Calques

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A calque is a literal, word-for-word translation that is borrowed from another language. Tokiponists generally discourage calquing terms and sayings into Toki Pona, since their meaning may not be obvious to those unfamiliar with the original phrase. Various recurring phrases and single-word usages are viewed as calques from English.

List of frequent calques[edit | edit source]

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Learners often try to use the following calques, whereas advanced speakers proscribe them. Upon acclimating to Toki Pona semantics, these may stop feeling intuitive to use within Toki Pona.

  • anpa and sewi for "low" and "high" musical pitch. Not all languages equate height to pitch.[1]
  • jo for all senses of English "have", instead of possession
  • lukin for "to look like", instead of "to see"[1]
  • monsi and sinpin for "backward" and "forward" temporal directions. Toki Pona does not equate spatial directions to the arrow of time, and some languages with this metaphor assign the opposite direction (i.e. you can see your past, so you're facing it).[1] English actually uses both opposite metaphors.[a]
  • olin for all senses of English "love"
  • pali for all senses of English "do". See palin't.
  • seme for all senses of English "what", instead of the interrogative function
  • unpa for all senses of English "fuck", instead of sexual intercourse. Using unpa as an interjection would be like saying "Sex!", not an expression of dismay.

In names[edit | edit source]

Self-chosen names are an exception[1] where many tokiponists translate the literal meaning of their name, or the words in their username. This may be because sound-based tokiponization already turns names into non-descriptive identifiers, and many speakers even make expressive headnoun choices other than jan. Thus, whether a calqued personal name makes sense is not seen as important.

Notes[edit | edit source]

  1. The past is "behind" and yet "before" (lit. 'in front of') the present. The future is "forward" or "ahead", and yet "after" (lit. 'behind').

References[edit | edit source]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 lipamanka. "Frequently Asked Questions and Misconceptions". lipamanka.gay. Retrieved 8 August 2024.
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