Toki Pona

Also known as: Toki Pona

Toki Pona ("good language") is a minimalist constructed language created by Canadian linguist Sonja Lang and first published online in 2001 (Toronto), with the official book Toki Pona: The Language of Good appearing in 2014. It uses just 120 root words (the official "pu" canon) — there is no native counting system beyond "two," no dedicated word for "sibling" (kinship is expressed through compounds, while mama broadly means "parent"), and no specific verb tenses; meaning is conveyed through compound phrases and context. The vocabulary draws eclectically from English, Tok Pisin, Finnish, Mandarin, Cantonese, Esperanto, Croatian, Acadian French, Georgian, Dutch, and Welsh. Phonology: 14 phonemes — 9 consonants /p t k s m n l j w/ and 5 vowels /a e i o u/ — a very small inventory, though not the smallest of any Latin-orthography language (Rotokas, about 11, and Hawaiian, 13, have fewer). Inspired by Taoist philosophical minimalism (the simpler the expression, the closer to truth) and Buddhist non-attachment. The community has developed multiple writing systems beyond Latin: sitelen pona (logographic, 2014), sitelen sitelen (illustrative, 2012), and sitelen suwi.

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