Toki Pona: The Language of Good
Toki Pona: The Language of Good, known in Toki Pona as lipu pu or (less formally) pu, is the foundational resource of modern Toki Pona. It was written by Sonja Lang to describe her way of speaking the language and finalize her work on Toki Pona. It was originally published in English in 2014. All language editions are available for purchase at tokipona.org.
Contents
Toki Pona: The Language of Good presents Toki Pona's philosophy and is mostly dedicated to lessons and exercises, with texts and dictionaries afterward. Its main dictionary section is released to the public domain.
The set of Toki Pona words used in lipu pu is called nimi pu. They include 120 main words, with 1 pronunciation variant, and 3 words presented as "synonyms".
The book also features two writing systems created for the language: sitelen pona (which it fully describes) and sitelen sitelen.
Toki Pona Dictionary has since amended pu's material with the section "Notes on lipu pu".
pu
Pronunciation | /pu/ |
---|---|
Usage | 2023: Core (96% ↗︎ )2022: Core (94%) |
Book and era | nimi pu |
Part of speech | Content word |
Codepoint | U+F1955 |
The word pu is defined as "interacting with the official Toki Pona book". This generally refers to words and ways of speaking that are featured in Toki Pona: The Language of Good. See also ku, Reserved words.
Semantic space
pu is sometimes used as a reference frame. For example, tenpo pu can refer to "the era of Toki Pona: The Language of Good", starting with its publication. Earth can be called mun pu nanpa wan, "the first celestial body to interact with Toki Pona: The Language of Good".
Extensions
Due to the wording of its definition, pu is sometimes extended to unintuitive interactions. For a practical example, a surface upon which a copy of Toki Pona: The Language of Good is resting would be supa pu, even though it is not engaging with the text content of the book. A similar common joke is that the book should not be called pu in general, but a stack of copies is pu, since each copy is "interacting" with another.
Rarely, pu is extended to mean "official", to refer to other authoritative documents such as a constitution, or to describe conventional and standard language as opposed to slang.[1]
pu
In the "Official Toki Pona Dictionary" section, the book Toki Pona: The Language of Good defines pu as:
ADJECTIVE interacting with the official Toki Pona book
ku
For Toki Pona Dictionary, respondents in ma pona pi toki pona translated these English words as pu:
interact with Toki Pona: The Language of Good5, officially2
sitelen pona
The sitelen pona glyph for pu, pu, is a simplified drawing of the book's cover.
-
Title page version
Editions
The English edition of Toki Pona: The Language of Good has been released as a paperback and as a Kindle e-book.
pu has also been translated to several other languages.
Year | Language | Title | Contains ku material? |
Product listing | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ISO 639-3
|
Exonym | Endonym | ||||
2014 | eng |
English | Toki Pona: The Language of Good | No | 0978292308 | |
2016 | fra |
French | français | Toki Pona: la langue du bien | No | 0978292359 |
2021 | deu |
German | Deutsch | Toki Pona: Die Sprache des Guten | Yes | B09MJ8JPV6 |
2022 | epo |
Esperanto | Tokipono: La lingvo de bono | Yes | 9464376090 |
See also
Development and usage | jan Sonja · Toki Pona: The Language of Good (2014) · Tokiponidos · Software (Tools · Fonts) · suno pi toki pona · Toki Pona census · Toki Pona Dictionary (2021) · UCSUR · Linku · ISO 639-3 |
---|---|
Conventions | Phonology (Phonotactics) · Words (Tokiponization) · Grammar (Word order) · Social conventions · Writing systems (sitelen Lasina · sitelen pona · sitelen sitelen) · luka pona (sign language) · Number systems · Calendar systems · Styles (pu · pu-rism · ku · Nonstandard) |
Philosophy | Minimalism · Context · Circumlocution · Expression · Lexicalization · Multiple sentences · Comparisons |
Resources | Frequently asked questions · Courses · Dictionaries · Cheat sheets · Visual aids · Communities · Websites · Media |
- ↑ Lang, Sonja. (18 July 2021). Toki Pona Dictionary. Illustrated by Vacon Sartirani. Tawhid. ISBN 978-0978292362. p. 336.