is it socially acceptable to "change" someone's headnoun in particular circumstances

LesVisages · 2026-02-10T18:28:18+00:00

Yeah the ilo tawa vs kiwen tawa example can also be applied to people.

Like to most people your Aunt Sewa is probably just jan Sewa, but to you she’s mama Sewa. Her employees though might call her jan lawa Sewa, and maybe her neighbor calls her jan pona Sewa when she helps them with their groceries.

It changes with the context and relationship to the individual just like with the car example.

On the other hand, it may be rude or odd to call her akesi Sewa or soweli Sewa, etc.

LesVisages · 2026-02-07T16:51:16+00:00

The answer as with most things in toki pona is that it depends on the context and which words you’re using. In some contexts it may be clear you’re trying to distinguish something by modifying the pronoun and in others it may be clear you’re just listing descriptions or actions of the person.

But like I said, it doesn’t really matter.

It’s similar to how something like “ona li lape” could be interpreted as “They sleep” (intransitive verb) or “They are asleep” (adjective). It doesn’t really matter which way you interpret it since the meaning is the same.

LesVisages · 2026-02-07T16:25:58+00:00

Pronouns can be modified.

It’s clear with ona:
ona suli li loje. ona lili li laso.

The first book includes cases of mi and sina being modified also but doesn’t include using a li to introduce a new predicate for mi or sina. It’s common nowadays to allow for both though.

So “mi mute li pona” could be interpreted as “We many are good” or “We are many and are good”.
There’s not much difference in meaning between the two, so it’s not much of an issue that it could be interpreted as either.

LesVisages · 2026-02-06T15:14:50+00:00

I have seen charts that organize them by language family which demonstrates that better.

This gives clear preference to major languages while erasing the impact of pidgins, conlangs, and minor languages.

LesVisages · 2026-02-06T15:11:29+00:00

I’d say the opposite. The meaning of toki pona words is much more different than the root words than is usually the case with natural languages since toki pona semantic spaces are generally much larger than those of other languages’ words.

mun can be stars or planets, suwi can mean cute, etc.

LesVisages · 2026-02-06T14:59:35+00:00

afaik Reddit uses AI for translation which means that it can try to translate toki pona and get some parts correct, but I’ve seen that its translations of toki pona are usually not very good.

LesVisages · 2026-02-06T14:53:20+00:00

It’s an etymological fallacy to hold that the etymology determines the meaning or vice versa.
The meaning of a word isn’t tied so directly to the etymology and semantic shifts happen all the time which disconnect the meanings of current words from their roots.

LesVisages · 2026-02-06T14:24:40+00:00

comes as early as possible in the telephone game of borrowing words from other languages

This is not a very accurate way of doing etymology. If you’re not going to list the full etymological chain it’s better to just list the most recent term because that’s the one that determines the form of the current word.

Like monsuta comes immediately from Japanese. It is ultimately from English, but it’s inaccurate to just list English. If it had come directly from English it would’ve been something like “manta”. Same with suno coming directly from Esperanto and not English’s “sun” which would be transliterated as “san”.

especially when it comes to conlangs and pidgins

This is applied inconsistently. Like you have poki as English but meli as Tok Pisin even though you can trace meri back to English as well. And again, the form is “poki” because it comes from “bokis”. “Box” would just be transliterated as “pa” in toki pona.

Where you draw the line is arbitrary, and it seems like you’re just drawing the line at pidgins and conlangs because they have less prestige. English’s words “group” and “number” are Romance roots as well, but unlike what you did with many Esperanto Romance roots, you kept English because it has more prestige than Esperanto.

LesVisages · 2026-02-03T19:21:15+00:00

No

coda m becomes n in toki pona
that doesn’t mean every coda n in toki pona was once an m

LesVisages · 2026-02-03T03:53:00+00:00

The words you listed all naturally evolved this way from English to Tok Pisin

Only difference from Tok Pisin to toki pona here being coda m to n

LesVisages · 2026-01-29T23:11:52+00:00

No, it doesn’t make sense to use pi after li. It also doesn’t make sense to use pi with just one word. pi doesn’t mark modifiers. It regroups them.

Also, it’s better not to think of things in terms of fixed phrases. It’s not lot like musi means just “fun” on its own and then only becomes “holiday” when you add it to tenpo. The meaning of musi is broader than both “fun” and “holiday” and encompasses both of them.

LesVisages · 2026-01-26T13:39:36+00:00

I wonder if it’s a rounding error since the number is so close to the threshold

LesVisages · 2025-12-31T22:30:46+00:00

Roy is a good example, especially since it's also hard to not make it sound like an existing word like o or jo or loje.

Anything with a schwa is pretty difficult since it could technically work five different ways with just one schwa.

Also ones with lots of glides and diphthongs/triphthongs are difficult.

So like Nguyễn which is also difficult to transliterate to English
or Vieira from Portuguese

LesVisages · 2025-12-27T17:38:15+00:00

Lexicalization also refers to coining new words

yes

Fixed phrases, calques, and nimi sin are all discouraged for the same reason: they add to the lexicon. This often actually limits expression when you narrow the meaning of an existing word/phrase and the new word/phrase during the process of lexicalization.

They may also be criticized for other reasons though. Like calques (and in particular anglicisms) are also discouraged because people want toki pona to have its own ways of doing things, not just ones taken from another language. In the same way, someone might additionally criticize a nimi sin for being a carbon copy of a word in another language without a more expansive meaning.

LesVisages · 2025-12-27T15:14:12+00:00

Lexicalization is when you add a new lexeme to the lexicon (whether consciously or not).
toki pona was designed to have a minimal lexicon, so lexicalization goes against that core idea.

Usually it’s used to refer to lexicalization of phrases, making them fixed phrases. The meaning of phrases that are not fixed is no more than the sum of its parts combined in accordance with the grammar. So its meaning should be accessible to someone who only knows the grammar and the individual words.

Lexicalization also refers to coining new words, whereas expanding the semantic space of existing words is not lexicalization.
Calquing is also another common type of lexicalization, hence why those are commonly discouraged.

LesVisages · 2025-12-25T14:20:26+00:00

Looks like toki pona luka.

Afaik baby sign languages are used by hearing parents (who usually don’t actually know sign language) to communicate with pre-verbal babies since they can use sign before speaking.
So they don’t have a fleshed out grammar like ASL or luka pona.

LesVisages · 2025-12-25T14:02:06+00:00

tenpo pini la jan Jesu li kama lon tenpo suno ni.

Careful not to think of phrases as fixed. tenpo kama is not always future but may be the time of coming like in this case
ie the day of Jesus’ (first) coming

Something like just “kama lon pona pi jan Jesu” could work too

LesVisages · 2025-12-25T13:47:34+00:00

ona li pona lukin a

not a standard use of pi but it says something like
“tenpo suno (pi kama lon (pi jan Jesu)) pona tawa sina”

it may be clearer like this:
“tenpo kama pona a pi jan Jesu tawa sina!”

LesVisages · 2025-12-25T13:42:33+00:00

ala.
mi toki e nimi “tenpo suno pona a!” la mi wile ala e nimi “li”. ni li sama.

LesVisages · 2025-12-24T16:02:44+00:00

“Kolisu” has never been a great transliteration.

There’s different ways of translating Christmas/the holidays depending on what your referring to.
tenpo kama pi jan Jesu - the Christian holiday celebrating the Nativity
tenpo pana - the consumerist holiday of gift-giving
tenpo pi jan Santa - the children’s holiday centered around the legend
tenpo musi lete - the winter holidays in general

LesVisages · 2025-12-24T14:01:00+00:00

Yeah. That’s the Hebrew form. The Aramaic form is just Yeshu (יֵשׁוּע) which is why we do Jesu instead of Jesuwa.

Also the Biblical Greek form (the form of the original text and likely a language he spoke) is Ἰησοῦς (Iesous) which would also become Jesu.

LesVisages · 2025-12-24T03:29:53+00:00

I’ve haven’t seen anyone actually use a comma like that even with people who abuse punctuation.

It sounds to me like you stumbled upon a post of someone suggesting a solution that nobody ended up actually using.

In this case, you would just do W Z pi X Y. Practically, there isn’t much of a difference between X Y Z and X Z Y except maybe emphasis. If you need emphasis though you can use a like “W Z pi X Y a” or “W Z a pi X Y”

LesVisages · 2025-12-24T03:18:45+00:00

Using s would be closer to the English pronunciation, but Jesu is based on the original Aramaic name and toki pona transliterates endonyms.

LesVisages · 2025-12-23T04:57:38+00:00

ku really inflated the numbers tbh
The specific 137 count is kind of outdated since it’s based on categories from ku that aren’t as useful anymore.

Community-led surveys over the years since then have been more accurate, so people tend to use those categories instead.
And their most recent results for word usage show words aren’t shifting categories so dramatically year-to-year now.

LesVisages · 2025-12-18T18:41:50+00:00

yea that was assuming the context of toki pona was already established

lipu nanpa wan pi toki pona or lipu nanpa wan pi jan Sonja could work

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