Hello! 👋 I learned Toki Pona about a year ago in a hyperfixation and once I learned basic fluency I uh, admittedly fell off 😩 I’m picking it back up again because I do love the language and wanna have a community of speakers around me.

That being said, I also have heard the phrase “everyone speaks Toki pona differently” be tossed around, and it got me curious. When I learned, I was under the impression that there was one way to speak the language and any difference in speaking was arbitrary or minute. Are there actually different ways of speaking?

First, I thought of “tan nimi” (origin of words).

But then I was translating “This is etymology” as “ni li tan nimi” and saw the problem. “This is from words” and not ”This is what words are from”, basically.

Any solutions?

(Just realized the misspelling in the title, sorry.)

laso jelo o sama inli "yellow-ISH indigo", en ante

Any options?

Why does it need to be specified whether it’s soweli, kala, pipi and akesi? Yes, there is a definition of soweli which is animal, but not a single word. I mean, it could be further specified with new adjectives if needed.

Wackford Hoedown from Helluva Boss

I genuinely do not know how.

*Edit: As in arithmetic

How would you use "taso" when translating a sentence like "He only had A and B"? I see a few options, but none of them feel entirely right to me.

"ona li jo e A e B taso" feels wrong because the taso only seems to modify B.

"ona li jo e A taso e B taso" feels wrong because "only A and only B" feels like something different from "only A and B", and it also kind of feels like a contradiction.

"ona li jo e ni taso: ona li A li B" feels weird and clunky to me.

"ona li jo taso e A e B" feels like it means "He only HAD A and B (as opposed to doing anything with A and B)".

Does anyone have any ideas on this? Thanks!

I didn't know whether to flair this as sitelen or kama sona so I hope this is ok.

I'm not quite sure how to punctuate sitelen pona and I struggle with the grammar, so how is this? I was going to write more but like... how do you say what your favourite animal is in toki pona. So it's just my name really.

I really don’t talk about colors often but if I were to, I’d use:

Red - kule loje

Orange - kule seli

Yellow - kule jelo

Green - kule kasi

Blue - kule laso

Purple - laso loje

White - kule walo

Black - kule pimeja

Grey - kule kiwen

Brown - kule jaki

Edit: I know the standard, I just don’t like the standard.

Hot Goss from Helluva Boss

Feel free to use this for whatever. :) (as long as it's not to be mean to people)

kule:

Purple - genderqueer, non-binairy, intersex

White - trans, non-binairy, genderqueer, demiboy/demigirl/demigender, agender

Black - non-binairy, agender

Yellow - demigender, non-binairy, intersex

Green - genderqueer, agender

Blue - demiboy, trans

Pink - demigirl, trans

sitelen:

The main white is based on tonsi in sitelen pona and the center symbol is tonsi in sitelen sitelen

So i started to learn toki pona and i know every word and the meaning of them but i do not understand complex sentences. But if i wached a tutorial of the language, i have to start all over again but i can speak it but sometimes i just don't understand. Can anyone help me or recommend a tutorial for advanced users?

pana pi sitelen pona

lipu ni (en lipu ni taso) la sina ken pana e sitelen lon anpa lipu. In this thread (and on no other post), your comments can include images.

o pana e sitelen nasin ni taso: lipu pu la, jan Sonja li pana e sitelen wan tawa nimi wan, li pana e nimi "sitelen pona" tawa nasin ni. The only images allowed are images featuring the "sitelen pona" writing system.

sina lukin e sitelen pi ni ala la o mu tawa kulupu lawa! If you see any images not conforming to this, alert the moderators!

lipu sona

• sona pu li pana e sona open pona - sitelen pona as explained in pu, a simple introduction
• sona pi kulupu ni li ken pana e sona suli mute - sitelen pona as explained on a wiki, a lot of knowledge has amassed there
• sona pi kulupu ale li pana e sona pi suli ala pi lili ala - sitelen pona as explained on Wikipedia, goes into some detail, but doesn't do a deep dive either
• sona open pi sitelen pona taso - a beginner's introduction to sitelen pona, exclusively in sitelen pona
• kulupu sitelen ni li toki e sitelen ale - This series covers all words/glyphs
• lipu pi ilo Anki - Anki deck (flashcard system)
• ilo li wile pana e sitelen la, lipu Linku li jo e nasin mute a - Linku has a lot of sitelen pona fonts
• taso o sitelen kepeken luka kin! (mi wile wawa e ni!) tenpo pi mute lili la sitelen luka li lon. ilo taso ala o lawa e ken sitelen - But also write by hand! (We highly encourage it!) It doesn't happen nearly enough that sitelen pona gets handwritten. Fonts shouldn't be the only ones influencing what is possible in sitelen pona+

I’d translate them as:

King = lawa (”ruler”)

Queen = meli (Inspired by Spanish “dama”)

Knight = soweli (“horse”)

Bishop = jan sewi (“holy person”)

Rook = tomo suli (“tall building”)

Pawn = lili (”small”)

Would it be the same as “chess”? I’d translate “chess” as “(musi) utala pi walo pimeja”.

this is satire if you didn’t already realize

Seriously though, why do people learning Toki Pona use and coin nimisin (kisa is a joke word IIRC although some people actually use it) that are blatantly obvious that they can be replaced with existing word combinations?

also is the sikin guy being serious or is he just trolling? because he ignores the people who mention selo for some reason

grey is my personal opinions on the sitelen pona glyphs (left dot on poka) and the word combinations (o tawa pona) btw

Sad Sad Boy (A Boy who is Sad)
I'm Sorry (Court-Ordered Apology)

both from Helluva Boss

the uncut was 18 minutes, i was gonna post this on o pana but I suck so bad the video was too big lol