definitely going to be limited with your thinking. That's not really a problem with Esperanto.

Check out this talk by Tim Owen where he goes over the basics of Esperanto and why it's so easy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCiFMD8RNbg

Here's a cheat sheet you might find interesting: https://i.imgur.com/FKasIpP.jpg

I like Couturat et al.'s Ido even better. I can't "think" in it yet, but it is very regular and easy to learn. The main (irrational, personal) issue I have with it is the monotony of endings, -o is always a singular noun, etc. Plus it is Eurocentric. It does have pan-gender words like lu, saving having to say he/she/it. Tradeoffs.

Fun fact, the creator of TP is a Finnish fan and a fair bit of the vocab is from Finnish words.

mi sona ala e ni. toki pona li toki lili. toki sike li wile nimi mute. toki pona li jo ala e nimi mute. toki pona li jo nimi moku. toki pona li jo ala nimi "consume". sona suli li wile e nimi mute. toki siki li wile ala toki pona.

Sorry, can't translate, toki pona language specs is copyrighted.

I don't think there is validity to that though I do appreciate the humor and sentiment. A book can be copy-written sure but many have re-created the spec and dictionary.

Recreating a spec is the entire idea of teaching something from scratch. It's too fundamental for law like that. Unless you know examples of actual legal threats and aggressive positioning, maybe like what happened around Lojban.

> A book can be copy-written

Not if it's copyrighted, one would think?

The dictionary is released into the public domain :)

Is there a place I can find it online?

Searching google for "toki pona dictionary online", in an incognito tab, brings up three dictionaries. One of them (the one on zrajm.github.io) is identical to the one in the book. You can also find a copy in the Toki Pona discord server. I have prepared a PDF version (1 page double-sided, a4 paper) which can be found here: http://0x0.st/ofqt.pdf from this groff input file: http://0x0.st/ofqv.roff (also by me).

"siki" li seme?

pakala. mi wile toki e "sike". mi pilin lape mute lol

Has it? I thought the language was built non-extendable and essentially frozen.

Some people say writing and computers and law have frozen English as well. At least relatively. It really depends on your own goals and opinions of language and what kind of world-wide-web of communication you'd be wanting. I'm thinking in terms of world-wide cyberspace where word-language is just a tiny fraction of the total universal mediums people can communicate it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com