Ontology:Q1061
Core characteristics[edit]
- pronounced [P] alias (en) [string]
- meta toki pona
- QID references [Item] 1-1-1
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- field, scope, or group [Item]
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- case of [Item]
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- super-case of [Item]
- en-x-pona
- de-x-pona
- ja-x-pona
- zh-x-pona
- ru-x-pona
- la-x-pona
- consists of components [Item]
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Wavebuilder combinations[edit]
- pronounced [P] pronounced Wavebuilder: forms result [Item]
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- along with [Item]
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Background[edit]
This is the concept of writing in a language using a highly limited number of distinct words — somewhere from 100 to 150 — in a way similar to how toki pona functions, but without using the set palette of words specific to toki pona. The base language can be anything, such as English, German, or anything else. The key characteristic of a text in this "language" is that it will at some point define every word or cluster of words it uses which has a meaning that is not completely obvious, and thus the meanings of every phrase in a particular text will actually become more precise rather than more vague. The idea is to force languages to become better for talking about ontology through making every single individual term harder to misunderstand without having to make the base syntax of the language particularly complicated just to achieve this purpose.
One motivation for this language is that people have complained about toki pona not being able to change and add new words. When toki pona is turned into a writing exercise instead of its own named language, this is no longer a problem because any particular writer can simply pick the exact set of words that are the most useful. There are approximately two rules: almost all the words should be common words, and the words should be chosen as if the text is novel-length and it's important to pick as versatile of words as possible. Apart from that, proper names are allowed, and jargon words can be used sparingly only if they have been defined in the same text. Some particles and grammar patterns may not count toward the total number of words, at least for the purposes of remaining under 120 words, but you must be able to demonstrate that they can be found in an introductory language textbook.
Toki pona but with German[edit]
When writing in de-x-pona it is acceptable to smash words together into giant compound words as long as each of the compound words is defined in the same text. Each of these compound words is assumed to have no meaning until it has been defined.
Toki pona but with Egyptian[edit]
Given that the rules of this language are not fully fixed to the standard rules of the base language and the point is instead to create a simplified language, it would theoretically be possible to take an ancient language with a great amount of information recovered about it and simply start writing in a "pona" version of that language. In a case like this, the writing system does not have to be especially easy to remember as long as the spoken representation of the sentence is appropriately simple. As long as there is a small number of words and it does not take long to learn the spoken grammar it is perfectly acceptable to write sentences in hieroglyphs, especially if using some kind of elaborate writing system somehow makes the meaning of a statement clearer.