Phonology

The phonology of Toki Pona is the set of phonemes (speech sounds) that speakers distinguish between. Phonotactics describe the ways phonemes can be arranged.

Consonants

jan, pronounced by kala Asi. An English pronunciation respelling would be YAHN.

There are nine consonant phonemes. Most of the consonants are intuitive to English speakers. The letter j is pronounced like English Y, as it is in "fjord" and "hallelujah". This is also its value in languages like German (ja) and Swedish (hej då). The letter j was originally an i with a swash tail, and it is helpful to think of it as such in Toki Pona.

Consonant phonemes with audio

	Labial	Coronal	Dorsal
Nasal	m 🔊︎	n 🔊︎
Stop	p 🔊︎	t 🔊︎	k 🔊︎
Fricative		s 🔊︎
Approximant	w 🔊︎	l 🔊︎	j 🔊︎

Consonants are only distinguished by place and manner of articulation. Qualities like voicing and aspiration do not make a difference. For example, p t k can be pronounced as voiced [b d ɡ] if need be, so [doɡi bona] is a valid pronunciation of toki pona.

Vowels

Vowel chart

There are five vowel phonemes. Many natural languages, like Spanish and Japanese, have similar five-vowel systems.

Vowel phonemes with audio

	Front	Back
Close	i 🔊︎	u 🔊︎
Mid	e 🔊︎	o 🔊︎
Open	a 🔊︎

According to Toki Pona: The Language of Good, the vowels are ideally more centered than their default values in the International Phonetic Alphabet. a is centralized to [ä], and e o are lowered to mid [e̞ o̞]. Regardless, these are just the centers of these vowels' ranges. Vowel qualities that are close enough will be accepted.

Allophones

This section needs work. If you know about this topic, you can help us by editing it. (See all)

The tokiponization guidelines suggest some recognizable allophones:

• [v] becomes w, but its unvoiced equivalent [f] becomes p.
• Uvular and velar consonants are allophones of k.
• The rhotic consonants correspond to multiple Toki Pona phonemes. Tapped [ɾ] or trilled [r] becomes l. The English R sound, an often labialized approximant [ɹ⁽ʷ⁾], instead becomes w. As above, the French or German R becomes k.
• Dental fricatives can become t or s.
• Affricates are allophones of fricatives.
• Voiceless laterals become s.

Here is an attempt to chart this information:

Allophones of pulmonic consonants
(voiceless · voiced)

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	(Post)velar
Nasal	m	n
Plosive	p	t			k
Trill, tap, or flap		l
Fricative or affricate	p · w	t~s	s
Approximant	w			j
Lateral	—	s · l

See also

• Phonotactics
• Phoneme frequency

References

Original text related to this article:

Toki Pona: The Language of Good § Letters and Sounds