LIPAMANKA PI FONT ALA

[halcyon siren]

||generally — if it’s capable of claiming to be a jan, it’s probably a jan.||

[tacit totem]

||jan is an animal word which includes any species that can communicate in toki pona (not exclusive to biological entities)||

[rocky urchin]

Can't wait to see what definitions of akesi you might come up with!

[stark epoch]

otesunki no longer knows what an akesi is

also it no longer looks like a word

[visual oracle]

-remind 8h jans

[rain lotus]

spoilers:

• it appears akesi do not fly
• most akesi are funny looking

pterosaur apologists are shaking rn

hm this is making me think abt cuteness and the original def of akesi
what ppl saw was an insult, but is it?
does smth not being cute mean it doesn't deserve to be treasured? i don't think it does
might fuck around and start defining akesi as "weird little freaks"

[neon shale]

The thing with akesi being 'uncute animal' is that it implies that not-being cute is a trait of all akesi

Also It's typically not helpful to define things by a negative in my opinion

"Weird little freaks" can imply cuteness, it's more applicable to akesi than "not cute"

[rain lotus]

i would define soweli in part as "can't fly"
negative definitions have their use

[neon shale]

Sure

But like, is not being cute an inherent quality? Are there cute akesi?

I mean, there's actually flying soweli, in my opinion

[raven ibex]

I'll believe that when pigs fly

/j

[rain lotus]

this but not joking

[neon shale]

https://tenor.com/view/frickin-bats-i-love-halloween-katie-ryan-bats-halloween-gif-12113966

[rain lotus]

bats are waso

[neon shale]

Hmm

[rain lotus]

as a waso myself i'm somewhat of an expert

[neon shale]

Okay I can see the argument

[rain lotus]

it's not just an argument, it's how most fluent speakers use the word waso ime

but yeah i agree that there are cute akesi, but there are a lot of noncute akesi to the point where i think putting it in the def is actually useful

to me the point of toki pona definitions is to not only say what the word has been used for, but to show what it could possibly be used for

if i see an ugly ass mammal, i see no problem with calling it an akesi for it

[neon shale]

Sure, but wouldn't soweli suwi ala or soweli pi lukin ike be more readily understandable?

[rain lotus]

with context they're equally as understandable

[neon shale]

Sure

And you can call it what works best for you, obviously

[rain lotus]

(*ike lukin, lukin ike would mean its eyes are bad)

[neon shale]

(Right thanks)

[rain lotus]

but yeah to me the noncute definition helps establish the vibe even if it doesn't apply to every single akesi

[neon shale]

Yeah I can see how that helps the vibe, I just feel bad for the akesi they get it rough.

[rain lotus]

mhm a part of why i want to reclaim it is bc i think ppl take noncute to mean bad when it really doesn't

there's this idea that only cute things get to be cared for and it sucks, i'd rather get better about noncute things than just saying they're cute actually

[neon shale]

Well it's not that I would want cute in the definition it's just not having non-cute. But it is true there's a general trend to lacking empathy towards less cute things, it's why so much money is given to preserve Great Panda and so little is given to like the Borneo Mole Cricket (I may be misremembering the name or species) even though the latter is vital to its environment

Obviously things that aren't cute have worth

[raven ibex]

thinking about how Minecraft developers refer to their critter aesthetic as "ugly cute"

[neon shale]

Yeah, tbf, ugly and cute aren't even really strict antonyms in my opinion

[undone crescent]

||no idea - "person" is a nice concept until you look at it too long, "character" works maybe 90% of the time because 90% of how I read things has to do with everything being a story, but there are plenty of things that don't work in a story setting - stuff I make direct communication with covers a lot of things, but there's plenty of jan I can't ever communicate to - stuff that's part of society... society also seems like either a shaky term, or an incredibly fuzzy term||

[scarlet briar]

Reminder for @visual oracle

Reminder from YAGPDB

jans

[visual oracle]

|| for me it's

• some kind of person or personlike entity
• probably someone can communicate with it
• it's aware and alive
• probably humanoid but doesn't have to be necessarily
  ||

[floral crescent]

i’ve been saying this for a whole

while

also overnight my sample size has increased to 70

i am extremely happy with my methodology

i’m also happy i stuck with just akesi for this

[frank star]

Hmm chickens and other flightless birds should be akesi not waso

Or soweli

[floral crescent]

chickens aren’t flightless

they fly

[frank star]

Barely

[floral crescent]

for me personally it’s about when animals need to move fast, how do they do it?

chickens fly

even if it’s just a bit

ostriches run, very soweli to me

that’s just me though

[frank star]

Chickens don’t fly enough to be a flying thing to me

[floral crescent]

this is why i’m excited to study waso

[frank star]

They usually strut and that’s an akesi like movement

[floral crescent]

because we don’t know how important flight is to waso

[frank star]

To me, again

[floral crescent]

oh i completely disagree, i don’t think any akesi strut

[frank star]

Idk the way some akesi move feel like the quadrupedal form of strutting

[floral crescent]

i do not agree

but also soon i will have SCIENCE to support me

once again this is a pilot study but it still will be useful because my sample size will probably be like 80

i think strut is actually a waso thing or a soweli thing or even a jan thing

[neon shale]

New class of animals 'sasi' for those that strut

[halcyon siren]

https://tenor.com/view/walking-prowling-amphibian-lizard-gecko-gif-16250804

this guy is strutting

[blissful crag]

nasin tawa ni li lon monsi
akesi en waso li ni

[floral crescent]

i do not think so

[frank star]

Actually maybe you’re right

[blissful crag]

li ken* ni

[frank star]

That isn’t really a strut

[floral crescent]

i guess maybe it is

maybe

[halcyon siren]

it has the vibes but it isn't exactlyy

it's ambiguous

[floral crescent]

it differs from the strut that chickens do

[blissful crag]

ni a

[halcyon siren]

certainly

[blissful crag]

waso mute li tawa e lawa ona lon nasin tawa ni

[halcyon siren]

kinda has the same typa swag tho

[blissful crag]

o swag tawa akesi
sina swag la sina akesi

[floral crescent]

yeah

not all but some

because they can’t move their eyes independently, so their heads will stay in the same place while their bodies move forward before their heads LURCH forward

akesi la nope

https://tenor.com/view/road-runner-fast-speed-bird-run-gif-17125350

ni li soweli tawa mi

li awen ken waso

[blissful crag]

ona li tawa wawa sama akesi li sewi e lawa sama akesi

seme la ona li kala li pipi 👀

[floral crescent]

eh

i don’t really see it

[blissful crag]

akesi ni li tawa telo li sewi e noka ona sama waso ma pi sitelen sina

ona li waso kala akesi soweli
wakakowelesi

[floral crescent]

https://tenor.com/view/akesi-akesi-li-suwi-kili-li-loje-gif-21866511

[floral crescent]

pilin mi lá mi li ken… nnn pakala

explodes

[blissful crag]

pakala pona

jan sona: [li alasa poki e ijo ale lon poki sona]
ijo ale: [li weka tan poki]
toki Inli la ni
toki pona la ni
ale la ni, a a

[floral crescent]

i’m gonna do another poll of edge cases when i’ve done my poll for each of these things

[blissful crag]

a, sina awen wile poki sona e ijo ale

o sisyphus pona

[floral crescent]

okay

[blissful crag]

^ sina sona ala sona e musi mi
mi musi a, nasin sina pi kama sona li pona
taso ni kin li lon: pali ni li ken ala pini li ken ala ale
la mi toki musi e ni

[floral crescent]

i am a linguist, i don’t see this as putting animals in boxes, i see this as putting labels on animals to help figure out what a word means

also i just woke up if i notice humor it’s so much extra energy to engage with it rn

i’m in linguist mode

[blissful crag]

ni tu li poki

[blissful crag]

ni la ale li pona

[floral crescent]

lipu lili

mi pana e lipu lili tawa soweli. lipu li toki e ni: soweli ni li sowlei

[blissful crag]

lipu lili li alasa poki e nimi
sina toki e ni: nimi li ken ante tawa 'lipu lili' tawa 'poki'
taso ni li weka ala e nasin poki

[floral crescent]

i guess like ni li ken poki

[blissful crag]

sina wile sona e nimi la pona

[visual oracle]

I just did the akesi form and I want to say, I love this question format

[floral crescent]

i am extremely happy with it

i’m going to do it again for akesi and also all the other animal words, but each time you fill it out you fill it out for only one word

one form, six words

but this is going to be a summer study

this data is WAY easier to analyze

not that i need an empirical study to tell me that akesi tend to lay eggs

[undone crescent]

it's also way easier to answer
stress reduction about 500%

[visual oracle]

lipamanka o you play recorder right? Do you have a recommendation for an entry level one that isn't going to hamper me unduly? Bonus points if the volume on it is lower

[visual oracle]

I hear the yamahas are decent.. and damn that's cheap

benefits of scale I suppose

[floral crescent]

if you want volume lower I recommend starting on an alto instead of a soprano

but besides that literally any plastic recorder in the 40-60 dollar range would be decent enough quality that I would perform with it after these past ten or so years of playing

you could prolly get away with literally any alto though ngl

[visual oracle]

humm ok

I saw someone say that altos tend to be more finicky

but if you say it's unlikely to be a problem for a beginner then I could be down for it

[floral crescent]

I wouldn't go above 60 dollars

but I wouldn't go below 30

for a beginner alto

aulos and yamaha are both good

[visual oracle]

also it would be a nice addition to my collection in general, I don't have a ton of instruments that go lower than my main ocarinas (c4-f6) (though I have a few that go a bit lower and some that go an octave higher)

👍 pona

thoughts between them? Just price/availability?

[floral crescent]

not really

I have an aulos and a yamaha and I like my aulos more but I also don't think it particularly matters

[visual oracle]

also I know that recorders might come in different pitch tunings.. My ocarinas are all based on A=440Hz, is that the standard for recorder also?

It would be nice to have it match in case I ever want to record a thing with tracks

[floral crescent]

there are multiple standards for recorders

[visual oracle]

I ask because the shop pages I'm seeing don't even say

[floral crescent]

baroque tuned recorders are tuned to a=415

just avoid baroque recorders and you should be fine I'd say

[visual oracle]

baroque tuned right - just because it's baroque fingering that wouldn't imply different pitch?

[floral crescent]

also you can tune recorders

[visual oracle]

ahhh

[floral crescent]

unlike ocarinas

[visual oracle]

didn't think of that

[floral crescent]

but it's limited

you can easily tune them down but not up

[visual oracle]

that makes sense

you do it by slipping the head joint out a bit right?

that would lengthen it so -> lower

[floral crescent]

yep!

exactly

you can also change the pitch with breath and mouth shape but that is a bit tricky

I was about 4-6 years in when I learned about how to do that (I was barely a teenager at that time so fine motor skills hadn't developed for me yet)

[visual oracle]

it's for me so not so much a concern, other than just being very new to music in general

fuck I hate how useless amazon filters are

check the "alto" box on the left

listings still show sopranos and tenors

just no enforcement at all

[floral crescent]

wow.

[visual oracle]

this happens for like any category of thing

clothes la I check "linen" -> listings have polyester

man am I just spoiled by ocarina vendors? I'm really used to a bunch of them listing the specific note ranges + pitch tuning

This aulos page doesn't even list what key it's in!! https://aulosusa.com/products/aulos-concert-series-alto-recorder

I figured going to the vendor would get me more info than a random amazon listing but somehow it's worse 😐

I should go to my local music shop

crap I fell down a rabbit hole lol https://aswltd.com/tuning.htm
💀

hey aren't you being a sleepophobe? 🤨

[rocky urchin]

a! Is this a reoccuring issue?

[floral crescent]

oh uh
sopranino: always in F
soprano: always in C
alto: always in F
tenor: always in C
voice flute: always in D

(do not get a voice flute)

(also if you get a recorder in F and a recorder in C, they aren't transposing, so you need to learn them in concert pitch)

[rocky urchin]

Sleep science is one of my niches

Even though for the time I have had my actual knowledge on this subject is quite lacking

I wish I knew more about sleep

a! Do you wake up with an alarm?

Do you go back to sleep next?

[floral crescent]

oh wow very relatable!

but I still dont' have chronic fatigue I'm able bodied 😤

[rocky urchin]

Do you go back to sleep once you've fed your cat?

Doesn't that mean you end up lacking sleep every day?

Not true, capitalism can totally accomodate a healthy sleep schedule

It just doesn't

Because that's a fun prank I guess

[floral crescent]

wait so

so once I'm out of bed I feel like I'm going to fall over

or like I should go back to bed

no way I have chronic fatigue tho

[rocky urchin]

Do you wake up with an alarm?

[floral crescent]

I do not have obligations before 1 PM so I usually don't use an alarm

when I set an alarm I always wake up two hours before it goes off

[rocky urchin]

Excellent

Waking up with an alarm is CAPITALISM!!!

[blissful crag]

-mute @rocky urchin let's take a break.

[visual oracle]

are those the keys I should get them in or are they the keys that they are "always this unless marked otherwise" ?

[floral crescent]

always this unless marked otherwise

[visual oracle]

sona a

thanks

[floral crescent]

what is the note when you hold all fingers down on an ocarina>

[visual oracle]

I'm used to ocarinas where for every octave range it's typical to have both C and G and maybe also F and then sometimes people do other keys for custom stuff

the sort of "default" is the alto C which gives you a C4 as the root note (disregarding the subholes on a 12-hole, which let you get the A/B below that if at reduced quality)

[floral crescent]

alright

how large are your hands

[visual oracle]

bigish

[floral crescent]

do you have gIANT HANDS

HUGE HANDS

[visual oracle]

uhh let me see

[floral crescent]

okay how easy is it for you to spread them apart (the fingers, no thte thumbs)

but all of your fingernails should be in a straight line

[visual oracle]

I can but I'm not used to that motion so it's not super comfortable

[visual oracle]

????¿¿¿

[floral crescent]

okay

uh

[visual oracle]

diagrams?

[floral crescent]

if you want I can bring my recorders to mass this summer (I am going to mass this summer) and let you try them out

[visual oracle]

!

yo I'd be so down for that regardless of anything else

meeting toki poners irl? meeting cool toki poners irl? meeting lipamankish toki poners irl? I'm in

[floral crescent]

okay

I am going to be on the cape so

idk how easy it will be for me to get to boston

and I cannot drive

but we can figure something out

[frank star]

Wait is this a public thing??

[visual oracle]

~2h big bus ride from hyannis or so

[floral crescent]

how much is that

[visual oracle]

used to be like $30 but who knows these days

[floral crescent]

oh golly gee

you could drive up

[visual oracle]

I could possibly go to cape

[floral crescent]

if you drive

[visual oracle]

I don't drive 😄

[floral crescent]

damn zamn

[visual oracle]

I was a teenager on cape though

so I'm familiar with it

[floral crescent]

my family goes to the cape every summer

[visual oracle]

also sadly familiar with how absolutely devastatingly poor the transit options are

but it does at least exist

[floral crescent]

I want to get away from themm

[visual oracle]

VALID

cape on the summer is horrible

(as someone who lived there)

[floral crescent]

yea

[visual oracle]

worst time to visit

[floral crescent]

the beaches are like fine..

[visual oracle]

unless you are a fucking hermit who just sits on the beach getting drunk

[visual oracle]

cape cod is the eastern part of the state of massachusetts

it sticks

yeah into the ocean

well known for beaches

[floral crescent]

I usually end up here

[visual oracle]

and tourism

and everyone who actually lives there being either poor and addicted to substances or rich and assholish

[floral crescent]

you can't swim in the ocean anymore because of sharks

prolly

[visual oracle]

pft nah it's fine unless there's a specific warning at that time

shark attacks there are SUPER fucking rare

[floral crescent]

my mom has really bad anxiety

(she's in denial)

[visual oracle]

and typically from people doing something inadvisable

[floral crescent]

so we're not allowed to go swimming

[visual oracle]

omg

THEY DRAG YOU TO CAPE AND DON'T LET YOU SWIM

[floral crescent]

but that's fine bc I have swimming trauma and I don't like swimming anywya

[frank star]

Again, is this a public event that I can get information on?

[visual oracle]

THAT'S LITERALLY THE ONLY REASON TO GO THERE

[floral crescent]

lmao

well I mean there are pondfs

the ponds are good

but once again not the biggest fan of swimming

[visual oracle]

the only other things on cape code are the even-more-by-now delapidated mall and heroin addiction

well, provincetown is kind of cool

[floral crescent]

yeah we go there occasionally

my uncles always fly in from NZ (what a nice pair of feygele)

(that's the yiddish F slur)

[visual oracle]

I mean you've viewed the entirety of the conversation

I am fine with meeting more people but I would not assume lipamanka is unless they said so. Also idk if they want public or 1 on 1

but if you're reachable to boston then yeah I'm down to meet up

just in general

[floral crescent]

I like 1 on 1 the most

I know jan Deni better than you

[frank star]

Oh hmm the way you discussed it made it seem like it was an established event

[floral crescent]

the two of us are like this 🤞

[visual oracle]

tbh I'd also rather for lipamanka in particular that it's 1-1 but I am happy to set up something else

also soweli o there's

https://discord.gg/DXjkz778

in DC this summer

[frank star]

Probably wouldn’t be able to go anyway lol- just wanted to see if there was an event mostly

I’m basically stuck in Wisconsin

Like I could probably drive somewhere but I haven’t really gone on any interstates yet

[floral crescent]

oh

lmao

I mean where in wisconsin

there are a lot of toki ponists in the twin cities

[frank star]

Madison area

[floral crescent]

oh wow I was there about a month ago oops

[frank star]

Idk this year is the first summer after I graduated high school so I think a lot of my friends from the class of 2022 would want to meet up

But other than that I don’t have any plans for the summer

I can’t travel too much cus of summer classes

This seems irrelevant now I think I should stop tbh-

[visual oracle]

ale li pona

worth joining the other server just because it'll probably come around again beyond the june/DC meetup

and you can help find folks who are closer to you maybe

[undone crescent]

💪

[visual oracle]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVBtIPOnNI

lipamanka o, I re-found this video and it made me think of our previous conversation about the rate of change in toki pona

and how it's impacted by the internet and population size etc

might be interesting talk in there for you

[floral crescent]

yeah i will look into the sources list for sure

see if any of them are relevant

[sand marsh]

||anything that identitfies as a jan (this is a joke but also true)||

[floral crescent]

seeing how i love semantics so much i thought i’d go look in my college’s library for a book about it

this is towards the end

[visual oracle]

"this" seme is towards the end?

[floral crescent]

the page

[visual oracle]

that's so many

[floral crescent]

i think i might end up

throwing this book at something

so like here we can see

okay back to normal things

so like

the meaning changes

but can ona be used like that

[visual oracle]

https://tenor.com/view/cymbals-monkey-brain-the-simpsons-homer-empty-head-gif-15689692

^ me when I see that book

[floral crescent]

(this is real)

[visual oracle]

I need to stick with easier things like category theory

[floral crescent]

don’t worry i don’t get it either

[visual oracle]

whew

[floral crescent]

just kidding im a SAVANT PRODIGY GIFTED CHILD

[visual oracle]

[floral crescent]

the subscript numbers just show that they’re different people

1 “jan Asa li lukin e mama ona”
2 “ona li lukin e mama pi jan Asa”

the question i have is do these have the same semantic space

or no

[visual oracle]

https://tenor.com/view/pensando-jake-hora-de-aventura-frotando-la-cabeza-pensando-mucho-gif-21886119

[floral crescent]

i will do RESEARCH

should i try to check this book out @visual oracle

[visual oracle]

I mean

I really like the idea of someone doing serious linguistic study on toki pona

[floral crescent]

this book has over thirty pages abkut “the interpretation of ellipsis”

what even is ellipsis

like, …?

TELL ME WHAT THE FUCKING WORD MEANS FUCKER

oh wait their name is literally shalom i can’t be mad

[urban fractal]

ellipsis is when you drop parts of the sentence

[visual oracle]

When the chapter title has a footnote 😐

[floral crescent]

that’s what i was gathering based on the examples

[urban fractal]

“i ate my food, and you yours” elides “ate” and “food” in the second clause

[floral crescent]

yea it’s long too

[floral crescent]

does toki pona have ellipsis? …

it doesn’t have any punctuation

so no

:)

[urban fractal]

[floral crescent]

what does this mean

WHY IS THERE SO MUCH ANAPHORA

i mean don’t get me wrong i love anaphora just as much as the next crypto bro

but this is a bit much

YOOOO I FOUND SOME RACIST BULLSHIT

[rain lotus]

universals

[rocky urchin]

Is that English or lambda calculus?

[halcyon siren]

linguistic universals:
all languages are capable of expressing information

that’s it

[vernal ore]

each letter takes up several pages that's why it's four books

[floral crescent]

there are more things that all languages do than that

giving someone an angry glance is not language

[halcyon siren]

yea i guess.? but i’m not uh.. i don’t know enough to know what they would be

[floral crescent]

yeah the're pretty complicated

[floral crescent]

GUESS WHAT

studies (the one I did) may show that self-assessed proficiency corresponds with consistency in knowledge of toki pona words

maybe

I need to process the data more

I am really excited to publish these studies

[rocky urchin]

Oh, where'd you get your data?

[floral crescent]

99 toki pona speakers who responded to a form that just closed two minutes ago

[rocky urchin]

a? How come I didn't see that form? I thought you always pinged the appropriate role

[floral crescent]

you got pinged

multiple times

twice in #sona-kulupu-tpt and once in #pana

[ivory falcon]

wish i had literally a fraction of the energy to complete your forms lol

[floral crescent]

you completeds this one

[rocky urchin]

You mean the akesi form?

[floral crescent]

yes

[ivory falcon]

yeah i do like one in every 6 it's annoying

[rocky urchin]

What does that have to do with self-assessed proficiency and consistency in knowledge of Toki Pona words

[floral crescent]

was this one easier than they normally are

because it was checking boxes and not writing paragraphs

[floral crescent]

I collected the following data:

• self-assessed proficiency
• knowledge of the toki pona word "akesi"
  If there's a correlation I can point it out

[ivory falcon]

yeah and bc it said akesi on the front

[floral crescent]

jsldfjsldkfj

[rocky urchin]

Ah fair enough

[floral crescent]

though of course I'll only have evidence that that's true for akesi

[ivory falcon]

concept: lipamanka does the forms with me in vc every time bc my onions are good and my spoons are few

[floral crescent]

okay!

I agree to this

[halcyon siren]

🧅

[floral crescent]

my onions are also good

[ivory falcon]

opinion is a bad word onion is better in every way

[rocky urchin]

Really what is the difference between akesi and the rest of the Toki Pona language?

[floral crescent]

OH

[floral crescent]

there are a few differences, none of them are relevant. lupa li lon musi sina

[rocky urchin]

• They're all words
• akesis are probably just as diverse as the vocabulary (don't quote me on that (unless your name is Lipamanka and your studies support this))
• 

[floral crescent]

hey @ivory falcon wanna do my form about toki pona and place on vc now

🧅

I can sneak you into my paper

and I can quote you as "the bird"

[rain lotus]

Aw fuck I forgor to do the akesi form

[floral crescent]

too late

brushes you asside and invalidates your feelings

(just kidding)

[rain lotus]

hbdbdhdhbdbdvshdbdbveh

[floral crescent]

(I mean it is too late but also if u wanna infodump about akesi)

(go ahead)

[rain lotus]

that’s a shit keysmash damn

[floral crescent]

bhdbhdhvdhvdhbhdbhdvhhbdh

[rain lotus]

Luz might show up to infodump if she can fucking CHOOSE A NAME

[rocky urchin]

kvdsmckjlajnfkiadnvieasjnf
^ Good keysmashing

Lipamanka, did you copy their keysmash on purpose or do you both really just do a lawa sama here

[rain lotus]

kala suno 🌌 kutemu ↩️

[Reply to:](#1032830156676538378 message) Luz might show up to infodump if she can fucking CHOOSE A NAME

[rocky urchin]

wow that's a sad cat

[floral crescent]

mine is very different from theirs

[rocky urchin]

That person should definitely reconsider what they did

[rain lotus]

the girls are fightinggggg

do a different channel tho you’re gonna make the wife mad

[rocky urchin]

• 30% "b"
• 30% "d"
• 30% "h"
• 10% "v"

Literally the only thing that changed is that they had a "v" and an "e" as well

[floral crescent]

yeah that's because I'm good at copying the vibes of keymashes

[rain lotus]

anyways luz you could be akesi Lu

[floral crescent]

they start with the same letter and tehy have different orders

[rain lotus]

that sounds like I’m going to the toilet, no

waso laso 🌌 kutemu ↩️

[Reply to:](#1032830156676538378 message) anyways luz you could be akesi Lu

lusa?

that sounds more like loser than my name already does

[ivory falcon]

i'm getting ready for going out rn sowwy

[floral crescent]

okay

no forgiveness

what do you think I am, jesus? no. I'm jewish. unlike jesus, jews don't care about forgiveness. yom kippur? never heard of it.

[rocky urchin]

What if I say pwease? :3

[floral crescent]

uhhhh

no

this reminds me of when i got warned for saying fuck the french ..

[rocky urchin]

Reminds me of all the times I stopped myself from making a joke about the British, being a French person, knowing what server I'm on

[floral crescent]

the british sure did oppress the french

but btw you can make fun of the british if you want

as long as it isn’t harassment

[rocky urchin]

I can? I don't know I'd probably be more likely to listen to you if you told me I could do hard drugs legally ||I'm not even sure if I'm allowed to say that||

[floral crescent]

fuck the united kingdom

especially northern Ireland

@tired ocean

[rain lotus]

I’m refraining from reacting with a middle finger

[floral crescent]

fuck the irish including @wicked hill

[ivory falcon]

lipamanka please

[rain lotus]

We’re not northern we’re connacht

mostly Galway iirc

[ivory falcon]

pensv

[maiden light]

(@tired ocean)

oh you were already pinged

Sorry for the tu

[rain lotus]

That reminds me I’ve been meaning to learn more about my Norwegian family

[floral crescent]

wait ur norwegian i thought you were white …

okay i am. very delirious no more jokes for me

[floral crescent]

new essay

"what does ambiguity mean"

where I use

linguistics

tow in

win

[visual oracle]

@floral crescent o with discord changing how usernames work soon, it's not clear that the records you've collected in your surveys will be able to link back

the part where you ask for the discord name + #1234

it's unclear afaict if you will be able to locate users with that info if they have migrated to the new username system

[halcyon siren]

i believe you will be able to find that

[visual oracle]

https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/12620128861463#h_01GXPQ8V39BP3D4M1NCGCB2DPZ
According to here you'll be able to find them "for a limited period of time"

that is really awkward

[frank star]

what are they doing

dude who has an issue with the current system

[urban fractal]

discriminators are not great tbh

[frank star]

New usernames are restricted to only Latin, alphanumeric characters and select special characters ( _ and . )
great

[urban fractal]

they try to solve the issue of usernames being taken by making everyone put numbers in their name

[halcyon siren]

https://discord.com/blog/usernames i would encourage you to read the blog post for the rationale

[frank star]

they love accommodating all languages 🥰

[halcyon siren]

it is an annoying solution to an annoying problem

[halcyon siren]

on the flipside, tho, it is pretty challenging to moderate non-ascii user names

[rain lotus]

yikes

jan Deni ↩️

[Reply to:](#1032830156676538378 message) @floral crescent o with discord changing how usernames work soon, it's not clear that the recor…

no idea how to remedy that

[urban fractal]

id replace the usernames in the responses with ids

[halcyon siren]

mhm, but the update doesn’t say how long you’ll be able to find people with the old usernames after they change them

so any polls whose essays are ongoing have that as a problem

[urban fractal]

you can start this right now

ids are here and wont be changing

im referring to this id 431569424105865216

[halcyon siren]

ah

well i.. i don’t think they have the intention of changing beyond this change

[frank star]

actually i don't know why i got mad at this...

cus i had changed my discriminator once and then my nitro expired and it didn't go back to the old one so i had to fix it everywhere

[rain lotus]

i’ll just put “some way where i’ll know who you are and can quote you and/or contact you, also friend me on discord or send me an email or something” i think

jan Seli ↩️

[Reply to:](#1032830156676538378 message) id replace the usernames in the responses with ids

maybe

[urban fractal]

i mean in your existing responses

so that that information is preserved

[rain lotus]

yeah

i mean i am probably not going to use that data honestly

[rain lotus]

they're better than people username parking and nonlatin scripts being explicitly taken out

jan Seli ↩️

[Reply to:](#1032830156676538378 message) discriminators are not great tbh

[brave rune]

@floral crescent Are you YouTube? Because i want You tu Be mine 🥺

[floral crescent]

OMG thats so sweet

REAL

[sand marsh]

it is if you say “this specific facial expression means angry. use this intentionally when you want people to know that you’re angry” than it is tho. also many ASL words include a facial expression. so. kinda maybe sometimes yes

i think the “use thing X intentionally to express idea Y” is why differentiates them

[floral crescent]

that's not what makes something a language

like the [k] sound is not a language

it can be part of a language but on its own it isn't a language

a movie showing events that happened is not language

[sand marsh]

so you need a system, with stringing together your X-means-Y-s

[sand marsh]

do they at least have them for display names?

[floral crescent]

also an angry look isn't an X in the same way that phonemes are. While gestures or looks or vocalizations like this can convey information they're completely analogue, unlike language which has rules and is at least partially digital (as in, it's segmental and the parts can be shown to follow some sort of logic)

that's about as far as universal grammar goes. those rules can be anything

[rain lotus]

they do but that's not rly the point y'know

len Koso ↩️

[Reply to:](#1032830156676538378 message) do they at least have them for display names?

[halcyon siren]

my understanding is that they're trying to make that rly the point

for better or worse

like what i think they're trying to do is make a system where people don't care very much about their usernames, but i'm not sure that actually works when you're coming from a system that exclusively uses usernames? like they haven't transitioned this in a way where people are actually "getting" it the way they want to

[rain lotus]

as long as there's an Identifying Thing by which ppl find you, people are gonna wanna,,, identify with it
and forcing everyone to do that in latin is just more west-centric bullshit typical of tech companies
it's esp bad when they literally did not have to do this

[frank star]

It’s pay to win now too

Nitro users get priority

[rain lotus]

it's just shit all around

[frank star]

Yeah I thought it was gonna be alright but

no

no it’s not

[rain lotus]

i simply do not assume that discord can make good decisions

[frank star]

Tangentially related, but all nitro perks should theoretically be free, or at least all be included in basic
Since 2 server boosts would cost $10 a month anyways (if you could buy them by the month)
Unless you count the 30% discount, which makes 2 boosts cost $7, which makes everything else worth $3, the cost of nitro basic

[floral crescent]

https://forms.gle/ERNEz9Bvw4xz4Fbn8

[visual oracle]

@floral crescent o, do you know of any non-technical writings that are relatively short and cover the concept of politeness in a way that doesn't frame western/english culture as the default

skimming wikipedia la the articles I find are pretty biased and tend to phrase things in a way that states the western/anglo methods of politeness as if they're objective facts, and then they just have a small "criticism" section that just kind of says "hey maybe there's other stuff too"

for example the difference in what's considered polite in Deaf culture vs english vs like maybe japanese

I'm writing https://sona.pona.la/wiki/Phatic_Expressions_and_Social_Conventions and I want to draw some parallels in a way that's better-founded than my very imperfect understanding

[floral crescent]

uhhhhhhh none that i can think of

if you want an example of politeness that is very different from western politeness i recommend “wisdom sits in places”

[visual oracle]

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/871243.Wisdom_Sits_in_Places ?

[floral crescent]

that’s the one!

generally a great read

[visual oracle]

thanks, I'll see about it

[floral crescent]

hi i’ve decided to not be a quote on quote famous community member

people don’t know who i am anymore

[halcyon siren]

what is this thread how did i get here

hi uh. sweet pickls w/cool spices. are you new here or something?

[floral crescent]

yeah

i speak toki pona but i just got here

i have cool takes but also like not in a way where people have to agree with me

[halcyon siren]

sweet

i will take a critical look at your takes in order to compare them to my own thoughts, thus gaining a better understanding of my opinions and yours

[floral crescent]

so cool

oh by the way i AM jewish

just so u know

and i’m from NYC that’s pretty important take a shot every time i mention NYC

[halcyon siren]

woah that’s so swag me too actually

[vernal ore]

man i was born and raised in new york and i go there to visit family every once in a while but ive never actually been to nyc

what is it like sweet pickls w/cool spices o

[floral crescent]

eh

you should come tho

[vernal ore]

i should

how big is the apple

[halcyon siren]

kili suli

[umbral stream]

oh lipamanka o idk if i told u but i went to nyc earlier this year

[floral crescent]

if i was there at the time and you DIDNT TELL ME i’m going to KILL YOU

[floral crescent]

very big

but ridiculously navigable via trains

at least if you live near a stop

which a lot of people do! and a lot of people don’t which sucks and they’re usually the poorer ones

[vernal ore]

damn

imagine having ever used a train

[umbral stream]

it was uhhh march 22-24

[floral crescent]

lol i was halfway across the country

[umbral stream]

i get to live

[halcyon siren]

is it just your job to meet every tokiponer who is in new york

[floral crescent]

well if i’m there at the time

[halcyon siren]

you’ll never get me :3

[umbral stream]

nyc is really cool i love public transportation i love being able to go places

[floral crescent]

yes

all day long

And you can go anywhere

ever

except for staten island (win!!!)

[spare garnet]

i am going back to nj again in a couple days

[hushed gorge]

lipamanka I'm sorry but we can't be friends any more because I like dill pickles better than sweet pickles
Actually you're still fine because cool spices are cool

[floral crescent]

oh cool well i’m in DC

for the toki pona meetup

but if you wanna meet up then let’s do it

[spare garnet]

does the toki pona meetup really extend all the way to thursday? thursday is when i miiiight have some free time

im flying in tuesday, court on wednesday, then flying out friday

[hushed gorge]

Oh no I forgot that the meetup was happening I should have started walking like a month ago

[floral crescent]

no it ends like today

[spare garnet]

ok

[floral crescent]

also it’s in Washington DC

[spare garnet]

yeah ik

im saying if youre back in nyc by the time i come then maybe could do smth idk

[floral crescent]

ah yeah i’ll be back

[cedar grail]

me when I'm in the #1020033302595391488 thread i created that's just like for/about myself in general

[floral crescent]

:3 okay :3

[floral crescent]

what’s everyone’s favorite lipamanka pi font ala

[rough isle]

meee
i am

[floral crescent]

youre my favorite too

[vernal ore]

easily the one that isnt the font

[raven ibex]

i like the grammar resource where the sitelen are really big

[floral crescent]

oh right I forgot about that

I should like finish it maybe

[queen finch]

kimapanla pi tonf ala

[undone crescent]

I was going to say the dictionary
But it's the songs

[floral crescent]

Q - This reminds me of a language simple people would speak on an island, like Hawai’ian.
A - Okay let me work quickly here. Calling some cultures simpler than others, no matter the context, is racist. It has been used to justify colonialism. “Look at these simple people! We need to take control of them and their land so we can bring them the joys of Complex European Culture.” If you think this is overly dramatic, it’s not. These are real justifications used by real people, and they are used today. Now that that’s out of the way, similarly to how it’s difficult to put all people on a single sliding scale of general intelligence, it’s very difficult to put all languages on a sliding scale of general complexity. It is possible to compare aspects of languages. For example, toki pona has a less complex inflectional morphology system than English. toki pona has a much smaller lexicon than Vietnamese. toki pona requires more information to be disambiguated via context in order to disambiguate large concepts than Nahuatl. But to say toki pona is generally simpler than other langauges is misguided and not really useful.

<@&1061183612709515354> what do we think

[rocky urchin]

pona a

[floral crescent]

@rocky urchin too

mostly looking for opinoins on the first bit

don't try to understand the linguistics jargon

okay 👍 it will be 4 AM

ahaha

[echo lion]

I like it! Gets to the point and addresses ways people might object

[floral crescent]

I have 1k words already in my Q&A page

[floral crescent]

thank u

[floral crescent]

https://lipamanka.gay/essays/FAQ

[rustic tartan]

well I have nothing to say about the meaning except "Thank you for all the effort, this is useful!"
but I did find a few typos
ridiculous and 2 despites

also cipher here is spelled inconsistently, but both are right, so how much this matters is your decision

[floral crescent]

thank you so much I am very bad at spelling

changes pushed

[young moat]

I think it would be funny to tokiponize some of these

(Is toki pona a real language?)
Q - toki pona li lon ala lon?
A - lon
Q - taso, toki pona li toki ala toki?
A - …

[floral crescent]

sfa

sadfghgjhhfg

[halcyon siren]

also border/boarder typo

(grr i hate homophones)

[floral crescent]

which one is the right one

help

[halcyon siren]

border

in this case

[floral crescent]

okay pushed

[halcyon siren]

dividing line: border
person who boards: boarder

[young moat]

jan supa

[quartz hill]

@floral crescent language, definition, believing, solely, accomplish

[floral crescent]

-remindme 4h language, definition, believing, solely, accomplish (click here -> <#1032830156676538378 message>)

[floral crescent]

ur so cool for this

[floral crescent]

Q - are all toki ponists evil SJW biden supporters who love weed and abortions and transing children’s genders and hate all cishet white men and judeo-christian values

A - yeah something like that. i mean we tend to not like biden and jewish values are not similar to christian values but. yeah

[halcyon siren]

we do love weed. and abortions and transing children's genders also.

[scarlet briar]

Reminder for @floral crescent

Reminder from YAGPDB

language, definition, believing, solely, accomplish (click here -> <#1032830156676538378 message>)

[small lion]

“judeo-christian values” is such a nonsense statement i love it

also sama la there are SO MANY points of view in christianity too

[halcyon siren]

judeo christian values is literally just "we want to say christian values but that's too obvious"

[small lion]

also true

[halcyon siren]

because i know for a FACT that nobody who says that is actually researching the jewish perspective on whatever issue they're pretending to be knowledgeable about

[small lion]

Judeo-Christian values, but if you disagree with my political ideology you’re not a real Jew/Christian

but they’re too scared to admit that maybe treating religious groups as monoliths is a bad idea

[halcyon siren]

literally

the thing that gets me is when people try to say "judeo christian values" to be like "no reproductive healthcare under any circumstances", even though literally the number of jewish groups that would agree with that is like. a rounding error

[small lion]

LITERALLY

“in Israel where family law is controlled by Orthodox Rabbinic religious authorities, the vast majority of abortions are considered legal and are permitted”

mhm yeah judeo-christian values are totally a real thing

[rocky urchin]

judeo christian values exist they're just not about every single specific opinion people hold

from what i understand it applies to stuff like "hey uh. don't kill people"

[small lion]

What if it’s for a just cause? What if you’re defending your country in a war?

[rocky urchin]

reproductive healthcare is a whole other can of worms and i'm pretty sure i've heard of a few saying that condoms are bad as well

[halcyon siren]

those are two very different scenarios

[small lion]

Exactly

what if you need to steal to feed your children etc. etc.

[rocky urchin]

i don't think you have to agree with them, but i do think that judaism and christianity have shared values

(this has nothing to do with what people believe judeo-christian values to be btw.)

[small lion]

like maybe in theory there’s agreement but i feel like there’s so many perspectives and nuances between groups that you just can’t possibly consider them as a monolith

[floral crescent]

you’re forgetting about ben shapiro and dennis prager

who are in fact jewish

[rocky urchin]

there's agreement on some things. i don't know how the term is actually used (it could be used to say that judaism and christianity are the same ideologically, they're definitely not) but from what i understand it is the overlap.

the overlap between christian values and judaic values.

[halcyon siren]

i try to forget about them, yes

[floral crescent]

lmaoooo

fair enough

[halcyon siren]

but they're also sellouts with no consistent opinions anyways

[floral crescent]

yeah

[small lion]

I’m not saying it doesn’t exist but at some point I feel like it’s a meaningless distinction because myriad societies and religions believe things like “don’t kill, don’t steal, love your neighbor, etc. etc.”

[floral crescent]

actually what is the overlap

[small lion]

yeah for real

[halcyon siren]

ni a

[floral crescent]

i guess

but like that overlap is overlapped with most cultures right

“don’t kill” is a foundation of most religions, no?

[halcyon siren]

christians interact with jewish texts as part of their religion, but holy text ≠ values

[small lion]

LON FUCKING A

[halcyon siren]

christian culture is distinct from jewish culture, even just in the realm of the tanakh/old testament, because it has a different history of analysis and understanding

[rocky urchin]

this is a whole other can of worms to open. rather, do values count as the values presented in the original texts, or as the ones that are actually practiced in current versions of the religion?

[small lion]

and even so, there is almost ALWAYS asterisks attached

[floral crescent]

well nowadays with judaism not so much

to much energy goes towards trying to not get killed

[small lion]

true

[halcyon siren]

the asterisks are like, self defense and that's it for modern jews

[floral crescent]

pretty much

[rocky urchin]

wait why is this discussion happening in lipamanka pi font ala (just answer quickly and then get back on conversation dw)

[small lion]

I think extremely literal applications of old texts to the modern world is very inane

Things change over time

[floral crescent]

well yeah most jews seem to understand that

[rocky urchin]

yes. but what about less than literal applications? at what point does it become another ideology entirely?

[small lion]

A lot of christians don’t :P

[floral crescent]

but there are a lot of christian’s who don’t

yea i just said

but service is bad

[small lion]

a a a

[halcyon siren]

lipamanka is the representative of all jews everywhere or something

[rocky urchin]

i see

[small lion]

lipamanka is THE jew ever

[rocky urchin]

i know very little about lipamanka so my sincerest apologies for any dumb questions

feel free to like roast me in chat or something idc

[halcyon siren]

all good i mean
they're just a person who happens to be prominent within the community
it's not like you need to know Lore or anything

[small lion]

so then is the value really the same as other groups?

[halcyon siren]

it's similar

not necessarily the same

[small lion]

for sure, but where does the line even lie

[halcyon siren]

and again it's a little bit silly to try to categorize it like that

[small lion]

oh for sure

[halcyon siren]

because in the end you have to stretch the system of values to the point of not being very useful

[small lion]

Exactly

[halcyon siren]

just that like.. society hates accepting that Different Cultures Are Different, so people like to think that anything outside of the white western patriarchal christian tradition is just uh. that tradition but done incorrectly

[small lion]

literally this

very well said

[rocky urchin]

there is also the problem of many people saying "judeo christian values" when what they specifically mean is "this one specific type of christian value i hold which may or may not actually be christian and i didn't even study judaism/am a part of it idk why the judeo is here"

[small lion]

if you believe women are equal? not a real Christian
you think we shouldn’t persecute people for being trans or gay? not a real Christian
you think that people having easy access to ilo moli is bad? not a real Christian (wish this was satire but I googled and there are HUNDREDS of articles about how the second amendment comes from God himself)

[halcyon siren]

that feels absurdly blasphemous

and like it does continue into a lot of other bigotry stuff outside of the concept of """judeo-christian values"""

like

[rocky urchin]

i have no idea where the third one comes from because the second amendment they're referring to is entirely american and christianity (even the protestant (?) variant) is not entirely american

[floral crescent]

damn i love being jewish

it’s such a nice thing to be

i get to eat bagels and complain

what could be better

y’all should become jewish if you haven’t already

[small lion]

my gender

[floral crescent]

wait ur gender is jewish?

awesome

[small lion]

bisexuals: eat hot chip and lie
jews: eat bagel and complain

[floral crescent]

fr

but like it’s complain[+jewish]

goyim don’t complain like jews sorry

[small lion]

mi sona

kinda anyways

[halcyon siren]

noble savage stuff is "these people are just like us except they failed to create society ... so sad :("
queerphobia is "these people can never be happy or participate healthily in society because they're doing attraction and gender wrong"
pick-me conditional pro-queer activism is "i'm normal and just like everyone else so i'm okay, but if you participate in queer subcultures then you're being queer but In The Bad Way and so you deserve your oppression"
it happens all the time where people just assume that deviation from the norm is just trying and failing to be the norm

[halcyon siren]

yeah real

[floral crescent]

jewish ppl are so simple they probably speak toki pona on an island

[halcyon siren]

untrue. no number words means i wouldn't be able to sit on my piles of gold counting each coin one by one

[small lion]

pakala i gotta moku

[small lion]

wan, tu, mute, mute, mute, mute

[floral crescent]

and pinching each penny to make sure it’s real copper

smelling them with long jew nose

that’s why jews have long noses it’s to smell coins fr

[jagged osprey]

is there a channel or thread for linja lipamanka ?

[undone crescent]

#1053850152932233266

[young moat]

If we're catching typos in the FAQ

there are multiple instances of lang__au__ge(s) so you should find-and-replace-all

I’m sure there is a quantum physisit [physicist] out there who is able to describe it properly.

It’s not like each toki pona word has eighteen different seperate [sep__a__rate] meanings.

(that one is BS though and even i mess it up all the time, that should really just be an accepted spelling)

I can use the numbers on the yellow pages to contact buisnesses [businesses].

(also just a bad standard spelling,,)

However, it’s a lot more difficult to be passive agressive [a__gg__ressive] about it. Passive agression usually relies on some level of hiddenness in meaning.

[floral crescent]

thank you @young moat

[young moat]

Thank word processing,,,,

[rain lotus]

no more big projects 4 me

just small things I do impulsivel

that are good

such as going to sleep right now (Im being reckless)

[crimson light]

Waow

lape…

[floral crescent]

thing to add: why does toki pona exist?

where is toki pona from?

[visual oracle]

ona li kama lon ma Masina

[floral crescent]

ma Masina li seme

[visual oracle]

😏

[floral crescent]

pilin unpa

this one should have been on there from the start: what is toki pona

[visual oracle]

sama ni a a

[floral crescent]

how can you communicate with only 120 words?

[visual oracle]

took me way too long to find that pic

[floral crescent]

hey <@&1061183612709515354> i’m heading to sleep right meow but if y’all could do me a favor and compile a list of beginner questions for me like #1121332328317341762 so i can add them

like beginner questions as you see them

or as you come up with them

would be great

[young moat]

You could answer it with something like this: The book Thing Explainer only uses the top ten hundred words that people say the most often (in our shared language that I'm using right now), and it talks about things that are not simple or known by most people. You can cut that ten hundred number by eight and a third a lot more easily if you choose not to use old languages like the one I'm using right now. These languages are used a lot, and have changed a lot. They come with many extra words that are only almost the same but not quite, and they have many other less-than-simple systems like that, built in for everyone to follow. Instead, you just make a new language from the ground up. Of course, this whole message itself uses less than one hundred and twenty simple words (not counting repeats, because there are more than one hundred and twenty words in it). It's not too hard to understand, right? Now just imagine how low you could get that count if you knew a lot about language, and you set up all the words, and all the ways of putting them together, with this in mind.

[visual oracle]

"how do you say (very specific word)" and answer about translating sentences instead of words

[blissful crag]

o toki pona e nimi telemetry

[rapid zodiac]

ijo

[undone crescent]

pana

[quartz hill]

pana sona pona

[cosmic blade]

nimi Telemeteli pi toki Inli

[blissful crag]

sina kepeken ilo la ilo li kama jo e sona tan kepeken
sona kepeken li lili lon sina taso
sona kepeken li mute wawa lon jan ale kepeken
ni la sona ni li suli tawa sona ni: ilo li pona ala pona? ilo o ante ala ante?

[floral crescent]

someone on yikyak asked me how to say astigmatism so i’ll go with that i think

(yes i’ve been collecting beginner questions off of yikyak)

[marsh oak]

ilo Jija li seme

[ivory falcon]

has no idea what yikyak is is this that click clock thing

[floral crescent]

it’s reddit but like with omegle mixed in for college students

[ivory falcon]

you could not have typed a more upsetting sentence i don't think

[rocky urchin]

wat

[marsh oak]

toki ni li pana oko sama ma moli ike

[floral crescent]

your posts are anonymous

[rocky urchin]

why would anyone ever ask anything toki pona related on that of all things

[floral crescent]

it’s mostly “M22,6’3”📯 (straight btw)”

[marsh oak]

mu PON! o tawa tomo awen unpa!

[floral crescent]

or like “19F straight men give me the princess treatment”

[marsh oak]

mu PON! o tawa tomo awen unpa!

(nanpa tu)

[floral crescent]

(that’s a real one)

but i’ve had some really interesting conversations

[rustic tartan]

btw, about beginner questions
can I repeat some from that talk we had in the #912286596517220363 ? like "why is there one word for blue and green?". Or should those ones be considered accounted for already?

[floral crescent]

yes

feel free to repeat

[floral crescent]

<@&1061183612709515354> react if you would be interested in contributing to a large page where several toki ponists describe what toki pona is in however many words they want, using whatever means they want, so beginners can look at that page and get a wide range of opinions and descriptions?

okay u can DM them to or put them here

but make sure to spoil them

I don't want y'all to influence each other

[crimson light]

In English?

[floral crescent]

I actually thought about this

I think jan Tepo should be able to do it in toki pona if he wants to, for example, but the purpose of this project is to be for people who don't know what it is

[stark epoch]

i do not feel even Remotely qualified to do this, but i'm doing it anyway =D

[floral crescent]

I reserve the right to be like "eh maybe not" but I will try my best to be as open minded and nice and cool as possible

like when I think about it, a beginner's explination of what toki pona is is still valuable

I could sort it by self-assigned fluency

or ask people to include that

[dusky nebula]

note: i consider myself to be at an intermediate fluency level
||toki pona is, obectively, a language constructed to simplify and filter thoughts, concepts, and ideas. However, the usage has evolved and grown as the community of toki pona speakers has grown. Now, toki pona is being used as a way to express ideas in a way where context is a must and where interpretation is everything. The many different communities of toki pona have adapted it to fit the needs of their communication, while still staying true to the intended nature. As for what the language is now, it is a language of simplicity and community. Of course, there is also a subjective way of looking at what toki pona is. To me, toki pona is an escape from the complicated buzz of the state my country is in currently. It is a language that brought me closer to my friends, and introduced me to new people. It is, as the book "toki pona: The Language of Good" states, a language of good.||

[gloomy shale]

a a mi toki pona la sina o toki inli e toki mi. pilin mi la jan ante o ken sama

[floral crescent]

a wawa

okay ya'll I encourage you to do it in toki pona if you're able and feel like it, and then I will translate to english 👍

as long as u trust me to be able to translate properly

otherwise choose someone else

to do it instead

[floral crescent]

AMAZING thank you 👍 would you like to be credited by name (and if so what name), or "anonoymous self-described intermediate speaker"

[dusky nebula]

as that was our whole system giving input, i think our collective name, Entropy

[floral crescent]

nice

[brave rune]

@floral crescent @floral crescent @floral crescent pls send ur dictionary/learning resources so I can send to my friends uwu 🥺🥺🥺🥺

or put it on ur website

[floral crescent]

https://lipamanka.gay/resources/dictionary

this?

[brave rune]

yes

and did u finish like the li explanation sheet and stuff

also hi ily

[floral crescent]

no I didn't

[brave rune]

okie

[floral crescent]

that is on hold until I can get my adobe subscritption back from my college

[brave rune]

a

[glossy vortex]

||tp is a language that forces you to connect your concepts with earlier ones. It is the ball of string that helps you avoid being lost in a labyrinth of words and guides you back to reality. However, it doesn't trust you even if you are familiar enough with the labyrinth, so if you want to go too deep into the labyrinth (for example, by doing math and/or science), you are out of luck.||

[floral crescent]

wawa

[umbral stream]

||Imagine that words and phrases are circles, and that specific objects in the real world are dots inside these circles. You know the location of a dot inside a circle labeled “Vehicle” and you want someone else to know you are talking about this specific dot. They can already eliminate a few of the dots due to context, but there are still lots of options. We can narrow down the selection of dots by using a circle labeled “Car,” which is a smaller circle inside of “Vehicles.” If this was enough to narrow it down to one dot, then we can stop. If not, we can go further by using a circle labeled “My Car.” If that’s still not enough, we could go even further by using “My Red Car.” Each of these circles narrows down the selection of dots. The speaker now knows what dot we are talking about. The smaller circles have served their purpose in specifying the dot. Our dot, while inside “My Red Car,” is also inside “Vehicles,” so we can just use the word “Vehicle.”

This applies to words in Toki Pona. There are circles for each singular word, such as “linja,” “jan,” or even “ona,” and there are also circles for compounds like “ko lete” and “ilo suli.” Some circles contain other circles, while some overlap, and some don’t touch at all. The same idea of specification from before applies here. You can use smaller circles to let the listener know what dot you’re talking about, there’s no need to waste time with smaller circles. so you can go back up and use the larger circles that have less words.||

this is something i wrote a while ago, is this maybe in line with what youre looking for?

[gloomy shale]

mi pali e toki, pali li pini la mi pana

mi alasa e ijo toki la ijo mute li wile kama

[halcyon siren]

||toki pona is a constructed language (created by sonja lang starting in 2001) intended to have a minimalist aesthetic and philosophy, be accessible and easy to learn, and be overall fun and pleasant to use. it uses only around 120-150 words, depending on the speaker, and disambiguates more specific concepts using circumlocution (referring to something by giving a broad overview or explanation of what it is) or context.||
||toki pona is a full system of communication — it may be less efficient than other languages at conveying information, but it can convey any information that another language can. it is not a cipher, a language game, or a thought experiment. it is a full, useable language — just one that happens to be smaller than others. i have held in depth conversations, read literature and poetry, listened to music and podcasts, and more in toki pona, and when used by proficient speakers it is perfectly comprehensible, though ideas are less specific by default than in many other languages.||
||despite being constructed and holding no pretenses otherwise, toki pona is nevertheless a living language with an active (and growing) speaking community which has played a large role in its development over time. sonja lang, the creator of the language, has said that the language belongs to its community and not just to her, and as such common usage shifts over time. there are at least 1,800 self-described proficient speakers of the language as of 2022, though in reality that number is likely a fair bit higher, and the biggest online toki pona community (the “ma pona pi toki pona” discord server) has more than 10,000 members. these are of course still relatively small numbers, but they make toki pona one of the most widely spoken constructed languages in existence — likely within the top ten.||
||toki pona is not designed as an international auxiliary language (ial, for short). the goal of an ial is to become ubiquitous enough across the world population that it can be used as a lingua franca between people who do not otherwise share a language. (if you’ve heard of esperanto, that was designed as an ial.) toki pona will never be that widely spoken or easily applicable, and that is not the goal of most community members or of sonja herself. it was also not designed to be naturalistic. a language like toki pona has never arisen unintentionally and never will — it is a concept that is clearly engineered intentionally for a purpose. in addition, despite its minimalist nature, toki pona is not designed to be as small as possible. tuki tiki, a smaller language based off of toki pona, gets by with 43 words, and depending on how far you’re willing to stretch your definition of a “language”, some are even smaller. toki pona’s main goals are to be fun and easy to use while maintaining a minimalist approach that requires speech to be approached from a different perspective. sonja lang and various others have said that using the language has allowed them to explore their perception of the world more deeply and even helped them work on mental health problems. how true this is depends largely on the speaker — some members of the community have had their lives changed by the language, while others view it as little more than a fun diversion.||
||in addition to initially creating the language through the early 2000’s, sonja has published two official books about toki pona over the years. Toki Pona: The Language of Good (2014), known in toki pona as lipu pu, is an introduction to the language and a series of lessons describing sonja’s usage at the time. Toki Pona Dictionary (2021), known in toki pona as lipu ku, is a comparison of common english and toki pona words and phrases based on surveys of the language’s community, intended to document common usage at the time of publishing and provide inspiration for future translations, as well as to update some aspects of The Language of Good which were considered outdated or uncommon.||

i uh. i ran out of characters even with nitro

tl;dr ||toki pona is a minimalist constructed language that tries to be fun and easy to learn the basics of, while also encouraging new and unique means of communication to express complex ideas — all with only around 120-150 words. it was created by sonja lang in the early 2000s and has developed over time alongside its growing and vibrant online speaking community.||

[floral crescent]

yes pona mute

[floral crescent]

fantastic

[glossy vortex]

I feel that I want to write more on the labyrinth of words. Should I do that?

(That would be an explanation of which problems of natlangs tp fixes)

[floral crescent]

maybe

idk about problems but I would like to hear your ideas

[glossy vortex]

Expanded version of my first answer:
||You are standing in front of a big labyrinth. Each position of this big labyrinth is a concept. The entrances are very basic concepts, and as you go deeper you are creating more complex concepts from less complex ones.||
||There are a lot of useful places in this labyrinth. It can be a gallery of beautiful paintings, a machine that helps you do certain tasks, or a nexus where you can get to a lot of places. When people find a useful location in this labyrinth, they name it, and the name would also become a “magic word” that teleports you there. ||
||Sometimes, people see others say a magic word to go somewhere, so they also go there. But they do not know where they are. All they can see are other named places, without a single clue on where the exit is. They want to find an exit, but not knowing where they actually are, they only went deeper into useless places in the labyrinth. They tried to use the machines there, but not knowing what they do, they fail to produce anything. ||
||This is the danger of being teleported to somewhere you don't know, but sometimes people want to pretend that they know some place, so they do that anyway. This idea spread wider and wider because it feels good, and eventually they forget that the labyrinth had exits. ||
||toki pona is different. It doesn't come with a magic system that teleports you to any named place. Instead, it provides treasure maps that tell you how to go somewhere, which, when read in reverse, also tells you how to find an exit from a given place. Sometimes it's too tiring to get somewhere from an entrance, because the destination is too far away, so people would rather have magic words. However, having treasure maps instead of magic words is at least useful for not being teleported to somewhere you don't know.||

[rustic tartan]

idk if I got the spirit of the question right, but here's my answer

"what is toki pona?" answered by a beginner/intermediate speaker

||Toki Pona is a conlang (constructed language) made by a Canadian linguist Sonja Lang. But to the people using it, it's more than this simple definition. It's an alternative system of communication, a method of examining and changing your thoughts and a pathway to a welcoming community.
My first exposure to Toki Pona happened through videos about conlanging. What caught my attention was the philosophy behind it and the proposed learnability. Having to explain all complexity of your day-to-day experience through a lense of just a bit more than 120 words seems like a good challenge. And as for getting skilled at the language... Was it not possible for me to learn the basics of Toki Pona in about a month, I wouldn't be writing this message right now!
To me, Toki Pona is a tool that can help me examine the meaning of words that I throw around a lot in other languages. I cannot just say "friend", so I have to explain what I mean by it. Do I mean "good person"? Just "a person I know"? Or maybe "a person I share a common something with"? All those can be different ways of saying "friend" in toki pona.
But it is also I way I have met many wonderful people! Toki Pona has led me to the "ma pona" discord server, and I am loving it here. We have "only Toki Pona" chats, community polls, games and voice chats. Perhaps in the future I will get to meet others from this server in real life!
All in all, learning Toki Pona was a decision that positively affected my life. I got a new perspective tool to see things in a new light, joined the community of amazing and creative people and started a new language-learning hobby. But above all else, Toki Pona is fun!||

feel free to cut out sections, if you wish
as for crediting, you can use my full username "jan Kinsen anu akesoweli Pimeja" or just "jan Kinsen"

[rain lotus]

awesome

[frosty crown]

Does the "what is Toki Pona?" poll have a due date? I'd like to participate but I don't have the time to do it as well as it deserves to be done right now.

mi wile sona e ni: tenpo seme la sina wile e toki ni tan mi ale: mi toki e kon pi toki pona li pana e sona ni: toki pona li seme? mi wile pali pona e toki ni. ona li suli li wile e pali wawa. taso mi pali e ijo ante mute lon tenpo ni li ken ala pana e tenpo pi mute pona tawa toki pona.

[rain lotus]

it does not!

jan Peton ↩️

[Reply to:](#1032830156676538378 message) Does the "what is Toki Pona?" poll have a due date? I'd like to participate but I don't have the tim…

[gloomy shale]

mi pali lon ale pi tenpo suno ni a

ijo li kama

[rain lotus]

take your time, none of my projects where I compile community qualitative data are closed doors so far so unless I say otherwise expect them to be open to change

[gloomy shale]

||toki pona li sama toki ante. ona li toki. jan li toki kepeken ona. taso kin la sama toki ante la nasin sona li lon. mi sona e toki sin la mi ken pilin e ijo e sona e ale kepeken nasin sin.

toki la nasin sona la nimi li suli mute. ni li suli a: nimi seme li lon? ijo seme la nimi li lon li lon ala? nimi la nimi ante seme li lon li sama mute li ante lili seme? toki ale la ni li ante. toki pona la ante li suli a tan ni: nimi mute li lon ala. mute nimi li lili nasa. toki ante ala la nimi li mute lili sama toki pona. la nasin sona li ante mute lon toki pona.

toki Inli en toki mute la nimi li seme? ijo sin li kama lon la jan li pali e nimi. nimi li wawa ni: jan li kute e nimi la sona ale pi ijo nimi li kama lon pilin. anu seme? lon la ala. jan li ken ala sona e nimi ale. tenpo ale la ijo sin li kama la nimi li kama mute ike. la jan li kute e nimi li sona ala la ona li seme? ona o toki e ni: “mi sona ala. nimi ni li seme?” taso ken la jan li wile ala pana e tenpo tawa alasa sona. ken la jan li wile toki ala e ni: ona li sona ala e ijo. la ona li kute e nimi poka li pilin e sona. la ona li sona e nimi. taso sona ni li ken pakala. [nimi li ken len e sona.] jan ante la sona nimi li ken ante. jan ante li kute e nimi sama la sona pi ijo ante li ken kama lon pilin. pakala.

lon la nimi li wawa ni: jan li sona ala e ijo li sona e nimi ijo taso la jan li awen ken toki e ijo. ken la jan li kama sona lili e nimi tan kute li sona suli ala li pilin e ni: ona li sona. ona li ken a mu e nimi kepeken sona lon ala. nimi li len e weka sona. jan kute li ken pilin e ni: jan li toki kepeken sona. ken la jan ni kute li kama pilin e ni: ona a li sona! jan sin li kama mu pi sona ala. pakala li kama suli.

toki pona li utala e pakala ni. nimi li mute lili la jan li ken a sona e nimi ale. taso nimi ale li pana e sona lili. mi toki e sona tawa sina la sona li ken ala tan nimi wan pi sona suli. la nimi mute pi sona lili li kama wan li kama sona. mi o wan e nimi tawa sona kepeken sona lon a. sina awen ken sona ala. taso sina ken ala len e weka sona kepeken nimi.

toki pona la, mi sona ala e ijo la mi ken ala toki e ona. mi mu ala e nimi suli kepeken sona ala. sina sona ala la sina sona e weka sona sina.
||

sina wile la o toki inli e toki mi. mi wile lukin e ni: jan ante mute li ni la seme li kama? ni li ken musi

[floral crescent]

mi o alasa toki Inli e ni

[raven ibex]

here's my attempt at translating Tepo's thing
||toki pona is like other languages. you can use it to talk to people! but also, like other languages, it has a way of thinking about things. it's a new lens with which to look at the world.

what comprises a language's lens? words are really important. which words are there? which concepts have a word, and which concepts don't? how much do the words overlap? it depends on the language. toki pona is particularly weird because there's so few words, fewer than any other language. so toki pona's lens is very different.

in English and other natural languages, what's the deal with words? when a new thing appears, people come up with a word for it. when you hear the word, you know everything about the word... right? not really. nobody knows every word. they're constantly being invented, so there's too many to learn them all. so when you hear a word and you don't know what it means, what happens? you'll be like, "what's that word mean?" but sometimes the speaker doesn't want to take the time to explain it. sometimes they're trying to hide that they don't actually know. so you'll listen to the surrounding words and take a guess... but that guess can be wrong. and definitions can differ between people. and you can mix up two different words. oof!

here's something interesting – if you don't fully understand what a big word means, you can still kinda talk about it. you can think you know it! and you can use it in conversation! in this way, a big word can hide your ignorance. people who listen can assume that you know what you're talking about. they can repeat your mistakes. and so misinformation spreads.||

||toki pona fights against this. there's so few words that you can actually know all of them. but one word usually isn't very specific. so the speaker needs to combine a few words to communicate one concept, using their knowledge about that thing to pick the right words. you might still not understand what they're saying! but you can't hide that ignorance by repeating their big words.

in toki pona, if i don't understand a thing, i can't talk about it. i can't use big words to pretend i understand. if you don't know a thing, you know that you don't know it.||

[gloomy shale]

pona

[floral crescent]

i’m gonna add “share” buttons to each question so it copies the text and a link directly to the clipboard

so people can share the answers to questions easily

[gloomy shale]

pona

[glossy vortex]

Read Keli's translation. Feels obliged to quote somebody I don't know:

||It is extremely easy to explain things that we don’t understand using words that make it seem like we understand. As an example, when explaining how an AI will perform a complicated task, Alice might say that AI requires “complexity”. But complexity is essentially a placeholder for “magic”— “complexity” allows us to feel like we have an explanation even if when we don’t actually understand how something works. The key is to avoid skipping over the mysterious part. When Eliezer worked with Alice, they would use the word “magic” when describing something they didn’t understand. Instead of “X does Y because of complexity”, they would say “X magically does Y.” The word complexity creates an illusion of understanding. The word magic reminds us that we do not understand, and there is more work that needs to be done.||

[worldly yacht]

||toki pona is like any other language, because it's a language. a person can talk using it. but also like any other languages, the way to think exists. if i know a new language, i can feel, do, think, do anything in a new way.

there's a lot of words in terms of language and thinking. this is important: how many words exist? does a word exist for a thing or not? is there a different word or a similar word for a word? this is different for all languages. toki pona is very different because there aren't many words. many words are a bit weird. there aren't any languages with as many words as toki pona. because of this, the way of thinking is very different in toki pona.||

tried translating 'tepo's thing'
only translated the first 2 sentences because aaaaa so hard

[worldly yacht]

||"it's a new lens with which to look at the world."|| pretty wording!!

[worldly yacht]

|| toki pona is a small language with 120-189 words, depending on who you ask.

i wanna talk more about the philosophy of toki pona than about the language itself.

lexicalization
i think one of the most notable things about toki pona is that it tries to avoid lexicalization. this way, people can freely express anything however they want.
the very important point when talking about words is that you do not say "is". instead, you say "could be". this avoids people assuming that this is the only one way to describe a word.
take "alcohol" for example. this word is most commonly translated to "telo nasa", because this telo makes you nasa.
however, alcohol can also be "telo pona", if you're an alcoholic. if you believe that alcohol will kill humanity, you coud also call it "telo moli".
another word could be "bed", most commonly translated to "supa lape".
bed can also become "supa unpa", when you wish to have intercourse with a partner.

what this means is that the concept of bed does not exist. instead of having a single lexicalized word with many meanings, that particular word changes to be another word depending on use. i personally think that this is a particularly interesting point in toki pona philosophy; the fact that things are not set in stone, and that that thing changes depending on how you use it or what you use it for.

120~137 word limit
some people may be overwhelmed, or helpless by the limit of only being able to talk about anything using only 137 words. this may feel limiting when the only source of culture you can observe is your own, or the english's. however, once you branch out and observe how other cultures handle thinking in a different way, you can start to appreciate how you can express some things with only 137 words.
take the word "suli". i remember a point when i didn't know how to express an old person in toki pona. it was until i looked at japanese culture.
(oops i hit the character limit)||

|| in the japanese culture, people who are older typically have more power, and are considered more important in life, due to the lifetime of this old person. this can also be true in many asian cultures. if we take a look at some of the definitions for "suli", we have "big, important, significant". following this definition, to talk about an old person, you can simply say "jan suli". this is one method of how toki pona manages to limit itself with only 137~ words.

a common mistake many beginners make is try to stitch as many words together as possible to kinda create a giant compound word, to talk about something. this is unnecessary in toki pona. when you want to talk about something, there are two ways to do it.
first, is to describe what you're talking about. there was a conversation between me and another toki pona speaker. he was talking about how he couldn't move a washing machine in and out of his house because the doorframe was too narrow. what i was completely amazed by is how he was able to make me understand what a washing machine was by describing it. he said something like "ilo poki ni la sina ken pona e len. ona li tawa sike", something like that. the point is that once you get listening and understanding down for toki pona, it can become really easy to talk about anything by simply describing it.
(oops not again)||

|| the second way is to just use very few words. i remember, my 10th message sent in the toki pona taso channel, i tried to talk about a piano by saying "ilo kalama musi pi nena pimeja pi nena walo". the listener responded by saying "ilo nena" to describe a piano. this makes sense, because pianos are known for its intuitive key pressing instrument. you do not at all need to complicate yourself by thinking about how to describe a word, you can just reduce a word into the simplest concept possible. if a pillow is fluffy, you can just say "puwa*" to describe a pillow, if you desire. no need to write something out like "len lawa pi supa lape" or "len ni la sina ken lape lon ona".
simply reducing a term to its simplest meaning can get the meaning across more often than you think.

i apologize if anything i've said here may be confusing. this is more of a giant rant by yours truly than a description of toki pona.
however, it serves as an interesting point of view of what it means to understand the philosophy of toki pona.||

sorry hehe i love ranting

[floral crescent]

I am going to be posting here more

[young moat]

wawa

[amber bough]

lospramaka's??, you better believe it

[ashen loom]

lipamanka li lon!!!!!!!!!!

[pallid scroll]

woah that was very interesting to read

[worldly yacht]

shsgdhfdd

thx hehe

[bright oyster]

welcome back! :D