jan Sonja

Sonja Lang^[a] (pronouns: she/her), better known in the Toki Pona community as jan Sonja (sitelen pona: jan [sona olin nasa jasima alasa]^[1]^[2]), is a Canadian linguist and translator, known for the creation of Toki Pona and sitelen pona. She authored the book Toki Pona: The Language of Good (2014), compiled the Toki Pona Dictionary (2021), and translated The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Toki Pona edition) (2024). She speaks Acadian French, English, German, Malay, and Esperanto.

jan Sonja often prefers not to exercise an authoritative position over Toki Pona. She has taken several absences from the community, during which the language has continued to develop,^[3] and has supported applying linguistic descriptivism to Toki Pona.

Early life[edit | edit source]

Lang was born in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada, around 1978–1979.^[4] As a minority speaker of French, she took an early interest in languages and language learning. She intentionally sought to learn languages from various families.^[3]

Other contributions to Toki Pona[edit | edit source]

Prior to the release of Tokipono: La lingvo de bono (the Esperanto edition of Toki Pona: The Language of Good), jan Sonja created an alternative sitelen pona glyph for the word namako (namako) for personal use.

In 2024, jan Sonja proposed nasin sitelen kalama pi linja lili, a style of writing sitelen pona names.

Notes[edit | edit source]

↑ Née Sonja Elen Kisa.

References[edit | edit source]

↑ jan Sonja [@sonjalang]. (13 March 2021). [Message posted in the #toki-pona channel in the ma pona pi toki pona Discord server]. Discord. "at the moment: sona olin nasa jasima alasa".
↑ Baum, L. Frank. (3 February 2024). The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Toki Pona edition). Translated by Sonja Lang. Illustrated by Evan Dahm. Tawhid Press. ISBN 978-0978292379. (Original work 1900.)
↑ ^3.0 ^3.1 jan Sonja, jan Lakuse, et al. (8 April 2024). "Toki Pona: From Personal Art Project to Small World Language". University of Colorado Boulder. tokipona.org (transcript). pp. 8–11.
↑ (15 November 2009). "3-60". en.tokipona.org. Archived from the original on 29 July 2016.

External links[edit | edit source]

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jan Sonja.

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jan Sonja.

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[1] Née Sonja Elen Kisa.

[2] Sonja [@sonjalang]. (13 March 2021). [Message posted in the #toki-pona channel in the ma pona pi toki pona Discord server]. Discord. "at the moment: sona olin nasa jasima alasa".

[3] Baum, L. Frank. (3 February 2024). The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Toki Pona edition). Translated by Sonja Lang. Illustrated by Evan Dahm. Tawhid Press. ISBN 978-0978292379. (Original work 1900.)

[roundtable-4] 3.0 ^3.1 jan Sonja, jan Lakuse, et al. (8 April 2024). "Toki Pona: From Personal Art Project to Small World Language". University of Colorado Boulder. tokipona.org (transcript). pp. 8–11.

[5] (15 November 2009). "3-60". en.tokipona.org. Archived from the original on 29 July 2016.

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Toki Pona
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
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