o
  | |
| Pronunciation | /o/ |
|---|---|
| Usage | 2024: Core (100% → )2023: Core (100% → )2022: Core (100%) |
| Book and era | nimi pu |
| Part of speech | Particle |
| Codepoint | U+F1944 |
o is a particle used to express desires and wishes, as well as to address a listener.
Etymology[edit | edit source]
The word o is derived from Georgian -ო (-o), the vocative case marker; Esperanto ho ("oh"); and English O, an archaizing vocative particle[1] (as in "O Canada").
Functions[edit | edit source]
Imperative and optative[edit | edit source]
o is used to indicate an imperative, expressing a command or instruction. In this case, the particle li is replaced by o and the subject may optionally be ommited. Unlike li, the particle o can be used following mi or sina.
o kama sona e toki-ponao kama sona e toki pona!
Learn Toki Pona!
o pakala ala e ijo mio pakala ala e ijo mi!
Do not break my things!
o is also used to indicate an optative mood, expressing a wish or hope. In many cases, it can be translated with "should" or with sentences starting with "may". In some cases it is used to express "must" or "have to", a meaning that is traditionally covered by wile.
mi o lapemi o lape.
I should sleep. (i.e. It would be better if I went to sleep)
sijelo sina o kama ponasijelo sina o kama pona.
May your body become good/healthy. (i.e. I wish for your body to become healthy)
I hope you get better!
Vocative[edit | edit source]
o, following a word or phrase, indicates a vocative phrase, expressing that the speaker is addressing that person, place, or thing. The phrase may either go before or after the rest of the sentence.
toki jan-ale otoki, jan ale o!
Hi, everybody!
soweli mi o sina moku e lipu mi tan semesoweli mi o, sina moku e lipu mi tan seme?
Doggo, why did you eat my homework?
If o comes before the addressee instead, it becomes a command to be or personify them. For example, o jan ale! means "Be everyone!" and o soweli mi! means "Be my pet!"
Combining both imperative and vocative phrases together can be expressed with a single o:
jan [ale luka uta] o kamajan Alu o kama!
Come, Alu!
Alternatively, they may be separated:[citation needed…]
jan [ale luka uta] o o kamajan Alu o, o kama!
Come, Alu!
Definitions[edit | edit source]
ku[edit | edit source]
For Toki Pona Dictionary, respondents in ma pona pi toki pona translated these English words as o:[2]
hey3, shall3, should2, ought2, must2, please1, let½, dare½, mandate½, dear½
History[edit | edit source]
Some of the earliest Toki Pona texts feature an obsolete use of o. Placed before the subject of a sentence, o expressed the optative mood (used for wishes); before the predicate, it could only signal an imperative (used for commands). The following examples of optative sentences are taken from the earliest version of Toki Pona's Wikipedia page[3] (2004), but the vocabulary in the text suggests it was written in 2002[clarification needed].
o nimi pi mi mute li kama suli!o nimi pi mi mute li kama suli!
May our name become important!
o jan li sona ala e toki pi jan anteo jan li sona ala e toki pi jan ante.
May people not understand each other's languages.
o ona li lape ponao ona li lape pona.
Let her rest well.
o stopped appearing before the subject early in the language's history.[citation needed] Since then, the second sentence type with o (before the predicate) has subsumed the meaning of the former: the imperative and optative were merged. Some speakers, such as jan Kipo (John Clifford) and jan Minasa (astrodonunt), prefer the historical usage of o, despite it now being considered nonstandard.[4]
sitelen pona[edit | edit source]
The sitelen pona glyph for o () is composed of the punctuation stem and the lowercase Latin letter O. The punctuation stem can be drawn upright (o) or at a diagonal (o). Compare the glyphs for a, kin, and n.
sitelen sitelen[edit | edit source]
The sitelen sitelen glyph for o (o) is composed of a letter "o" radical (O) within some sort of spiky object, resting upon a larger bubble. The origin of this glyph is unknown.
The bubble of o in sitelen sitelen is odd, because it can act as a container for what comes before or after it. This renders sentences like moku o ambiguous with the sentence o moku. In sentences such as jan Lani o, mi awen. where the person being addressed is just being notified of something, Johnathan Gabel reccomends putting jan Lani in an o container and removing the comma. In sentences such as jan Lani o awen e mi. where o is fulfilling the roles of vocative and imperative/optative, Gabel suggests using the o as a container for the syllable glyph. He draws a distinction between jan Ome o, toki and jan Ome o toki not by using punctuation, but by putting the o around jan Ome in the first, but around toki in the second.[5]
Like with any monosyllabic word, the word o may also optionally be written as a syllable glyph (O), however this is highly uncommon due to its multiple uses listed above.
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ "Word Origins". tokipona.org. Archived from the original on 8 August 2002.
- ↑ Lang, Sonja. (18 July 2021). Toki Pona Dictionary. Illustrated by Vacon Sartirani. Tawhid. ISBN 978-0978292362. p. 304.
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Toki_Pona&oldid=2842887
- ↑ Stephan Schneider (jan Tepan). (7 October 2015). "Dialectal Toki Pona (KIPO)". GitHub.
- ↑ Jonathan Gabel. (7 October 2012). "commands". jonathangabel.com. Retrieved 29 November 2023.
Further reading[edit | edit source]
Resources[edit | edit source]
- Toki Pona: The Language of Good: Lesson 10
- jan Kekan San: Instructions with o
- jan Lentan: Lesson 7
- jan Misali: tokiponization (toki pona lesson three)
- soweli Tesa: Lesson 13
- nasin toki pona: the particle o
- Jonathan Gabel: Interjections and Commands
Dictionaries[edit | edit source]
- "o" on lipu Linku
- "o" on lipu Wikipesija
- "o" on English Wiktionary