Talk:Toki Pona
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[edit] Notability
It's probably better to leave the notability tag on until the article is properly referenced. None of the sources cited so far appear to meet WP:RS criteria. The benefit of the tag is that editors reading the article might feel inclinded to (1) read the notability guidelines, (2) add sources, (3) then remove the notability tag. The benefit is that the article will be on much better footing if its ever re-nominated for deletion. - Aagtbdfoua 03:38, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
- my mistake, I wrote the above reply as if I had tagged this for notability, and this is one of the conlangs I prodded. Same argument applies. Please source this better. - Aagtbdfoua 03:41, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
I doubt that Toki Pona will be mentioned in any third-party literature for many years to come, if ever. Beyond Esperanto, linguistic publications virtually never discuss conlangs. For example, in a search of an academic index of linguistic abstracts, I found only two references to Quenya, a well-known conlang that was used frequently in the Lord of the Rings movies. If even Quenya has so few mentions in credible journals, it seems unreasonable to ask for references for Toki Pona when the language was only created in 2001 and hasn't been used in any blockbuster movies. Despite the lack of third-party references, Toki Pona is notable; in a short period of time, it rose to be a well-known and popular conlang, developed a following that very few other conlangs can match, and is very unique with its intense, deliberate minimalism. Furthermore, this article has been suggested for deletion before, and by a wide margin, users voted to keep the article. -- Bknight009
- I agree with Bknight009 that Toki Pona is notable: The huge amount of activity on the Toki Pona Yahoo Group together with the numerous websites rich in content in or about Toki Pona establish Toki Pona' notablity beyond doubt. I therefore remove the notability tag now. Marcoscramer 22:49, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- I'm retagging for notability. Perhaps this article would be better suited for an encyclopedia that does not require coverage in reliable sources, or a wiki that specializes in constructed languages. As for reliable sources, note that the sources need not be academic journals. Newspapers, magazines, (non-self published) books would do. Just not Yahoo! groups. - Aagtbdfoua 04:25, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
- I also suggest reading WP:N#Notability is not popularity. - Aagtbdfoua 04:28, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
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- At the First Language Creation Conference last year there was a talk which was partly about Toki Pona (see the conference's program). I guess that that already counts as a reliable source, and thus contributes to the subject's notability. Marcoscramer 00:50, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
- This is better than the Yahoo! groups, but WP:RS requires "reliable, published sources". I'm also not sure what to make of this conference. The speakers are two graduate students (in linguistics), a sound engineer, an author with a PhD (unclear what field), a Philosphy professor (with some training in linguistics), a linguistics professor (thankfully), a database programmer / massage therapist, and an author with a linguistics degree (likely bachelor's). - Aagtbdfoua 19:31, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
- I have now found three mentions of Toki Pona in really reliable sources:
- The popular Serbian magazine Politikin Zabavnik had an article about constructed languages in its 15-Dec-2006 issue with a sub-article about Toki Pona. This can also be read on-line: [1]
- In its 20-Jul-2004 issue the Russian computer magazine Computerra had an article about fast thinking, in which there were six paragraphs dedicated to Toki Pona. This can also be read on-line: [2]
- The book "Esperanto - The New Latin for the Church and for Ecumenism" by Ulrich Matthias (published by the Flamish Esperanto League; ISBN 90 77066 04 7) mentions Toki Pona. Even this book can be read on-line: [3]
- I hope that these mentions in reliable sources are enough for removing the notability tag. Marcoscramer 20:02, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
- It might be nice to update the article to incorporate use of those references, perhaps in support of some of the existing text. -- Bovineone 01:13, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
- I'm concerned that none of those sources satisfy WP:N, and most importantly that no reliable, independent sources seem to be available to ensure that this article is verifiable. I've tried searching Google News's archives and my university's LexisNexis but have been unable to find any additional sources. For these reasons, I've opened an AfD discussion for this article. Krimpet (talk) 05:28, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
- I have now found three mentions of Toki Pona in really reliable sources:
- This is better than the Yahoo! groups, but WP:RS requires "reliable, published sources". I'm also not sure what to make of this conference. The speakers are two graduate students (in linguistics), a sound engineer, an author with a PhD (unclear what field), a Philosphy professor (with some training in linguistics), a linguistics professor (thankfully), a database programmer / massage therapist, and an author with a linguistics degree (likely bachelor's). - Aagtbdfoua 19:31, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
- At the First Language Creation Conference last year there was a talk which was partly about Toki Pona (see the conference's program). I guess that that already counts as a reliable source, and thus contributes to the subject's notability. Marcoscramer 00:50, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
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- The LA Times just had an article about ConLanguages in which Toki Pona was featured prominently. The LA Times even mentioned that MIT regularly gives seminars about Toki Pona, and many psychologists are interested in trying it to treat depression. That link will break in a day, so the article is called In Their Own Words -- Literally, by Amber Dance, 8/24/07. To me this seems to resolve the notability issue. Even if the article itself didn't make it notable, the fact that the article indicates it is one of the most popular and well known conlanguages, possibly with a practical use, which attracts adademics to it, I would say its notable. 68.6.47.210 06:12, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Question
Hi, i've just started looking at Toki Pona so this might be ignorant, but shouldn't the phrase:"jan pona lukin" really be "jan pona li lukin"? Many thanks (i hate confusion when learning something new) Andrew
- Not in this case, it gets translated into English as "a friend watching" or "good person looking" and is to be understood as a nominal phrase, like "a friend who is looking". The word lukin is used here as a modifier for the noun phrase jan pona, so you can understand it as "a person which is good, which is looking". The phrase jan pona li lukin means "a friend is looking". — N-true 00:09, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Toki Pona coming to a newspaper near you?
I have it on good authority that there will soon be a news article about Toki Pona posted in a major Canadian news outlet. I will post a link on the talk page when it arrives. Perhaps that might be reason enough to reconsider that it is indeed encyclopedic? Queerwiki 14:56, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
- If and when the article is published, let us know, and we will review the deletion. At least this is better than the justifications by the "undelete NEDM lol" crowd. --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 21:03, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
- Okay. I expect the article to come out within the next week. I noticed that Toki Pona's still got an article in the Wikipedias of 20 other languages, so evidently some are still of the opinion that it's noteworthy. Queerwiki 17:18, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
The article is going to be posted in the Globe and Mail, a national Canadian newspaper, on this upcoming Monday (07/09/2007). They did a photoshoot with Sonja, at least according to her Livejournal. Once the link gets up, I'm sure there will be a rush to post it. (crtrue)
in today's globe and mail (canada's largest newspaper) http://tokipona.org/tokipona-globeandmail.jpg
- I have already started the review process. Marcoscramer 22:02, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
- alt link: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070709.wllanguage09/BNStory/PersonalTech/ Queerwiki 17:03, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Title/author of Komputerra article?
Can someone who reads Russian give us a proper transliteration of the author, title, date, etc. bibliographic info for http://offline.computerra.ru/2004/550/34762/ ? We need this information rather than the bare URL in the references section. (And it would help to summarize what information, if any, can be sourced to this article which isn't available from other third-party sources in English.) --Jim Henry 23:05, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
[http://offline.computerra.ru/2004/550/34762/ Скорость мысли (The Speed of thought)]，Компьютерра Online (Computerra Online), Станислав Козловский (Stanislav Kozlovskiy), [[20th July]][[2004]] [http://www.politikin-zabavnik.co.yu/tekst.php?broj=2862&tekst=04 Вештачки језици-Токи пона (Constructed language-Toki pona)]，Политикин Забавник (Politikin Zabavnik), 2862nd issue, Тијана Јовановић (Tiyana Yovanovich), [[15th December]][[2006]] [http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070709.wllanguage09/BNStory/PersonalTech/ Canadian has people talking about lingo she created], The Globe and Mail, Siobhan Roberts,[[9th July]][[2007]]
--70.21.4.207 03:57, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
See my reply below.--Sonjaaa 02:33, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
[edit] To do list?
We should probably make a list of the edits needed to clean up the unverifiable statements and add in new information from the recently available sources (The Globe and Mail article and the Komputerra article). What specific parts of the article are considered controversial or startling and especially in need of reliable-source support? --Jim Henry 23:05, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
- I have now markes all claims that still need to be verified by some source by the "fact"-template (displayed as [citation needed]). This doesn't meant that I doubt these claims, but just that we need to find sources that support them (or else remove them from the article). Marcoscramer 14:46, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Direct object
The verb section currently reads: "Some verbs, such as tawa = "to go", which in English govern prepositions, do not take e before their direct objects." I would just say that "tawa" doesn't take a direct object, which is also supported by the official word list (which lists it as intransitive). I propose to just remove this claim. Marcoscramer 14:46, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
- Objects of tawa correspond roughly to English indirect objects. I've rewritten this paragraph. --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 18:32, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Computerra article in certified English translation
http://www.tokipona.org/computerra.html
--Sonjaaa 02:32, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
- Can you also get a translation of the politikin-zabavnik article? Being able to incorporate that as a reference in support of another specific portion of the article would be good. -- Bovineone 17:08, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
[edit] What next?
Okay, what happens now? There seems to have been a flurry of edits to this page. Is it not in satisfactory condition to be restored now? It's certainly a better-written article than many that have never been deleted before. Do we need another round of votes or can it just be restored? Queerwiki 06:08, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
- It looks good now (to me at least, and I was the one who nominated it for AfD); I've gone ahead and moved it back into mainspace, and restored the deleted image. Good job! =) Krimpet 06:20, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Sounds Like Canada
I was interviewed for 14 minutes on Canadian national radio today. See http://www.tokipona.org/tokisuli.html for MP3 clip. --Sonjaaa 04:35, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
[edit] ISO 639-3
I believe the proposed ISO 639-3 code is TOK. --Sonjaaa 20:28, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
- Very cool. Here's the proposal for the new code[4], but it doesn't look like it's been approved yet. I've added it to the article anyways. -- Bovineone 21:22, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
[edit] News stories
Someone pointed out ? this LA times article (requires registration, dammit!) to me. This isn't the first article that's been done about or mentioning Toki Pona. Shouldn't there be a section in the external link or bibliography for these things? --Iustinus 05:43, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
- The LA Times article is already used as a supporting source for the article and is listed in the References section (see link). The LA Times article loads fine once you have registered for their site. -- Bovineone 05:58, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Removed link to 'Tokipinglish'
I don't want to delete an external reference without explaining why, so here's why.
Tokipinglish is not a "constructed language". At best, it's a half-baked suggestion for a creole. The web site says that if you can't figure out how to say something in Tokipinglish, "just say it in English".
The linked web site had fullscreen BraveNet advertising pop-unders and the poll linked from the main page had a total of three votes, two of which said that Tokipinglish was "terrible". (Yes, one of those votes was mine.)
It's my impression that no one reads the Tokipinglish pages, and that people who see the main Tokipinglish page immediately understand that it is not what it claims to be. I only explored the site myself to see if there was any reason it should be kept in the Toki Pona article.
--Rick MILLER 18:37, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
[edit] rules?
Just jotting down probs I have with the rules, in case it turns out they're wrong
- li isn't a conjunction, it marks a duplicated predicate after a subject. Not the best way to present it. (Course, machine rules generally aren't the best way to present rules to humans.)
kwami (talk) 11:16, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
[edit] new roots?
I've found one of the two new roots, pan, but not the other. This is just the kind of thing someone might come here for. Anyone know what the other one is? kwami (talk) 22:15, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
From Sonjaaa's talk page:
- pan is from Chinese for rice. esun is from Akan. I forgot the other ones.--Sonjaaa (talk) 09:55, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks! (Silly me, I thought pan was from Spanish bread.) kwami (talk) 19:44, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Is esun just market/shop/store, or can it also be a verb buy/sell/barter? Also, do you have the Akan form? The closest I can come is a verb 'to value', but it's not a good match. Thanks, kwami (talk) 18:28, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
Hi again. I've checked out another Akan dictionary, but still can't find anything that resembles esun. Do you remember the Akan form? kwami (talk) 07:07, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
Ah, I found edwam 'at market', from edwa 'market'. Could this be it? Thanks, kwami (talk) 07:02, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
- I dunno. My source was a taxi driver, and he said something like "edjum" ;) --Sonjaaa (talk) 22:20, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
I bet that's it, then. The full form is e-dwa-mu, where dw is approx. [dʒ], and one person I asked said this does get shortened to something like [edʒum]. (mu is the locative; I don't know what the e is.) kwami (talk) 23:01, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
[edit] obsolete roots
It would be nice to get the obsolete roots too: where are iki and kapa from?
I have no source on leko, kan, pata. Are they correct? Pata I assume is from Tok Pisin brata, the others I can't ID. — kwami (talk) 20:43, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
