sitelen pona sin: sitelen Sona ante

[long hawk]

i would use lipu for a story passed down through oral tradition

but anyway sona’s glyph is just an example of what it means

it’s okay if the glyph doesn’t cover all aspects of its semantic space - it doesn’t need to

[signal meteor]

btw - this is often how isipin is written

[drowsy bear]

That's your calling a song a lipu

[long hawk]

sure

lipamanka “a plucked chicken is a man” lipman

a paper, website, and oral tradition are all lipu to me

[drowsy bear]

one of these things is not like the other

[long hawk]

yeah websites store things on computers

not like the other two, which use far older preservation methods

and websites are often altered a lot

i think using lipu to refer to a storyteller is actually really cool

[drowsy bear]

So I get what you're saying about the glyph not needing to encompass every sense of the word. An ilo is an ilo regardless of whether it's a hammer, a wrench, a screwdriver, or an internal combustion engine. However

While a hammer is an example of a tool, a shining book is not an example of knowledge

[long hawk]

which is great because lipu means book, not knowledge

emitters don’t mean “shiny” lol they are showing the thing under them is emitting something

[drowsy bear]

Wait until I'm done talking before you make your bad-faith retorts, ok?

[long hawk]

books emit knowledge, hands emit things = giving, mouths emit sound, etc

[drowsy bear]

The only connection between sona and lipu is the notion that you get one out of the other

[long hawk]

so the act of a lipu giving sona id an example of sona, no?

[drowsy bear]

Indeed, the sona that you get out of a lipu is indeed sona. But there are entire cultures out there that do not record knowledge in books.

In Western culture, the association between knowledge and books is very strong. If you do a Google Image search for "knowledge", many of the pictures you will find will show books.

But if you take it out of that context, the connection breaks down

[long hawk]

i have never once used livestock to trade - i only have used paper, coins, and numbers in computers. however the symbol for mani is livestock

not to mention that books and literacy are not a western concept

the maya had books. the chinese had books. before contact with europe

[drowsy bear]

Ok, so the context in which it works is not exclusively restricted to Western culture

But there are context where it doesn't work and I think it is rather biased to invoke an association with books and paper in a glyph for the abstract concept of knowledge

[long hawk]

i don’t think this is a huge problem personally

[drowsy bear]

Great. I'm not suggesting that the glyph by prescriptively replaced. I'm suggestions an alternative

In the vein of

[drowsy bear]

pakala

[long hawk]

1 not 2

[drowsy bear]

this

[long hawk]

but meli1 is more western than the normal meli glyph

yea i designed that glyph and the font it’s in

[drowsy bear]

Yes, but the good thing about the Venus sign and Mars sign variants of meli and mije is that they do not invoke normative gender images like "women have long hair" and "men have broad shoulders", right?

[long hawk]

i always saw the meli glyph as a woman with a hijab

[long hawk]

i mean the isipin one has the laws facing the normal direction, this one has it reversed

so it’s not exactly the same

but that prolly makes it more confusing

[river night]

damn i never considered sona as lipu with emitters

never connected it because sona is square and lipu is a bit taller

[fair condor]

sona is not square!

its also rectangle

did you learn sitelen pona with bad fonts

[river night]

yes it is

(when i write it)

[slate talon]

Coming from a culture with a strong oral tradition, I see no problem with calling an oral story or record lipu, and actually greatly dislike the idea that it must be separate. If you call other stories and records lipu then you can call OT lipu.

[rotund axle]

only because it invokes a non-sequitur.. women do not have long hair they are the planet venus

[fair pond]

this is why i made objective meli mije tonsi glyphs

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/340307145373253642/1084262308445966466/image.png

[fair condor]

"objective"

[lone musk]

Except they do - it’s a hand mirror and a shield and spear, which is arguably worse

[drowsy bear]

Yes, if you go back to their roots, but to most people these days, the Mars sign just means "male" and the Venus sign just means "female". In Baudrillardian terms, it's a stage 4 simulacrum. The original sitelen for meli and mije directly invoke the images of a broad-shouldered man and a long-haired woman; they are only a stage 2 simulacrum.

[fair pond]

btw, did anyone mention this is the same glyph as isipin

[fair pond]

no

uh

[lone musk]

yes

[fair pond]

ok

[fair pond]

there

[fair pond]

anyway, oral traditions AND physical paper can be included in lipu just like currency AND large domesticated animals can be included in mani

it sounds like you're saying "we should change kili because not all fruits are apples"

wait aren't they closest to the actual words mije meli tonsi?

[signal meteor]

Words yes
Concepts no

[fair pond]

ok

asking because the con is

even less than zero ties to the actual words

[signal meteor]

context told me the meaning

[lone musk]

tbh saying that oral communication is not lipu is showing more bias towards cultures who mainly use written records

[slate talon]

Yeah it feels more othering to me tbh

Idk if the thread/glyph creator is from a culture with a strong oral tradition though

[lone musk]

how would you say a story, regardless of it is written down or not?

[drowsy bear]

Given context, “toki”

I've never used “lipu” to mean “story”

[lone musk]

one of the definitions of lipu is record, and oral communication is still a record,

[drowsy bear]

Define "record"

[lone musk]

from Google:

a thing constituting a piece of evidence about the past, especially an account kept in writing or some other permanent form.

[slate talon]

Oral tradition absolutely can be a record of history, events, and experiences, and can be just as reliable as non-oral methods of recording and passing on knowledge.

I would also use lipu to describe oral tradition as well as stories.

[lone musk]

to you, what makes oral record different from a book

What excludes oral record from being lipu

[long hawk]

you could say the same about mije and meli tbh like i don’t see a huge difference

but anyway yea i would stop trying to explain why oral traditions aren’t part of lipu and change your concept of lipu

for someone who’s putting effort towards de-westernifying this, i don’t see your current approach as effective

[lone musk]

Would you consider sending letters to a pen pal as toki or as lipu first?

[drowsy bear]

To me, a record is something in which you record information. I would not call your memory a record

[lone musk]

If the only difference was between being written down

[lone musk]

Why?

[drowsy bear]

"record" suggests something external

[lone musk]

Does it?

[drowsy bear]

to me, it does

[long hawk]

you’re saying that oral tradition is less trustworthy than writing things down, no?

[drowsy bear]

Don't strawman me

Where did I say that?

[lone musk]

I would not call your memory a record

[long hawk]

i would like to know your opinions on the importance of the things recorded on paper vs things passed down in oral tradition

[drowsy bear]

because

"record" suggests something external

[slate talon]

Do you come from a culture with a strong oral tradition?

[lone musk]

Where in the definition does it say that

Why does it have to be external

[long hawk]

i mean not really. record comes from a word that means remember. semantic shift is real but in this case descriptively that implication isn’t that strong

in many dialects of english, remember can be a transitive verb that means “remind”

these things are squishy even in english

so idk why english should be so important to lipu when it already doesn’t work

[lone musk]

Is talking to someone else not external?

[long hawk]

oh good point

you are recording in the minds of others

[slate talon]

Oral tradition is cited by even western anthropologists and archeologists as a historical record equal to or even stronger than the reliability of written records

jan Wiwi ↩️

[Reply to:](#1110645714054299748 message) To me, a record is something in which you record information. I would not call your memory a recor…

[lone musk]

@drowsy bear

[drowsy bear]

I'm not answering that

[slate talon]

Why not?

[long hawk]

i mean based on what you’ve said i’m going to assume no. if that’s wrong then lmk but you don’t get to ambiguously be part of an oppressed group

[fair condor]

ough

hey

is it moku if you dont use your mouth to eat something

i guess what is used for eating can be called a mouth

[long hawk]

people who have never experienced other methods of nutrients used for people who can’t eat using their mouth: “no!!!”

[slate talon]

Like I’m gonna be honest, I’m trying to be charitable here but it feels like you are creating an issue from a non-issue with a misunderstanding of what oral tradition is and your attempt to “fix” it is just othering and has undertones of devaluing oral tradition and otherwise weird and bad vibes. If you’d like to have a conversation about this I’m willing to share my knowledge and expertise of oral tradition (open only, of course) but I need to know what I’m working with here and if you’re actually open to listening. Otherwise I don’t want to waste my time.

[fair condor]

lets have a moment of retrospection and thought gatehring

before we discuss futher

[lone musk]

@drowsy bear you do need to respond to this at least.

[drowsy bear]

The reason why I'm not answering is because I do not believe my cultural background is, or should be, relevant to this discussion. That is called ad hominem, and I will not tolerate it. Nor am I comfortable participating in a discussion where people are going to fixate on the perceived undertones of what I'm saying rather than the substance of the points themselves.

For the record*, others in this thread have made compelling arguments have been presented for how the term lipu may well be perfectly applicable to oral tradition, in the sense that it refers a preserved body of information. I will rethink my understanding of this term.

* Case in point—even common usage of the term “record” seems broader than I thought.

[rotund axle]

whether or not you have a cultural background that makes use of oral tradition is absolutely relevant to whether or not the way you categorize oral traditions to make your point is informed or sensitive. when people who are from cultures with strong oral traditions are trying to tell you that they categorize them as lipu, it's patronizing to cite oral traditions as an example of why you don't like the inclusion of the lipu glyph in the sona glyph

[long hawk]

im sorry but asking if you’re white is not ad homonym

[rotund axle]

it's not ad hominem to suggest that people who are not members of a culture don't have insight over and above members of that culture who are actively taking part in the conversation

[shut crown]

yes, this question was asked to gain an understanding of your understanding of oral tradition from your own experiences, and was fully appropriate for the conversation

[drowsy bear]

"You’re ____; what do you know?" is absolutely ad hominem. If I am wrong, tell me why I'm wrong.

[long hawk]

people’s past experiences actually do inform their knowledge of things

including being in a culture

[slate talon]

Your opinions are not formed in a vacuum

jan Wiwi ↩️

[Reply to:](#1110645714054299748 message) "You’re ____; what do you know?" is absolutely ad hominem. If I am wrong, tell me why I'm wrong.

[rotund axle]

it's not an ad hominem because it's ridiculous to think that you understand someone's entire culture more than they do when they live in it 24/7.... i would dismiss cis people for trying to explain trans stuff to me, or men for trying to explain womanhood etc etc. there are many cases where people have no reason to value your perspective more than their own lived experiences

[long hawk]

as homonym is specifically an insult. is it insulting to say that you don’t have those lived experiences?

[drowsy bear]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

Typically this term refers to a rhetorical strategy where the speaker attacks the character, motive, or some other attribute of the person making an argument rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself.

[shut crown]

no one is attacking your character, people are just asking you whether you have [lived experience] which informs your opinions on oral tradition

by knowing that this conversation will be easier to have and come to an understanding

[rotund axle]

we are a community dedicated to a language that in no small part is about playing with semantic space and rethinking the categories embedded in the languages we speak. this is a wonderful opportunity to ask "what is text?" and you are drawing the line at "things recorded using exactly any Western colonial technology of record keeping" instead of engaging with the diversity of recording technologies that people in this channel have greater access to than you to inform your perspective

"i think of a record as something external" is not a neutral statement

the ways you choose to categorize concepts inherently forward a thesis

[shut crown]

whenever i read any academic paper in college, it’s always encouraged and sometimes required to research the author beforehand and learn about them. this is because opinions and research do not exist in a vacuum at all. everything about you informs everything else about you, whether you recognize it or not

it is very helpful to know an arguer’s background because it informs their argument so much. it helps let you know why they might have formed the opinions they did

[fair pond]

this DOES relate to the substance though??

like it's "why are you doing this"

one of the reasons: "do you come from strong oral tradition culture"

possible reasons i mean

[drowsy bear]

What you're describing here—ignoring someone who is cissplaining to you—is not an ad-hominem argument because it isn't an argument at all. It's just you identifying a discussion as fruitless and leaving. If you say "stfu terf" on the way out, that's just a parting remark

[normal otter]

.

[long hawk]

ad homonym . .

[rotund axle]

it's a reasonable grounds to think that someone is incorrect

[drowsy bear]

But note that it also ends the discussion. If you don't want to end the discussion, why invoke a dead end?

[fair pond]

wdym end the discussion

[slate talon]

I’m asking for clarification before we talk, trying to identify whether this discussion is fruitless, not argue.

[long hawk]

jan Wiwi i think ur “not part of a culture with a strong oral tradition” is showing

[fair pond]

like you can continue with "what experience on this do you have"

[slate talon]

You’ve been basically ignoring me the entire thread so I don’t have high hopes but I do try to be charitable

[long hawk]

whenever people bring up fallacies i get a little tireder because i know i’m going to be having a battle of logic instead of a dance of ideas

[signal meteor]

(just bring up the fallacy fallacy 😛 )

[long hawk]

i don’t want to contribute to logical battle discourse tbh

[rotund axle]

janet has muted them

[long hawk]

LBD

[slate talon]

Everything you’ve said so far comes off to me as being an outsider and speaking for cultures you’re not a part of, but if you are from an OT culture and maybe just don’t understand the history and importance, (like maybe you’re young) that informs the way I’m going to approach the conversation

[long hawk]

coining the term LBD

[fair pond]

btw this says

Ad hominem... is a term that refers to several types of arguments, most of which are fallacious.

[slate talon]

If you’re just a white person saying OT isn’t lipu then I’m going to approach that differently than I would an Indigenous youth who has been inundated with ideas that our methods of knowledge keeping are less valuable or strange, etc.

a okay

🐍 Salinsen ↩️

[Reply to:](#1110645714054299748 message) janet has muted them

[fair pond]

ike ala a

[slate talon]

Anyways I’m if ppl have questions about oral tradition I would be very happy to answer

[long hawk]

tell me about your most secret sacred stories

i want to steal them and patent them

[signal meteor]

So my thoughts on this are
oral stories and oral knowledge definitely can be on a lipu
And yet I don't think I'd use it - unless the context is giving me strong vibes - because I think I'd have a hard time... identifying the lipu? Like, sure, in a way, it's something you hold in your own memory, but I assume it's also mixed with memory that's not your own??? Not sure if I'm making sense (and maybe I'm also simply wrong)

[normal otter]

why steal when you can forgery instead

[long hawk]

ah

here is an ancient mystical tsalagi legend

so there’s this old guy

and he turns to a young guy

“there are two wolves inside and f you

[rotund axle]

it's also in the collective memory though. and it could get mixed up but like you can also spill coffee on a book or corrupt a hard drive, every medium can have errors. idk if im misunderstanding what you're saying tho

generally oral traditions are reliable though at retaining data long term with minimal change over time, afaik

[signal meteor]

Yes, that's what I meant.
The issue is more that I can't really think of the lipu as an entity in this case?
I have an abstraction in my mind of a file representing specific knowledge
I don't currently have that abstraction for data-residing-in-shared-self-memory-and-collective-memory

[fair pond]

idea

[rotund axle]

but like i guess mi la the lipu is the thing recorded not the medium it's recorded on. if i have a document on my puter and print it kut I don't go "ah, new document" i go "same document! now it's printed"

so similarly, where the lipu is in an oral tradition seems tangential to me to the question of like. identifying the lipu

[signal meteor]

toki li lipu. lipu li toki

hmmm

I'll have to digest that

[normal otter]

mi la lipu is the medium specifically

what i would call the thing recorded varies on what it is

[signal meteor]

Document and content of document isn't the same for me

[rotund axle]

similarly for oral traditions that were later written down. parts of the Tanakh for example have many of the characteristics of oral tradition because they were that for a while, AFAIK. also see the Hadith

[rotund axle]

we talk about them like they are :p don't try and tell me you ask people "hey can you print off the content of that document into a new document for me?"

[signal meteor]

That's English for you 🤷

[rotund axle]

but if they aren't, why not? the medium is a huge part of the context of the document and informs the content of it, but the content is its own thing at the same time

[signal meteor]

so is the doc

[rotund axle]

the boundaries of medium are porous

[signal meteor]

yeah

[long hawk]

yea that sounds like something i’d say

[rotund axle]

like if i have two identical copies of the same document in the same medium, are they the same document?

[rotund axle]

yea but is jan Ke Tami autistic like you? idk jan Ke Tami are you autistic

[signal meteor]

I think I can change the content of the doc while the doc stays the same entity
And I can give the content of the doc to a different medium whith the content staying the same thing

[long hawk]

i’m not autistic

[rotund axle]

ok

[long hawk]

i’m normal

[signal meteor]

Not sure how to answer that. I guess the answer is "no"

[long hawk]

(just adhd)

[rotund axle]

fhdjd

adhd epicness

[long hawk]

i’m not autistic im like autistic

there’s a difference

the like is doing something there

something important

very important

[signal meteor]

no

[rotund axle]

nasin nasa

[signal meteor]

hmm

English doesn't have this distinction, does it

[long hawk]

if i have two copies of toki pona the lang of good by lang are they the same book

or are they different books

is “document” a classifier

is “content” a classifier

what is god

why am i snails

[signal meteor]

same as in exactly one item and same as in similar are the same word in English

[lone musk]

mi la the difference between lipu and toki is if it’s one way or two way

[slate talon]

So, oral tradition relies heavily off of collective memory but also specific methods of storytelling to keep it faithful and accurate. Storykeepers like myself (though I am much more in-training and will likely never “complete” it) are often chosen and taught from a young age both the stories themselves and how to adapt it to different audiences while keeping it faithful to the original. It is greatly frowned upon to change them for your own gain, so it’s not really a concern, at least in my Nation and the ones of my friends. They usually rely a lot on specific rhythms and cues to keep it easily memorizable.

Here’s an article about how Inuit oral tradition helped scientists find the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror that may be interesting and is certainly relevant

https://ictnews.org/archive/the-inuit-were-right-shipwreck-find-confirms-168-year-old-oral-history

jan Ke Tami [💎+][⌂Yρ⨃] ↩️

[Reply to:](#1110645714054299748 message) So my thoughts on this are
oral stories and oral knowledge definitely can be on a lipu
And yet I don…

[signal meteor]

yeah, see, that makes it sound like the teaching is part of what the lipu is
which isn't really something I'd say I have had the same experience with
and so I'm going to keep being unsure of talking about the lipu itself, if that makes sense

[lone musk]

Websites are considered lipu, but they are practically immaterial, so what about a website makes it lipu?

[signal meteor]

https://tenor.com/view/megamind-presentation-cool-dramatic-behold-gif-4559759

😄

So in that sense, the act of storytelling is also the lipu

[lone musk]

Yeah

[signal meteor]

but not only

That's the thing I'm having trouble with, it's not a fixed idea I can connect in my mind for some reason

[lone musk]

Writing down a story is lipu-ing, correct?

[stable badge]

perhaps a more dynamic less emulating-printed-document website would not be as lipu-y
potential examples:

• that one mindmap graph tp dictionary
• corru.observer (visual novel with rpg elements)
• youtube
• ,,audiobooks?

[normal otter]

theyre deliberately aiming to replicate physical lipu

i haven’t seen anyone call discord lipu Siko

[stable badge]

now you have

[long hawk]

eh it works imo

[lone musk]

It also doesn’t need to be called a lipu

[signal meteor]

a locked Discord server is a lipu for sure

[stable badge]

lipu Siko reflects the worrying trend of moving documentation onto a vc-funded invite-only platform

i try to avoid lipu for,, webapps i suppose

sites where the main interaction isn't reading static text

reddit is a ma to me because it's a gathering place for people to share and discuss lipuojn

[lone musk]

A tweet would be a lipu but the app would be an ilo

[stable badge]

a tweet would be more of a toki to me

not sure how to articulate the why

i guess,, off-the-cuff, conversation-like, not meant as a permanent record (even though it ends up as such)

[lone musk]

Idk I think that it’s a lipu but like a reply thread would be a toki?

Maybe

It’s getting fuzzy

[fair pond]

i think a tweet is mu

[lone musk]

True

[stable badge]

the contents of a reply thread in a non-thread form would likely be a lipu to me

but the format makes it,, hm

[stable badge]

ilo threadreader li lipu e toki

[lone musk]

Actually maybe as long as its an open discussion it’s a toki but if you can’t contribute to it then it’s a lipu?

First, at least

[signal meteor]

That makes some sense to me! Twitter is closer to a lipu for me, simply because I don't use it and therefore it's not as immediately an ilo to me

[lone musk]

The semantic space in which lipu and toki define (?) overlaps a bunch which all the more proves that oral records can be lipu

[lone musk]

What if toki was a group of lipu that respond to each other??

[signal meteor]

The lipu is the friends we made along the way - literally

[lone musk]

Like but statements are just records right? Like “I ate salad”? That’s a lipu right?? And since memories are also records then saying “was it good?” Is recording it to your mind so you are lipu-ing???

[signal meteor]

if you go full deterministic, you and everything around you is a lipu, I guess?

[rotund axle]

i think if the main interaction is to present a text (for a very wide definition of text) it's a lipu

so a visual novel is a lipu, an audiobook is a lipu. a movie is a lipu. but discord is not a lipu, because this isn't a text, it's a conversation

[stable badge]

very fair, visual novels are isomorphic to choose-your-own-adventure books

[rotund axle]

like you wouldn't do literary analysis of ma pona but you can do literary analysis of night in the woods the same as a physical book

[stable badge]

is façade (video game) a lipu

[rotund axle]

i haven't played it. maybe

[stable badge]

it has prerecorded voice lines but it also tries to be a conversation but it heavily railroads it

[rotund axle]

i mean you can put the reader in the context of a conversation in a text

mimicking a conversation as a medium is not the same as having an actual conversation. it's still authored, and has direction

[stable badge]

is chatgpt a lipu

[rotund axle]

vs a real conversation like you and I are having is just a Thing that's happening. it's like the difference between writing a scene in a story about someone waiting at a bus stop vs me waiting there in real life. there's not point when i do it in real life, there isn't a thesis it's just happening because it's real

chatgpt is not a lipu lol

that's a conversation too

[lone musk]

Is life itself a lipu

[stable badge]

​

[rotund axle]

not as a whole i don't think. there's no story that the whole universe makes up

[lone musk]

Is the concept of time and space a lipu

[rotund axle]

you can interpret one but then you are writing a work of interpretation of life, not life as-is

same as a memoir is a lipu but those things just happening to someone is not

it's the way you contextualize the experiences to form a perspective that can be dialogued with

[lone musk]

I started too high there’s no where to go

[rotund axle]

lol

[lone musk]

Is a piece of paper a lipu

[stable badge]

is the recording of a natural unscripted conversation a lipu

[rotund axle]

is a urinal an art piece

[signal meteor]

am I a piece of work

[rotund axle]

you sure are

[rotund axle]

i think it becomes text by the act (and therefore decision) of recording

[left agate]

Okay new introduction to this space

Since "lipu" is used ime frequently to refer to something that is physically like a document (leaves for instance), could this be extended to other forms of lipu?

What I'm thinking of is like

Could a braid or a knotted thing be a lipu in some contexts?

I'm thinking of uh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu#/media/File:Inca_Quipu.jpg

These aren't used contemporarily I don't think from what I can tell but

What abt other fabric arts

What about scrimshaw? Can bone be a lipu in the right context

[rotund axle]

what about beads in #1092527158724931644 a

[left agate]

OOO

This as well

[long hawk]

yessss