toki pona
toki pona (often titlecased in English as Toki Pona; literally "the language of good") is a philosophical artistic constructed language created by Sonja Lang in 2001. Its small vocabulary of near-universal concepts, accessible phonology, and simple grammar rules make Toki Pona easy to acquire compared to other languages. It has a community of over 1800 speakers[1] and is mainly spoken online, where it is one of the most popular conlangs. Many creative works have been made in Toki Pona or translated into it.
History
Sonja Lang started developing Toki Pona in 2001 to simplify her thoughts during periods of depression. She shared early versions of the language online and got feedback on words and features. Much of the early activity was on Yahoo! Groups and a dedicated phpBB forum.
tenpo pu
Sonja Lang published the first official Toki Pona book, Toki Pona: The Language of Good (lipu pu), in May 2014. It marked the end of her development of the language, and presented her own way of using it. The book presents Toki Pona's philosophy and is mostly dedicated to lessons, with texts and dictionaries afterward. It includes 120 main words, with 3 more presented as "synonyms". It also features two writing systems created for the language: sitelen pona and sitelen sitelen.
Toki Pona continued to grow in popularity in the following years, in part with the spread of reviews and video lessons such as jan Misali's 2015 series, 12 days of sona pi toki pona. It also started to attract scientific research judging the language's performance in various applications, both therapeutic and unrelated to its original purposes.
A French translation of lipu pu, Toki Pona: la langue du bien, was published in 2016.
tenpo ku
In July 2021, Sonja Lang compiled the descriptive Toki Pona Dictionary (lipu ku), providing corrections and clarifications of lipu pu and passing the torch of the language's evolution onto the community.
Later in 2021, lipu pu was translated to German as Toki Pona: Die Sprache des Guten with bonus material from lipu ku.
After rejected requests in 2008 and 2018, the ISO 639-3 Registration Authority adopted the identifier tok for Toki Pona on January 20, 2022. The webpage was updated on the 28th.
lipu pu was translated into Esperanto as Tokipono: La lingvo de bono. The edition includes notes and words featured in lipu ku, and additional Toki Pona texts.
Language rules
Community
The official Toki Pona website links to several communities:
- Discord:
- ma pona pi toki pona ⟵ important cultural centre
- ma toki pona (Toki Pona only)
- kama sona (for beginners)
- Telegram: toki pona - jan li wile pona taso
- Mastodon: toki.social
- Facebook: toki pona
- Where is Toki Pona used?