tuki tiki

Logo of tuki tiki

tuki tiki (meaning "repetitive language" or "roundabout language") is a radically minimalist constructed language and tokiponido. It was created by ka Tumu (Ðoom Epictooþ) starting in 2020. It has 39 words and 8 phonemes.

While tuki tiki is more minimalist compared to Toki Pona, it is not—nor is it meant to be—absolutely minimalist or the language with the fewest amount of words. Its goal is to to shrink down Toki Pona's grammar and vocabulary to an even simpler but usable scale.

Phonology

Consonants

The consonant inventory of tuki tiki includes 5 phonemes. Comparing with Toki Pona, the phoneme /s/ merged with /t/, /w/ and /j/ merged with /k/, and /n/ merged with /l/. Due to its small inventory, tuki tiki allows for great allophonic variation. For example, /t/ may be palatalized as [t͡s̠] or [s̠] before /i/.

Consonant phonemes of tuki tiki

	Bilabial	Alveolar	Velar
Obstruent	p	t	k
Sonorant	m	l

Vowels

The vowel inventory of tuki tiki includes 3 vowels, /a, i, u/. /e/ merged with /i/, and /o/ with /u/.

Vowels of tuki tiki

	Front	Back
Close	i	u
Open	a

Stress

Stress, similarly to Toki Pona, is placed on the first syllable of the word. In phrases with more than one word, the second word often has the heavier stress.

Grammar

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The grammar of tuki tiki is very similar to that of Toki Pona.

Simple phrases

A "simple phrase" consists of one or more "simple words" (analogous to content phrases and content words in Toki Pona grammar). Phrases are head-initial, that is, the first word in the phrase is the head and the following ones are modifiers.

ka li

this being

muku pula mi

my good food

Wordlist

The lexicon of tuki tiki is entirely derived from Toki Pona, with the word's semantic spaces expanded to compensate for its small size. For example, the word tu is derived from Toki Pona tu, but the semantic space is more similar to mute.

Word	Part of speech	Meaning	Etymology
a	simple word	all, only, exist, true, ah	a
ala	simple word	no, not, nothing	ala
	connector	[question marker]
i	reference word	[object reference]	e
iku	simple word	thing, substance, object	ijo
ilu	simple word	tool, use, method, way	ilo
ka	simple word	being, person, creature, alive	jan
kati	simple word	plant, non-moving creature, leaf, page	kasi
ki	simple word	possible, able, maybe, can	ken
kiku	simple word	rock, hard, earth, ground, land, place	kiwen
ku	simple word	air, gas, spirit, feeling, vibe, sound	kon
la	reference word	[context reference]	la
lapi	simple word	calm, rest, fuzzy, dim, inactive, cold	lape
li	simple word	this, that; him, her, them, it	li, ni
	reference word	[subject reference]: he, she, they, it, that
lika	simple word	line, stick, limb	linja
lili	simple word	little	lili
lu	connector	[conjunction, preposition]	lon
lupa	simple word	hole, box, room, mouth, inside	lupa
mi	simple word	me, my, us, our	mi
	reference word	[subject reference]: I, we
muku	simple word	eat, food, tasty, sweet, pleasant	moku
muti	simple word	fun, play, culture, art	musi
paka	simple word	break, destroy, violence, conflict	pakala
pali	simple word	do, make, creation, structure	pali
puka	simple word	side, backside, vicinity	poka
pula	simple word	good	pona
taka	simple word	move, go, come, change, time	tawa
tama	simple word	same, similar, also, stay the same	sama
tiki	simple word	circle, cycle, repeat, pattern, again, time	sike
tiku	simple word	high, tall, big, important, top, head, sky	sewi
tila	simple word	you, your	sina
	reference word	[subject reference]: you
tilu	simple word	water, liquid	telo
timi	simple word	what?	seme
tipi	simple word	front, face, vertical surface	sinpin
titi	simple word	image, symbol, mean, represent	sitelen
tu	simple word	a lot, much, many, amount, group	tu
tuki	simple word	language, make noise, talk, think	toki
tula	simple word	know, feel, learn, knowledge, document	sona
tulu	simple word	sun, light, warm, colour, energy	suno
uli	simple word	want, need, force, goal, direction	wile
upi	simple word	new, fresh, begin, start, cause	open

Writing systems

Main article: titi pula

Glyphs in titi pula. Yellow glyphs are taken directly from sitelen pona, orange glyphs are based on it but modified, and pink glyphs are completely original.

Besides the Latin script (titi Latila), the most common way of writing the language is with the logographic writing system titi pula, inspired by sitelen pona. As of February 2024, there are six font families with support for it.

󱱌󱱦󱱀󱱥󱱅

li upi a uli ka.

This is only the beginning of the intentions of man.

Sample text

The following text is the translation of the Tower of Babel, translated by ka Tumu.

ka a li tuki tama. ka li taka lu kiku Tilala li tiki lu li.
tiki la ka li tuki i li: "taka. mi pali i kiku mi tulu i li."
ka li ilu i kiku i tilu. pali kiku la ka li tuki i li: "taka. mi pali i kiku i lupa tiku. mi uli ala taka lu kiku tu, la mi tu mi uli i titi tama."
tuki li la ka tiku li taka lu kiku li tula i kiku i lupa. ka tiku li tuki i li: "ka a li tu tama li tuki tama. li upi a uli ka. uli ka la a li ki. taka. mi taka lu kiku mi tu i tuki ka."
tiku li taka i ka a lu kiku a. ka li ki ala pali i lupa tiku.
kiku li li titi Papala lu upi li: tiku li tu i tuki i ka lu kiku a.

In Toki Pona culture

Unofficial tuki tiki mascot

tuki tiki is commonly represented by a mascot, designed by Reddit user u/Linguistic-Spiral in 2022 for the webcomic Prolangs. It is an anthropomorphized representation of the language, drawn with a floating body without arms, shorter than Toki Pona's mascot. The glyph for tuki tiki is present in the face and torso of the mascot. The head has a mouth and a hat with emitters above. The character has a pink and yellow color scheme, contrasting with the blue and yellow colors of Toki Pona.

On April Fools' Day

In 2023, as an April Fools' joke, the Toki Pona webzine lipu tenpo published an issue written entirely in tuki tiki, named kati tiki tu lili. The issue nanpa sin features a serious article on tuki tiki, written by jan Ke Tami.

For April Fools' Day 2024, the ma pona pi toki pona Discord server rebranded to a tuki tiki server named kiku tiki tuki tiki ("circle-zone of circle-language"), claiming Toki Pona to be "too large".

External links

• Improved grammar
• Grammar
• Wordlist
• Wordlist (in Toki Pona)
• Texts
• Cheat sheet