toki! mi jan Tupula. ni li tomo mi lon linluwi. ona li jo e toki mi pi sona mute, lon toki Inli en toki pona. o lukin pona.

• lon tenpo suno 2020-05-18

  pu pi toki pona: A case study in orthodoxy

  toki pona is a minimalist constructed language, created by linguist Sonja Lang between 2001 and 2014. It features 9 consonants and 5 vowels in its phonemic inventory (cf. most dialects of English at 24 and 14-25), and those 14 phonemes combine into a 123-word vernacular. The standard reference document on the conlang is currently Lang’s book from 2014. There are many things to find fascinating about toki pona, but the one I’d like to explore in detail right now is this: toki pona dedicates one of its 123 words to that specific book, despite not having a word for “book”...