Re: Toki Pona survey

Hi!

Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...> writes:
>...
> > What do you dislike about it?
>
> It is yet another misguided closed-vocabulary scheme and probably
> unable to express complex concepts, or at least very clumsy and
> imprecise at doing so.  The minimalist phonology sounds, well,
> like so many minimalist phonologies we all have seen before.
> (It makes pronouncing it easy, though.)
Hey, this is not meant to be an IAL, it explicitly is not, so no
reason to get upset! :-)

ACK on the phonology, but you read that.

> On Sun, 17 Oct 2004 18:21:26 +0200,
> Henrik Theiling <theiling@...> wrote:
>
> > I like:
> >    - simplicity
> >    - grammar and the source of the words.
> >    - size of basic dictionary
>
> Are you serious about that???
Yes.

> I think that a language with only 118 words has serious trouble
> expressing *anything*.
The size of 118 words is basic words only, or roots.  If you want to
be more precise, you can use compound words that are more specific.
The problem is, of course, that these are not lexicalised much.  118
basic words does not mean it is totally incapable of expressing
anything. The principle that short words are imprecise while longer
ones get more precise is a philosophical feature that I like.

Have a look at the lexicon of Jeffrey's Kali-sise, which has 400 roots
but an *enormously* large lexicon with compounds.  It's a similar
system, but more elaborate and not pidgin (actually, Kali-sise has a
lexicon that large that it blows my head off.  When did Jeffrey have
the time to do *that*??)  His root list includes 'kape' for 'coffee',
which I don't consider necessary as a root if you want 400 words max.
But it's a good root, of course. :-)

E.g.:

> kakute-sunu-kaneke-nasiku [{sharp-object}+sound+shell+insect.]
> n. click beetle (family Elateridae)
:-)

As I said, I dislike the pidgin character of Toki Pona, which includes
the numbers (I *need* a logarithmic number system), and it also
includes the lexicon, which is currently very small and the rest is
not fixed, so you have to invent words from the base-words (or roots).
It also lacks some grammar rules for complex sentences.

But anyway, all that is done on purpose and it is intended to be
pidgin-like, so I judge it as a pidgin, and as such, it does not need
a sophisticated number system or lexicon -- both will not be fully
existent until creole state.

*Henrik