Profanity
Profanity is the use of offensive or obscene words for a variety of purposes, often to express strong emotions, as a grammatical intensifier, or to express informality. While Toki Pona does not have any defined profanity, many words in Toki Pona are sometimes translated to other languages as profanity.
Insults
Insulting people is not nice. Hurting someone's feelings happens when portraying them unfairly, voicing aggression or intent to harm, breaking someone's trust, making accusations, lying, talking over them, being dismissive, and many more ways. There is no go-to insult in toki pona; insults would have to be made up on the spot. The most effective insult is one that applies personally to the addressee.
Exclamations
Quick exclamations to let off steam are made up on the spot, fitting the situation. Examples include:
- ike — when something generally bad happens
- jaki — when something displeasant happens
- pakala — when something doesn't go as planned or breaks
- a — as a general reaction to anything
- mu — to voice an unwordable response out of frustration
- kala — for when your hovercraft is filled with too many eels
Emphasis
Instead of adding words associated with negative qualities, the word a covers most cases of emphasis. In specific cases, mute, wawa, suli, and sometimes also namako and kin get used.
Code-switching
Toki Pona makes no significant distinction between an informal and formal register, so idiomatic swearing would not be used for code-switching.
In Official Toki Pona
There have been some mentions of profanity in the Official Toki Pona series, particularly for the translations in Toki Pona Dictionary.
jaki
In Toki Pona Dictionary, jaki is translated as "crap" with a frequency score of three (41–60% of participants), and as "shit" and "bullshit" with a frequency of 2 (21–40% of participants)[1]
pakala
In Toki Pona Dictionary, pakala is translated as "damn", "goddamn", and "heck" with a frequency score of four (61–80% of participants), as "fuck" and "fucking" with a frequency of 3 (41–60% of participants), and as "crap" with a frequency of 2 (21–40%).[1]
unpa
In Toki Pona Dictionary, unpa is translated as "fucking" with a frequency of 3 (41–60% of participants), and "fuck" with a frequency of 2 (21-40%).[1] However, this also covers the literal, non-taboo sense of "fuck" to mean "sex"; using unpa as a profane exclamation is widely considered a calque.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Lang, Sonja. (18 July 2021). Toki Pona Dictionary. Illustrated by Vacon Sartirani. Tawhid. ISBN 978-0978292362.