User:SnpoSuwan/Word articles

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this is a simple guide (disguised ramble) explaining my reasonings for the word articles

what to include

my plan is to include all words in Linku as well as some not notable for it (as in the Animals article), giving them at least a description of their semantic space. I like sona.pona.la to be a tool used alongside dictionaries, as the former is not bound to a tight box when it comes to their definitions. I can ramble on and on about how people use this word, when was it used, how did it come to be, including a lot of information about it.

I still like dictionaries tho, I have edited like. half of the Wiktionary pages for the toki pona words

how to include it

firstly, because there are so few word articles, I do a first pass including the bare minimum (as shown below) and then over time as I (or other people!) explore further meanings, I (or they!) can include it. (the aspect of this being a wiki, meaning that other people can add to and correct my work is what I love, because a lot of the time, I am a fool)

it's not ideal to great incomplete articles to only then correct them who knows when, but to me I think that it's better for me, as I don't have to create an article from the ground up everytime I want to add a line for a possible definition.

template

{{nimi
| PoS = content word
}}
'''{{tp|{{subst:PAGENAME}}}}''' is {{a category}} [[content word]] relating to ...

==Etymology==
The word {{tp|{{subst:PAGENAME}}}} is derived from ... , meaning "".<ref>{{cite etym}}</ref>

==Semantic space==
The [[semantic space]] of {{tp|{{subst:PAGENAME}}}} includes ...

==={{tp|pu}}===
In the "[[Dictionary (pu)|Official Toki Pona Dictionary]]" section, the book {{pu|en}} defines {{tp|{{subst:PAGENAME}}}} as:

{{pu def}}

==={{tp|ku}}===
For {{ku|en}}, respondents in {{tp|[[ma pona pi toki pona]]}} translated these English words as {{tp|{{subst:PAGENAME}}}}:

{{ku data}}

=={{tp|sitelen pona}}==
The {{tp|[[sitelen pona]]}} glyph for {{tp|{{subst:PAGENAME}}}} ({{UCSUR char|{{codepoint|{{subst:PAGENAME}}}}}}) represents/is derived from ...

==References==
<references/>

==Further reading==
* {{R:Linku}}
* {{R:Wikipesija}} <!-- Check if page exists -->
* {{R:Wiktionary}} <!-- Check if page exists -->
{{Words}}

that is a lot, let me go bit by bit

beginning

the opening line should include what word is this (duh), the usage category (according to Linku), its part of speech (unless it's not that important, joke words can leave that out just fine as most if not all of them are content words, otherwise specify), book (for ku suli and lili only), so in full

tu is a number and content word relating to the number two.

or

yupekosi is an uncommon joke word and nimi ku lili blah blah blah...

and then the phrase "relating to" or, more rarely, "meaning" introduces the most general definition for it. like for example, for nena it's not 'button' or 'hill', it's 'bump'.

etymology

etymologies roughly follow a mix between Wikipedia and Wiktionary's methods. my primary source for pu (and some pre-pu) etymologies is the original Toki Pona website's list, using the {{cite etym}} template. it is clearly not perfect, off the top of my head I have seen that some of the Georgian lemmas have typos for example (such as sewi), but it's good enough, just check everything with Wiktionary before adding it

semantic space

I prefer the analysis of toki pona vocabulary using semantic spaces, which I first learnt from lipamanka. their work I find very good and that is why I cite it a lot throughout the wiki (so much I already created a template for it: {{cite lipamanka}} links to their dictionary)

pu

including the pu verbatim is good I think

sitelen pona and sitelen sitelen

these get their own sections, explaining their etymology and possible alternative versions and additional information that someone should know. I should learn more about sitelen sitelen, because I have no clue what the heck most of those glyphs mean, even tho they're so preddy

references

what counts as good references?

since toki pona is still a relatively small community, a lot of things don't have good citations like in books or journals or something, a lot of them do but not all of them. so here are some sources I use

• pu/ku

I don't have the money to buy those yet, so I will have to contend with the freely available information (thank you Sonja for making them CC BY-SA, that is very nice of you <3)

• Discord

for tracking the first usage of a word, usually from ma pona

• Forums/Facebook

tracking pre-pu and post-pu info from the toki pona community before it got more centralised in ma pona

• individuals blogs/websites/whatever
  • Jonathan Gabel (for sitelen sitelen)
  • lessons/essays: jan Kekan San, jan Lentan, soweli Tesa, jan Pije, lipamanka, probably more
  • grammars: nasin toki pona

I am considering writing a big ass article about the grammar of toki pona, like a full grammar that could be an article on Wikipedia, to collect and detail not all (because I probably can't, not alone) but most nasins in toki pona. getting info from everyone is important, just mark it as nonstandard if needed

anyway it is kinda late, my brain is beginning to get fried.. maybe i should go to bed

if you think that I should do something different, create a discussion on the talk page