jan

jan is a core content word relating to people and humans.

jan
Pronunciation	/jan//j/ sounds like English Y, as in "fjord" or "hallelujah".
Usage	2023: Core (100% ↗︎ )2022: Core (99%)
Book and era	nimi pu
Part of speech	Content word
Codepoint	󱤑 U+F1911

Etymology

The word jan was derived from Cantonese 人 (Jyutping: jan⁴), meaning "person, someone".

Semantic space

The semantic space of jan includes both humans (members of the species Homo sapiens) and people (the definition of which more abstract). These concepts usually but not always coincide; it is debatable whether jan applies to hominids, aliens, robots, talking animals, or tokiponists with headnouns other than jan, and whether groups containing them should be addressed as jan. For that reason, some speakers avoid using it as a general term.

jan li pona

jan li pona.

People are nice.

ken jan li sama

ken jan li sama.

The rights of humans are the same.

The Hominidae are sometimes referred to as jan or soweli jan.

Headnoun

Most people use jan as the headnoun of their name. Non-Tokiponists often mistake this for the name Jan and refer to them as such. A simplified explanation that avoids getting into the philosophy and grammar of Toki Pona names is that jan acts as an honorific.

jan [ale luka uta]

jan Alu

Person named Alu

pu

In the "Official Toki Pona Dictionary" section, the book Toki Pona: The Language of Good defines jan as:

NOUN  human being, person, somebody

ku

For Toki Pona Dictionary, respondents in ma pona pi toki pona translated these English words as jan:

person⁵81–100% of respondents, human⁵81–100% of respondents, people⁵81–100% of respondents, anybody⁴61–80% of respondents, dude⁴61–80% of respondents, anyone³41–60% of respondents, character³41–60% of respondents, somebody³41–60% of respondents, guy³41–60% of respondents, being³41–60% of respondents, individual²21–40% of respondents, civilian²21–40% of respondents, whoever²21–40% of respondents, citizen²21–40% of respondents, participant²21–40% of respondents, Hominidae²21–40% of respondents, personal²21–40% of respondents

sitelen pona

A tadpole person drawing combining the head and torso, somewhat resembling the sitelen pona glyph for jan

The sitelen pona glyph for jan (󱤑) is a pictogram of a human head and shoulders, a shape commonly also used as a default profile picture. Rarely, two eye dots are added by analogy to other animal words (akesi, pipi, soweli, waso, etc).

An alternative interpretation of the glyph is a head and legs. This may be thought to evoke child art of tadpole people, torsoless figures whose limbs connect directly to the head.

The main glyphs for mije and meli are derived from the glyph for jan and are variations with wider shoulders and long hair, respectively.

sitelen sitelen

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Further reading

• "jan" on lipu Linku
• "jan" on lipu Wikipesija
• "jan" on English Wiktionary