ante toki pi kulupu nimi la, tomo toki pi alasa sona 📜➡♒🇬🇧🇺🇲🔄♒🔣🤔❔

[eternal sentinel]

tenpo la, sina toki alasa lon tomo toki ni a!

Room for word/phrase translation questions and discussions. Discuss the way to translate certain objects back and forth between toki Inli and ! This tomo toki is so that all questions about toki pi toki ante and their eventual answers by popular opinion can be recorded and searched through somewhere.

The form for your own personal translation opinions is here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfPJmDztjq-TXudDXGpVQqkSMUzwy5wbapTe0u4-sMed2qI0w/viewform?usp=sf_link

this website has all words commonly and rarely used in a neat list (including obscure words)
https://nimi.li

Additionally, this website has a phrasebook/dictionary in progress.
https://glosbe.com/en/mis_tok

ante toki pi kulupu nimi la, tomo toki pi alasa sona 📜➡♒🇬🇧🇺🇲🔄♒🔣🤔❔

ok. me first... what the hell would "[someone's] presence" be?!

[fluid ore]

lon jan

or to disambiguate, lon pi jan ni

[eternal sentinel]

but!! that implies being at a person. ie: in a sentence it would become: "sina pilin e lon mi" (you feel my presence -> you feel/touch on me )

[fluid ore]

context matters

[eternal sentinel]

mmmmmm

[eternal sentinel]

hmmm... what about hedgehog 🦔 ??

or! I've wanted to know. what about "porridge". at what point do you stop adding modifiers??

if you add too many modifiers, it just becomes a list of ingredients or even a recipe... but it works??

[fluid ore]

thats the convenience of toki pona

who needs to look up cupcake recipe when the translation of cupcake itself is a recipe!

[delicate terrace]

If you find yourself wanting to add like 10 modifiers it should be expanded to a sentence or more

[eternal sentinel]

mmmmmmm... but am writer... want to be specific :(

sigh... the struggle is real

[delicate terrace]

Which is why sentences are good! Modifiers don't tell you much about the relationship between the modifier and headnoun

[eternal sentinel]

mmmm... it can be a bit inconvenient though, and looks a bit clunky and simplistic. that might work for stories with a style like that, but it makes any kind of detail really difficult and unweildy...

[eternal sentinel]

... what would cupcake be? would it be a name? would it be described by what it is ie: a small sweet-bread with sweet cream on top? or would it be an idiom ie cup-cake?

[fluid ore]

i would say pan suwi

the distintion with cake isnt important

[delicate terrace]

Probably described

Although it is literally a pan poki (cup cake)

[eternal sentinel]

mmm but that could be any kind of sweet bread? including donuts and such

[fluid ore]

clearly the sappir worf hypothesis hasnt worked on you yet
be pona
you are thinking too ike

[eternal sentinel]

lit. "container-grain/baked goods"?

[delicate terrace]

ye

[eternal sentinel]

i do like the idea of having a repository of common/commonly understood translations for tho...

[delicate terrace]

a like a modern ku

[eternal sentinel]

for those of us for whom the more common unspecific sentences are difficult to parse... (ie when context and socially expected meaning are difficult... ie for tistics like me :c )

[eternal sentinel]

yeah!!! sorta!! more like whats on glosbe.com for tokipona or like a phrasebook!

also a bit more like a dataset of public opinion. or a cheatsheet/smthn

[fluid ore]

yeah
ku isnt really good anymore
linku is its spiritual successor but it only has words, not phrases

[delicate terrace]

nimi.li has phrases

[fluid ore]

those are from ku

[delicate terrace]

a lon
sona li weka

[eternal sentinel]

yeah! so to have everything from word to phrases and their meanings in one place

so like a phrasebook, cheatsheet, FAQ for words/phrases

hence the google form link

[fluid ore]

whos gonna maintain the website

[eternal sentinel]

??? which one?

i just made a google form for submissions, and a gsheet for a record for now?

and glosbe already does phrases etc

even multi-translation

[delicate terrace]

oh wait I have to put translations in order of favour

[eternal sentinel]

ahhh forgot i did that? I'll change it. just submit one translation at a time once i have edited it manually?

that way they can be grouped

or if you want, submit it to glosbe?

there we go! it should work now!

[eternal sentinel]

just submit them separately s fine :)

favour can be inferred later by public opinion

hmmm... could "o!" as a singular interjection or chant be translated? like: "o! o! o!" --> "do it! do it! do it!" anu seme? or would it be a call like: "hey! hey! hey!"

like... just as an imperative command.

kin la, "one of us!" --> "sina wan a!" anu seme?

o tawa! = move! / move it!
o lon = be!
o pali (e ni/ona)! = take action on/do it! (?)

"o pana e mani" is a homophone to "o pana e ma ni" especially when spoken fast.

[delicate terrace]

I don't see o on its own much if at all, but I would assume it to be like "sina o"

[delicate terrace]

I'd use sama for this

ken la "sama mi!"

[eternal sentinel]

ah!!

so what would "do it!" be? "o pali (e ni/ona)!" anu seme?

[delicate terrace]

"o ni!"

[eternal sentinel]

"ni" as a verb would mean what?

[delicate terrace]

to do/be this

[eternal sentinel]

ahhh

that makes sense. "o ni!" would be the equivalent of casual "do/be this!" vs the "o pali e ni!" would be a more formal "take action on this, create this, make this, work on this"?

[median anvil]

you feel/touch on me would be “sina pilin lon mi” where lon is a preposition. sina pilin e lon mi only has lon as a noun

[median anvil]

o pali e ni - create this

[eternal sentinel]

ohhh. so with e it would be: "you feel/sense my existence/presence"?

[median anvil]

pali as a transitive verb generally mean to create

there is no such thing as a formal/informal distinction here either

they just mean different things

[median anvil]

yep

[fluid ore]

where are you supposed to put the answers for the polls?

also glosbe sucks monsi dont use it

[eternal sentinel]

mmm...? ig... though the translations are essentially the same...? to do something is a shortening of what pali would mean in some contexts. like. if your boss told you to work on a project they might use pali, but for short theh could just "o ni" if they're emphasizing and/or are frustrated

[median anvil]

i think this is projecting your idea of what formal/informal utterances from english are onto toki pona

i don’t agree with this analysis

[eternal sentinel]

mmm... glosbe does help a bit for some simple things? and its only so good as its translator userbase, which is currently few. the poll link is in the channel's first message!

[fluid ore]

no glosbe is actually fucking horrible

the only ppl who can delete a definition are the creators

[eternal sentinel]

mkay! thats fair. i do wonder what the differences would be then! :)

[fluid ore]

which leads to dozens of troll and amature translations staying up

[eternal sentinel]

mmm... ok... so they need to fix that ig :(

[median anvil]

o pali e ni: create this. ime pali almost always takes a concrete thing as an object and not an event or something, so "ni" is more likely to reference something like a tomo or lipu or something like that

[eternal sentinel]

damn. and here i thought there was something good out there

[median anvil]

o ni - ni references an action

[fluid ore]

yeah...
glosbe just sucks

[median anvil]

"o" on its own is not really attested so i don't really have an idea of what it means

i guess i'd have to interpret it as "hey" but it sounds ungrammatical to me

[median anvil]

i think this is also you taking your experience from english and assuming that the same cultural sentiment around different kinds of writing also applies to toki pona. this is not true in toki pona

toki pona is a different language from english, and it being a different language means that all of this is going to be different

[eternal sentinel]

ah... so would it work in this scenario:

jan lawa li toki e "jan anpa o, pali/toki sitelen e lipu!"
jan ante li toki e "ala a! mi wile ala! 😤"
jan lawa: "o ni! 💢 😡"

or would pali be repeated...?

[eternal sentinel]

ooo fair. i mean, when I as a writer can't express something the way I want, I get frustrated with myself very easily... so that might be why... its taking a bit lf adjustment 😔

[median anvil]

hmm i think either works in this case

here's a situation

"mi wile lape a...."
"o ni a!"

it doesn't make sense to use "pali" here

it's not like you're creating sleep

it's just something you're doing

[eternal sentinel]

ahhh. would it also make sense to use "o lape" there?

lon

[median anvil]

it could, yeah!

[eternal sentinel]

so like, are they perfectly interchangable or is there a slight difference in meaning?

o ni would be a more general purpose imperative, and o lape would be reinforcing the verb ig...?

[median anvil]

to me it's the same kind of difference as
"i wanna sleep..." "then do it!"
vs "i wanna sleep..." "then sleep!"

i can't really say if it's interchangeable

they mean the same thing but they're said in different ways

[eternal sentinel]

nice!! ok!

that makes sense!! thanks! ^v^ 👍

[median anvil]

ofc!

[eternal sentinel]

nnn. I'm writing an original toki pona work rn. Is there maybe a way to translate "labyrinth/maze" and "trick (as verb and noun)"

deception is a difficult concept to convey

[median anvil]

hmm

i'd try to expand the idea of trickery

instead of "she tricked them into thinking this" i'd say "she told them this. but in reality it was this."

or in a situation like "you tricked me!!" i might just say "you spoke badly to me!!"

[eternal sentinel]

hmm. what would the concept of a trick or deception be? like... a party trick, or a prank/trick?

is there a word for deception?

[median anvil]

a party trick is a musi

[median anvil]

i'd talk about deception like the example i said

say what the deception is instead of trying to convey the english word 'deception' if that makes sense

[eternal sentinel]

mmmm... how would one say "but in reality it was actually"?

[median anvil]

jan Asa li toki e ni tawa mi: "sina weka tan tomo ni la mi pana e mani mute tawa sina!" taso lon la, ona li wile ni ala, li wile MOLI e mi lon tomo.

[eternal sentinel]

would lon ala be sort of a deception? like "unreality" or "untrue"

[median anvil]

Asa told me this: "if you can escape from this maze then i'll give you lots of money". but in reality, she wanted to not do this, and wanted to KILL me within the maze

[eternal sentinel]

ooo! that works!

[median anvil]

this relies on prior context that the tomo ni is known to be a maze

but that's an idea of how i might talk about it

[eternal sentinel]

hmmm... "tomo pi nasin nasa sike" a circular/repeating/looping strange path?

or even without sike

a place of a strange path?

[median anvil]

i like tomo pi nasin nasa

[eternal sentinel]

hehe yea. sounds nice somehow

[median anvil]

i would probably talk about it

like "in this tomo, there are many paths. many of the paths end, and you can't go anywhere with them. only one path leads to the exit."

[eternal sentinel]

nnn. like so?
"lon tomo anpa la, tomo suli li lon. tomo ni li jo e nasin nasa mute e kiwen selo suli mute pi tawa pake/pini. nasin li sike mute, li tawa mute, li ante mute. jan ala li sona e nasin ale. jan ala li wekama. kin la, tenpo ale la, jan ale pi tawa lon ona li tawa ala lon tomo sina. mi sona e tan ni. monsuta Minotaru li alasa lon tomo nasin mute ni. tomo ni li tomo Lapilitun"

"in the below-room/basement, there is a great big place/room. this room has many paths and many walls(?). the paths loop many times, and they move and change a lot. no-one knows all the paths. and always, no-one who goes there returns to their home. (and) we know the cause. a Minotaur monster hunts and prowls in those many halls. this place is the maze of the Labyrinth."

[median anvil]

wekama is a joke word so i'd recommend not using it

[eternal sentinel]

mmm oki. is there a good way to phrase it?

[median anvil]

i might say "jan mute li tawa insa. jan ala li weka sin." - many people go to the inside. nobody leaves again.

[eternal sentinel]

ooooo that has even BETTER vibes!!! :D

[median anvil]

or "jan li tawa insa la, ona li ken ala weka." - when a person goes inside, they cannot leave

[eternal sentinel]

ooo!

i like the idea of there not being an inability, merely that noone ever has returned!

and is there a good way to say a wall???

[median anvil]

sinpin is pretty good for walls

"sinpin kiwen mute li lon."

[eternal sentinel]

ooo.

[median anvil]

or you could say "poka nasin la sinpin kiwen li pini e tawa sina." - "on the sides of the paths rock walls stop your movement"

[eternal sentinel]

oo is there a way to communicate certainty? like: it is impossible to pass/break/overcome this wall?

[median anvil]

i'd probably use ken

or ken ala

maybe something like "jan ala li ken weka e sinpin" - "nobody can remove the walls"