[HN Gopher] Toki Pona: an attempted universal language with only...
___________________________________________________________________
Toki Pona: an attempted universal language with only ~120 words
Author : Fraterkes
Score : 153 points
Date : 2023-08-13 19:20 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (cohost.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (cohost.org)
| florianist wrote:
| I love Toki Pona and have been using it for a little while. You
| can check my YouTube channel if you wish to see/hear it live in
| action: https://www.youtube.com/@janPolijan Toki Pona gives you
| the fun part of using a foreign language, but it skips the boring
| part of having to learn a ton a grammar and vocabulary. And the
| phonology is delightfully simple, so you won't have a bad accent.
| There's a growing and very active community around it and people
| write and share novels and songs. But it's also useful just as a
| personal language because it's really like a game for your mind.
| After a while, you reach proficiency and then fluency and it gets
| even better. It is absolutely possible to explain fairly complex
| things if you continue to push it. You obviously wouldn't want to
| do engineering in Toki Pona, but explaining quite complex topics
| is absolutely possible if you really desire (for example, someone
| has put a YouTube video explaining non-euclidean geometry in Toki
| Pona). One final thing: contrary to popular belief, Toki Pona is
| not designed to be as minimal as possible (the "tuki tiki"
| conlang with only 39 words modifies Toki Pona and pushes towards
| true minimalism). Toki Pona sure is tiny, but it's mostly
| designed to be fun and retain expressiveness.
| WaffleIronMaker wrote:
| If you're interested in Toki Pona, you may also enjoy jan
| Misali's "12 days of toki pona":
| https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjOmpMyMxd8T9lZjF36c4mn4Y...
| skybrian wrote:
| If this is too minimalist for you, another interesting conlang is
| 'Mini' which has 1000 words. I haven't tried it, but I've heard
| it's pretty easy to learn.
|
| https://minilanguage.com/
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36788783
| [deleted]
| revid wrote:
| This was recently on a textbin, glad I backed it up: A More
| Refined Minimal Language Inspired by Toki Pona & SpamTec &
| Ytcracker
|
| Basic Vocabulary:
|
| suno - sun, light, day moku - food, eat tomo - shelter, place,
| structure telo - drink, water, fluid jan - individual, person
| soweli - creature, animal kama - future, approach, event tawa -
| move, direction, towards ni - this, present mi - self, I sina -
| other, you ona - they, he, she, it Grammar:
|
| Basic Structure: Subject + Verb (or Predicate)
|
| mi moku. - I eat. sina suno. - You shine or You are sunny.
| Direct Objects are introduced with "e":
|
| mi moku e telo. - I consume water. (I drink water.) sina tawa e
| tomo. - You move towards the shelter. (You go to the house.)
| Questions:
|
| For yes/no questions, use "seme" after the verb. mi moku seme?
| - Do I eat? sina tawa seme? - Are you moving? For open-ended
| questions, place "seme" where the unknown is. seme li moku? -
| Who eats? sina tawa e seme? - Where are you going? Tense
| Indication:
|
| Past: Use pini before the verb. Future: Use kama before the
| verb. mi pini moku. - I previously ate. (I ate.) mi kama moku.
| - I will eat soon. (I will eat.) Negation: Use ala after the
| verb.
|
| mi moku ala. - I don't eat. Possession: Use pi between the
| possessor and the thing possessed.
|
| mi pi tomo. - My house. sina pi moku. - Your food.
|
| ------------
|
| If anyone is interested in practicing with me, let me know!
| kindawinda wrote:
| I've been delving deep into the structure of toki pona and
| noticed some intriguing gaps:
|
| Abstract concepts - The language seems to skate over complex
| philosophical or scientific ideas. You won't find an easy way to
| express ideas like "justice" or "quantum". It's a testament to
| its minimalist design, but it also means some concepts are lost
| in translation.
|
| Specific flora/fauna - While you can use terms like "kili",
| "kala", or "soweli" to describe plants, fish, or mammals,
| respectively, don't expect to convey specific species such as
| "maple tree" or "cat". It's a broad brush approach that lacks
| granularity.
|
| Intensive modifiers - Toki pona leans hard on the word "mute" for
| intensifiers. This simplification might hinder nuanced
| expressions, as there's a big gap between "mute" and a neutral
| descriptor.
|
| Collective nouns - The language only really has "kulupu" to
| describe collectives. So, distinguishing between, say, a "flock"
| and a "crowd" might get tricky.
|
| Idiomatic phrases - A repertoire of idioms or set phrases for
| common topics would make conversations feel more culturally rich
| and engaging. It's one thing to communicate efficiently, but
| another to do so with character and flair.
|
| This isn't criticism but an observation of the trade-offs made
| for simplicity. Every language has its quirks, and understanding
| these nuances can make for a richer linguistic experience.
| revid wrote:
| this was circulating on usenet in early 2000s for a while, id
| love to see it official:
|
| # Toki Pona: Snoufax II Advanced
|
| ## Basic Particles - *a* - particle - *e* - object marker -
| *en* - and - *la* - used for conditions and time - *li* - links
| subject and predicate - *o* - vocative particle - *pi* - of
|
| ## Tense and Aspect Modifiers - *sili* - Continuous or ongoing.
| "mi sili toki" - I am speaking.
|
| ## Moods and Modality - *kin* - Potentiality (can/might). "mi
| kin toki" - I might speak.
|
| ## Technical and Scientific Terms - *ilo sona* - Computer
| (knowledge tool). "mi kepeken ilo sona" - I use a computer.
|
| ## Abstract Concepts - *pona nasin* - Justice (right way/path).
| "pona nasin li tawa mi" - Justice is important to me.
|
| ## Idiomatic Expressions - *pakala luka* - Break a limb (good
| luck). "pakala luka tawa sina!" - Break a leg (Good luck)!
|
| ## Politeness Levels - *sewi* - To elevate the status of the
| person being spoken to. "sewi jan Lisa, mi toki tawa sina" -
| Honorable Lisa, I speak to you.
|
| ## Detailed Descriptors - *jelo pimeja* - Dark yellow (like
| mustard). "mi jo e tomo jelo pimeja" - I have a mustard-colored
| house.
|
| ## Complex Syntax - *seme* - Universally before a statement to
| make it interrogative. "seme sina toki?" - Are you speaking?
|
| ## Pronouns - *ono* - Neutral pronoun (they/them). "ono li toki
| tawa mi" - They are speaking to me.
|
| ## Numerical System - *ten* - Ten. "mi jo e ten tomo" - I have
| ten houses.
|
| ## Prefixes/Suffixes for Intensifiers - *suli-* - A prefix to
| mean "very/big". "suli-pona" - Very good.
|
| ## Passive Voice - *palisa* - Passive. "mi palisa toki" - I am
| spoken to.
|
| ## Directional Particles - *noka* - Toward. "mi tawa noka tomo"
| - I am going towards the house. - *monsi* - Away from. "mi tawa
| monsi tomo" - I am moving away from the house.
|
| ## Negation of Modality - *ala kin* - Cannot, impossible. "mi
| ala kin toki" - I can't speak.
|
| ## Temporal Phrases - *tenpo pini* - Previously, before. "tenpo
| pini la, mi toki" - I spoke before. - *tenpo kama* - Soon,
| later. "tenpo kama la, mi toki" - I will speak later.
|
| ## Comparison and Superlatives - *sama lili* - Less like,
| lesser. "mi sama lili jan Lisa" - I am less like Lisa. - *sama
| suli* - More like, greater. "mi sama suli jan Lisa" - I am more
| like Lisa.
|
| ## Conditional Statements - *sama... la* - If... then... "sama
| toki pona li pona tawa sina la, sina toki kepeken ona" - If you
| like Toki Pona, then you speak using it.
|
| ## Reflexive Actions - *sama mi* - Myself. "mi toki tawa sama
| mi" - I talk to myself.
|
| ## Possession - *pi mi* - Mine. "tomo ni li pi mi" - This house
| is mine.
|
| ## Emphasis Particle - *kin li* - Emphasizes the action or
| state. "mi kin li toki!" - I really am speaking!
|
| ## Uncertainty or Hesitation - *...anu...* - Either... or...
| "mi toki anu toki ala" - I either speak or don't.
|
| ## Verb Structures - *li... e* - Direct object indicator. "mi
| li toki e toki" - I speak the language. - *tan... tawa* - Cause
| and effect. "mi tan tomo tawa tomo sona" - I go from home to
| school.
|
| ## Adjectives and Adverbs - *sama sona* - Intelligently,
| knowledgeably. "ona li toki sama sona" - He speaks
| intelligently. - *pona mute* - Very well. "mi toki pona mute" -
| I speak very well.
| tbodt wrote:
| As an experienced toki pona speaker, this list is amusing
| because most of this is either a pointless terrible idea or
| already valid and accepted - somehow with very little in
| between. I'll leave it to the next commenter to go point by
| point.
| revid wrote:
| That makes sense as to why it's from the 2000s prior to
| your modern tongue.
| _hzw wrote:
| A game idea: you wake up and find yourself in a mysterious land
| where people speak only Toki Pona. You don't know why you are
| there and how to get out of there. In order to go home you have
| to learn the language and discover the secret of the land through
| interactions with NPCs.
| fudged71 wrote:
| You could construct this game entirely through a ChatGPT prompt
| today
| labster wrote:
| A long time ago, a tribe of linguist PhDs settled on the
| island, because funding for the humanities dried up, and tenure
| track jobs vanished into myth. They were forced to settle on a
| remote island because it was the closest place with affordable
| housing.
| [deleted]
| Kivutar wrote:
| I've been reading, writing, and translating text in Toki Pona for
| a year.
|
| My main criticism of the language is that the word are so
| abstract that understanding spoken Toki Pona at real speed is
| practically impossible. Too many possible translations. Too many
| ways of combining these words, and no mechanism to identify which
| words form a compound.
| [deleted]
| Animats wrote:
| Can one of the LLM systems be trained to translate to or from
| this? Is that useful?
| andsoitis wrote:
| I just tried _say "hello what is your name" in toki pona_ in
| ChatGPT and the response was:
|
| _In toki pona, "hello what is your name" can be expressed as
| "toki! nimi sina li seme?"_
| Aachen wrote:
| GPT3(?) is not that good, making quite basic mistakes, as in,
| I can pick them out and I'm an absolute noob at toki pona.
| GPT4 link that someone posted in a sibling comment gives 404
| for me so I can't judge that, please include versions when
| saying that some LLM can do it :)
| cosmojg wrote:
| Here's an excerpt from the linked ChatGPT conversation:
|
| > [User]: Please translate this Toki Pona into English:
|
| > [User]: o! mi sona e toki pona. mi lukin sona e toki
| mute... taso mi toki ike e toki ale. toki mute li jo e nimi
| mute. nimi mute li pona ala tawa mi. toki pona li pona e mi
| tan ni. toki pona li jo nimi lili. nimi lili li pona e me
|
| > [GPT-4]: Here's a translation of the provided Toki Pona
| text into English:
|
| > [GPT-4]: "Oh! I know Toki Pona. I have studied many
| languages... but I speak all languages poorly. Many
| languages have many words. Many words are not good for me.
| Toki Pona is good for me because of this. Toki Pona has few
| words. Few words are good for me."
|
| > [GPT-4]: Note: Toki Pona is a minimalistic constructed
| language with a small vocabulary. The translation may not
| capture all the nuances, but this is a close representation
| of the message in English.
| coder543 wrote:
| You assume that existing ones can't?
|
| Using the example provided in the main link, ChatGPT-4 had no
| trouble at all:
| https://chat.openai.com/share/3b8faf2e-4eca-4d52-97fb-ac89a4...
| Aachen wrote:
| This gives a 404 for me
| coder543 wrote:
| Sorry, I had just deleted it from my history without
| realizing that it would break the share link. Updated the
| link with a new session demonstrating the same thing now.
| devit wrote:
| Seems ineffective with abstract concepts.
|
| "In mathematics, a real number is a number that can be used
| to measure a continuous one-dimensional quantity such as a
| distance, duration or temperature. Here, continuous means
| that pairs of values can have arbitrarily small differences.
| Every real number can be almost uniquely represented by an
| infinite decimal expansion."
|
| ->
|
| "toki pi nanpa, nanpa lon li nanpa li ken lukin e suli tawa
| wan. lon ni la, nanpa tu li ken ala li poka li ken lili.
| nanpa lon ali li ken lukin kepeken nimi nanpa mute tawa pini
| ala"
|
| ->
|
| "Talking about numbers, when a number is present, it can be
| seen to be important or significant to an individual."
|
| "In this context, the number two might not be significant or
| might be seen as small or lesser."
|
| "All numbers can be seen using many number names endlessly or
| without an end."
|
| ChatGPT 4, obviously in separate chats: as you can see a
| complete failure to convey and roundtrip the original
| message.
| coder543 wrote:
| > Seems ineffective with abstract concepts
|
| I've only heard of Toki Pona for about 20 minutes, but
| everything I'm reading says that's just a normal property
| of the language, not a limitation of ChatGPT.
|
| As a human, which of the 120 Toki Pona words would you
| confidently and correctly translate as "continuous" or
| "real" or any of these other linguistically uncommon
| concepts?
|
| Based on my own chat with ChatGPT, I feel almost certain
| that it warned you about this exact limitation of the
| language, but you ignored that?
| devit wrote:
| "continuous" (in this actually incorrect usage, since the
| correct term is "dense")
|
| ->
|
| said of an algebraic structure such that for every x != y
| there exists z such that x < z and z < y
|
| ->
|
| characteristic ("nimi"?) of a set ("poki") where for
| ("tawa?") all ("ale") thing ("ijo") different ("ante" +
| "lon"?) than other ("ante" + "nimi"?) thing ("ito") there
| exists ("lon") a new ("sin") thing ("ijo") such that the
| first ("wan" + "nimi" + "ito"?) thing is less ("lili")
| than the new thing ("sin" + "ito"?) and the new thing
| ("sin" + "ito"?) is less ("lili") that the second thing
| ("tu" + "nimi" + "ito"?)
|
| Would need some way to join into a grammatical structure
| and probably a preamble that establishes that the context
| is mathematics.
| clankyclanker wrote:
| This is precisely the case where ChatGPT (or _any_ LLM) will
| have trouble that a layperson would have trouble validating:
| Toki Pona has a limited document corpus and requires
| contextual interpretation obvious to experts.
|
| In short, expect hallucinations and other lies.
| kordlessagain wrote:
| Lies are typically done on purpose and in this example used
| to indicate intent, when there is none.
| coder543 wrote:
| In this case, I validated against the hand-translated
| example in the main link. It did fine.
|
| This is probably easy mode for it, given the tiny
| vocabulary at hand, even though it has surely seen very
| little Toki Pona in the wild. Large language models are
| extremely good at translation. I've personally tested
| ChatGPT-4 against Google Translate and other translators on
| some hard translations (languages that are not similar to
| English, such as Chinese), and it has consistently provided
| better translations than Google Translate in my opinion. As
| an example, for validation purposes, news stories that have
| been reported worldwide make things easier, since you can
| establish the facts of the translation by hand, and then
| compare what comes out.
|
| What does your comment actually add to the discussion? Yes,
| ChatGPT can be wrong. So can Google Translate!
|
| If you'd like to provide a clear example of ChatGPT-4 (not
| ChatGPT-3.5) making up a Toki Pona translation that is
| completely disconnected from reality, please do. That would
| be legitimately interesting conversational material.
| _General cynicism isn't._
|
| ChatGPT absolutely has limitations, and translation is a
| hard problem, even for the industry-standard tools.
| Crossvalidation with multiple translation tools and ideally
| humans is important for any translations that actually
| matter.
| NoZebra120vClip wrote:
| Since LLMs' only valid uses involve entertainment and
| creativity, and Toki Pona is more or less a recreational
| language without serious application, I think they go
| together like two peas in a pod.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| >only valid use...
|
| Well. That's _an_ opinion I suppose.
|
| -edit- After posting, I decided this was too snarky/low
| value on it's own. So to add:
|
| I personally get quite a bit of value out of it as an ad-
| hoc German tutor and as one-among-many tools for research
| and learning on new topics for which I am not already an
| expert.
|
| I've also used it to help me make and troubleshoot very
| simple code in languages that I am not an expert in.
|
| I personally have trivially found lots of uses that
| probably all cluster around "educational" to one degree
| or another.
|
| Is it perfect? Absolutely not. Does it hallucinate/get
| things wrong? Absolutely. Is it useful _despite_ those
| limitations? Emphatically yes.
|
| This idea that its "only valid use" is entertainment
| doesn't even make sense to me. "Entertainment" is perhaps
| where I find it the _most_ deficient relative to other
| current options.
| dotancohen wrote:
| > In this case, I validated against the hand-translated
| example in the main link. It did fine.
|
| Presumably that hand-translated example was also part of
| the training data.
| coder543 wrote:
| Not likely. The article says it was posted 1 year ago.
| ChatGPT's training data cutoff is September 2021, so no,
| that would not make sense.
| neontomo wrote:
| You can think of most common languages as "lossless" (at least
| in comparison), whereas Toki Pona is "lossy". Once you
| translate English to Toki, it loses a lot of granularity. For
| example...
|
| _Translating English to Toki Pona:_ Talk ->
| Toki
|
| _Translating Toki Pona to English:_ Toki -> To
| speak, Communicate, Use language, Think, Say "hello"
|
| Which means, it's now impossible to translate it back to
| English and know which one is referred to, without context.
|
| The language forces you to be less specific in your meaning,
| but also to focus on core human emotions instead of unnecessary
| complexity. Having a translator perfectly convert English to
| Toki Tona is gonna be a lot easier than the reverse, anyway,
| unless you have a lot of context to piece it together.
|
| Note: I tried learning this language many years ago and this is
| my personal opinion. It may not be shared by everyone.
| Aachen wrote:
| > You can think of most common languages as "lossless" (at
| least in comparison),
|
| If only! For most words in most sentences, you can find
| direct translations, but between most language pairs, I'm
| pretty sure any given text (just one page or so, let alone
| books) will have at least one point where you have to
| _interpret_ the text to translate it: choose what meaning the
| author intended or what saying /expression conveys the same
| meaning the closest without going into descriptive mode.
|
| I suppose that might be what you meant by "in comparison",
| but it seems misleading, at least to anyone not
| fluent/proficient enough in another language to know that
| lossless translations isn't how languages work
|
| But, yes, toki pona lifts this to a whole 'nother level. Does
| anyone happen to know how Esperanto compares? As far as I
| know, it should be quite similar to a "normal" (non-
| con)language in this regard (just simpler to learn, with
| bonus points if you speak a romance language afaik)
| weinzierl wrote:
| I always wanted to train an LLM from scratch. There is an
| interesting project that does just that with Esperanto and my
| immediate thought was I'll do it with Toki Pona. Unfortunately,
| I had vastly underestimated the size of the existing Esperanto
| corpus and overestimated size of the Toki Pona corpus.
|
| So, I gave up on that idea because I believe that there is not
| enough training data, but I'd love to be proven wrong.
| grondilu wrote:
| > There is an interesting project that does just that with
| Esperanto
|
| That is intriguing. Link?
| bravura wrote:
| Here was GPT4 giving me a full literal and then figurative
| translation of the sample text:
|
| https://chat.openai.com/share/50fd27af-7515-4f89-b0e1-228501...
| lathiat wrote:
| Also the subject of a recent "Half As Interesting":
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=_d6bGAw5yt8
| Aachen wrote:
| Don't have youtube access atm, but isn't that the video where
| the comments pointed out a myriad of mistakes?
| sli wrote:
| Top comment is indeed a fairly long timestamped list of
| errors in the video.
| fhars wrote:
| A funny game I saw Toki Pona speakers play: make an appointment
| to meet somewhere in Toki Pona, and then the next time you meet
| for other reasons, compare notes when you were where, and for
| what reason, as a result of that appointment.
| anyfoo wrote:
| I might be dumb, but I don't get it? Can you elaborate?
| ajkjk wrote:
| Presumably nobody managed to successfully communicate the
| time and place of the appointment so it becomes funny to
| figure out how everyone misunderstood it.
| leipert wrote:
| Oh. Toki Pona is fun. I learned it a while back and the limited
| set of vocabulary really leads to two things:
|
| a) Local dialects, similar to sign-languages. e.g. "good fruit"
| might mean "mango" in one Toki Pona community or "apple" in
| another
|
| b) It felt kind of freeing, because a lot of words convey a very
| broad concept. It is actually really interesting to talk about
| certain emotions, because "a bad day" is "a bad day" and one
| doesn't really need to go into specifics into _what exact kind of
| bad_ in order to be consoled by the other person. This is not
| super helpful if you need a problem solved or need to describe
| what kind of pain you feel to a doctor, but just for the every-
| day venting it was kinda nice.
| IshKebab wrote:
| "English is easy - only 26 letters!"
| qawwads wrote:
| [dead]
| NoZebra120vClip wrote:
| How many words for snow?
| schoen wrote:
| None!
|
| But you could say "ko lete", "walo lete", "ijo lete", or
| "lete", I guess. Or "telo lete pi kiwen mute ala" which is kind
| of a nuisance. ("Not-very-hard cold water.")
|
| I think "telo lete walo" or "ko lete walo" would be widely
| understood.
| doublepg23 wrote:
| My initial impressions of Toki Pona were that you'd struggle to
| communicate anything more than basic thoughts but people in the
| community have told me they've had robust philosophical
| conversations. Seems like a wonderful group of people in my
| interactions.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| > _people in the community have told me they've had robust
| philosophical conversations._
|
| I wonder if they were both having the same conversation.
| kian wrote:
| I wonder that about all conversations.
| dancemethis wrote:
| In a way, this is pretty amusing. Two people ending up having
| very different conversations... talking to each other.
| labster wrote:
| Reminds me of some ex girlfriends.
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| The Wikipedia pages says explicitly that "However, it was not
| created as an international auxiliary language. [...] The
| language is designed to help users concentrate on basic things
| and to promote positive thinking".
|
| So it seems like the HN title is wrong, and it explains the
| limitations pointed out in a few comments.
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(page generated 2023-08-13 23:00 UTC)