Prescriptivism and descriptivism: Difference between revisions

Descriptivism is not a free-for-all; it still describes the rules{{wh|better term?}} and standards that proficient speakers have internalized. Generally, the goal is to teach Toki Pona as it is most widely used,<ref name="lipamanka" /> so that the learner can communicate effectively; and perhaps so that, if they still want to break the rules, they can do so skillfully and with a sense of how it will be interpreted. Telling a learner that they won't be understood, or are using an uncommon [[style of Toki Pona]], is descriptive, and {{tok|lipamanka}} recommends using such wordingwordings instead of calling an utterance "wrong".<ref name="lipamanka" />