International auxiliary language

An international auxiliary language, or IAL or auxlang for short, is a language meant for communication between people with different first languages.

Toki Pona

Though inspired by Esperanto, which is well-known for its goal of global propagation, Toki Pona was not intended to be an international auxiliary language itself.

Despite this intention, some speakers believe that Toki Pona would be a relatively accessible IAL. Commonly cited factors include the small vocabulary, simple grammar, widely compatible phonology and phonotactics, and the way these constraints obscure words' etymologies (so no language community would have a head-start in learning them). Proponents believe that these features would level the playing field for speakers of various languages, and compare Toki Pona favorably to established IALs, particularly "Euroclones". jan Misali notably expressed such views in his Conlang Critic episode on Toki Pona, even ranking the language "as an interlang, not as an artlang".

Others believe that Toki Pona would be poor as an IAL. Reasons include its vagueness, relative lack of lexicalization, and the effects of its philosophy on its design. Tokiponists who do not reject IALs in general have created several tokiponidos that are intended to fix Toki Pona's perceived deficiencies as an IAL.

Criticism

Alongside the optimism of uniting the world with a common tongue, IALs also face significant criticism. It is long conjectured that a successful international language would drive minority languages extinct, amounting to large-scale cultural erosion. Specific IALs are also criticized for biases in their design, often for familiarity to speakers of specific languages.