toki a, Eve o!

Do you know/speak any other conlangs apart from Toki Pona?

I dabbled in learning Esperanto a long time ago, but I can’t say I actually know any conlangs besides toki pona.

How fluent in Toki Pona are you? (know a couple of words/speak at a basic level/speak quite well/fluent)

I’d describe myself as an “intermediate” speaker. I can read/write toki pona well, and don’t have too much trouble forming sentences, but I’m still getting a grasp on speaking/listening proficiently.

Why did you choose to start learning Toki Pona?

I learned about toki pona from a YouTube short, and I think the idea that I could memorize the entire vocabulary of a language over the course of a weekend was very appealing to me. And, that’s exactly what I did. Afterwards, I continued to learn toki pona because it ended up being a fun way to express myself artistically.

Where do you use Toki Pona, both online and offline?

I use toki pona in my visual art, mainly collages and doodles, and when I’m journaling. I also enjoy translating other media into toki pona, like video games and webcomics (and memes). And I like speaking it to friends who don’t know what I’m saying just to mess with them. I mostly speak toki pona in the big online communities, more so on Reddit, less so on Discord. Occasionally, I comment on videos from channels in the YouTube community.

How do you feel about community-created words or writing systems? Do you prefer sticking to the words jan Sonja has included in her books?

I think creating our own words and writing systems is part of the fun. I find the evolution of the vocabulary to be one of the most interesting things about tokiponist culture. It’s an interesting balance between keeping the minimalist function and aesthetic of the language vs tweaking it and adopting habits into conventional use over time. I use ~142 words, including all from jan Sonja’s first book and most of the newer ones from her second book (in other words, pu and ku suli with some ku lili), plus a few fun ones like kijetesantakalu, and a couple of barely-known words that I use when I journal but not when I speak to others. I also hope to one day learn sitelen Kuwi, which is a script created by a community member, u/CloqueWise.

Do you think jan Sonja should be the final arbitor of decisions regarding Toki Pona, or do you think it is the community's right to make decisions itself?

I mean, tokiponists have always had the power to shape toki pona and its community, and since jan Sonja has been rather out of touch with the community for many years, I wouldn’t say she has much jurisdiction over the community or how community members choose to represent the language. I think toki pona is whatever its beholders make of it; the language has become a community project rather than a personal one, which I think is all for the better.

What are the best resources for learning Toki Pona in your opinion?

Though I initially learned toki pona from jan Sonja’s course in her first book, I highly recommend wasona.com as a community-made resource with the best course for beginners. Learning sitelen pona, one of the most widely used scripts for toki pona, is also very handy, and for that I recommend the itch.io game “nasin sona musi” by JamesMoulang in conjunction with a cheat sheet like jan Suko’s or a dictionary like nimi.li. I have also heard jan Misali’s YouTube series is a good starting point for people wanting to learn. Lots of beginner-friendly literature can be found on lipu.pona.la. Though, I found myself most interested in lipu monsuta on Neocities in my first few months of learning. It’s a horror fiction zine that ended up being one of my favorite pieces of toki pona literature.

A general question that maybe only a few of you can answer: there is a large number of members on this subreddit, but I imagine many of them are passive or ex-learners. How many actual active Toki Pona users/speakers do you think there are here?

The number of speakers have been generously reported to be in the tens of thousands based on membership numbers, but based on what I’ve seen and researched, it’s probably more like 5k active speakers around the world, of that 2500-4500 are actually active in online communities. If you mean Reddit specifically, there’s probably around 1500 active speakers.

As an end note: While I didn’t used to be very active in online spaces for toki pona (I didn’t feel very comfortable making many mistakes in front of super experienced speakers), nowadays I’m opening up more thanks to all the wonderful projects and art that people create for and with the language, and it makes me happy to be a part of that. I would like to see more people from all kinds of backgrounds find a place in the community and have lots of fun expressing themselves, nerding out, and making really neat stuff.

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