Minimalism: Difference between revisions

[[Toki Pona]]'s simplicity is often described as '''minimalism''', including in official material. This makes some learners sensitive to perceived inefficiencies, like the color and animal words that could be replaced by other words and phrases. However, Toki Pona is <strong>not <em>strictly</em> minimalist</strong>.

Toki Pona tries to be natural and focus on universals of the human experience, whereas conlangs that are engineered for minimalism often feel unnatural to use. Natural languages develop basic color words for light, dark, red, yellow, and [[wikipedia:{{w|Blue–green distinction in language|grue]]}}, so Toki Pona has {{tp|walo}}, {{tp|pimeja}}, {{tp|loje}}, {{tp|jelo}}, and {{tp|laso}}. It is natural for {{tp|uta}} to be separate from {{tp|lupa}}; after all, the mouth is seen and used constantly for many things like breathing, eating, gesture, speech, and art.

Redundancy is a failsafe, and such "inefficiency" can be a strength in language.<ref>K. Klein (26 August 2022). "[https://youtu.beyoutube/watch?v=3B_uGsgXKdk "What People Get Wrong About Language - The Ithkuil Fallacy]"]. ''YouTube. August 26, 2022''.</ref>. You could design a conlang with shorter words that still follows Toki Pona's simple phonotactics. But if taken too far, this would make it easier to miss words entirely, and it would create more [[Minimal pairs|sets of words that are confusingly similar]].

Replacing words with set phrases would also be a form of [[lexicalization]]. For example, replacing the word {{tp|jelo}} with {{tp|kule suno}} (as suggested by the {{tp|[[sitelen pona]]}} glyph {{spspt|jelo}}) would make it difficult to refer to the color of any light that isn't yellow.

== Goals of simplicity ==

The philosophy of Toki Pona's simplicity is discussed in {{pu|en}}. Simplifying complicated ideas provides new insights and "points to the centre of things.". Contradictions obscured by specialized words and cultural baggage are exposed; "bad friend" might be translated as the oxymoron {{tp|jan <del>pona ike</del>}}, or using a phrase without {{tp|pona}} in the first place, revealing one's feelings about such a friend. These benefits do not require absolute minimalism, only sufficient simplicity.

== References ==