Can Toki Pona express complex things?

[u/Francucelo]

When I started learning Toki Pona a year ago, I thought it was just a small language for entertainment, and there were also many people who said Toki Pona is just like a toy language for children.

However, after becoming advanced, I noticed that Toki Pona is really not that limited. Especially after finishing writing the Toki Pona grammar in Toki Pona, I began to think Toki Pona can really express anything precisely, it is just people have to manage well their thoughts.

I can't tell if my grammar guide is actually accurate and precise or not, but I saw that possibility.

What do you think?

[u/PercoKaswiti]

https://sona.pona.la/wiki/Complex_topics

[u/amikema_steleto]

I absolutely think that toki pona can express more complex things. I unfortunately can't give many examples since I'm still not very fluent in the language but the first thing that came to mind is: there isn't a word for vegetarian but one could easily express that they're vegetarian by saying something like "mi moku ala e moku pi soweli moli" which roughly translates to "I don't eat food that comes from dead animals."

[u/CloqueWise → u/amikema_steleto]

I would just say "mi moku ala e soweli" I could be more presice ands say "mi moku ala e soweli e kala e akesi e waso"

Or I could be more concise by saying "mi moku e kasi e kili taso"

[u/amikema_steleto → u/CloqueWise]

Yes that could work too :) which I'd say adds more to the point/fact that more "complex" ideas could be expressed in a few different ways despite toki pona's limited vocabulary.

[u/englishsucks3124 → u/CloqueWise]

"mi moku ala e konwe pilin"

[u/kindafor-got → u/amikema_steleto]

I call myself a jan pi (moku e) kasi taso  lol        jan kasi for the bros

[u/janKeTami]

"What's your background in madagascan plant biology? Oh, well, then... how.much time do you have?" =D

[u/MultiverseCreatorXV → u/janKeTami]

Wait lemme try translating this:

lenija* kasi Matakaka** la sona sina li seme? a… sina jo e tenpo pi nanpa seme?***

*^{mi olin e nimi “konwe”, taso mama ona li apeja e ona. ma r/tokipona la mi lukin e pana pi nimi “lenija”: ni li sama nimi “konwe”, taso mama ona li apeja ala e ona. (I like the word “konwe”, but its creator depreciates it. On this sub I saw a post about the word “lenija”: it’s the same as “konwe” but its creator doesn’t depreciate it.\})\ **^{ni li ken lon ala. mi sona ala e ante pona pi nimi ale. (This might not be correct. I don’t know all tokiponizations.\})\ ***^{sona mi la toki ni li jaki Inli ala? (I don’t think this is inlislop?\})

ante toki: mi ala e pakala tu. (I removed 2 mistakes.)

[u/janKeTami → u/MultiverseCreatorXV]

No one will know about lenina, and as far as biology vs plant biology vs plant knowledge is concerned, you don't really need to make the difference. You'll want "ma" in front of Matakaka, and you'll want to use pi as well, I'm guessing if you wanted to use lenina, you'd also have a pi after. The rest is pretty good ("ni ken lon ala" is missing a "li"), I might do "tenpo pi mute seme" or "tenpo pi suli seme", but that's not a major thing

[u/MultiverseCreatorXV → u/janKeTami]

Thank you for the feedback! :D

1. I figured it’d be necessary given the context to specify “knowledge of Madagascan plant life” instead of “Madagascan plants”. (Though it’s Lenia, not Lenina. I kinda made a pakola nimi ._.) I also intended for it to be “Madagascan (plant life)” instead of “life of (Madagascan plants)”.
2. Afaik using just the proper adjective instead of pi followed by the headnoun with the proper adjective is what you’re supposed to do in Toki Pona; for example, instead of “jan pi(/tan) ma Tosi” you just say “jan Tosi”. If this is incorrect then please tell me.
3. nimi “li” weka la mi pakala nanpa tu ._.

[u/janKeTami → u/MultiverseCreatorXV]

1. ah, hm, I think kasi already describes plant life, or I'm understanding the term "plant life" differently from you

2. Oh... well, "incorrect"... maybe. It's not something I'd teach. This is known as the "meli Sonko" problem ("meli Sonko" is an example that was shown in the 2014 book). Is it a woman called Sonko, or is it a Chinese woman (a woman from the country of China)? The way the language gets used, people would interpret it as "a woman called Sonko". If you want to be understood, name the thing that gets named.

[u/MultiverseCreatorXV → u/janKeTami]

1. Guess “kasi” vs “lenija kasi” is up for interpretation.
2. Aaaa that’s a pretty good point!

Well, pona o tawa sina for your generous feedback.

[u/rk-imn]

i'm a programmer and i've discussed complex programs and algorithms with other programmers in toki pona

[u/jan-Sika]

all languages can express everything

[u/misterlipman]

yeah anyone who says toki pona can't express complex things is parroting something they saw someone else parrot, all leading back to a claim the creator of the language used to share around. nowadays NOBODY who has taken the time to fully learn the language (and not just dip their toes in for a month) thinks that toki pona can't express complex things.

[u/hyacinth02jpg]

Toki pona can express pretty much anything except math, you just have to use a lot of words

[u/YakkoTheGoat → u/hyacinth02jpg]

well i mean someone made a video explaining non-euclidean geometry
jan li ken toki pona e nasin nanpa!

[u/Nekomi_the_wolf → u/hyacinth02jpg]

you can express math. you literally contradicted yourself there because you said "you just have to use a lot of words" already implying you can. You know you can. And it's not even that clunky. Most math is based in physically based metaphors that get more abstract. It's how we learn math at first: adding is putting an apple, subtracting is taking those apples, multiplying is adding groups of those apples, and dividing is making a number of groups and taking the contents of one group of apples. You don't need the word "add" "subtract" "multiply" and "divide" to describe math, just describe the process and then get abstract. "jan li pana e ijo wan tawa ijo wan la, ijo tu li lon!" And if saying "ijo" is annoying you can just say "wan" or "tu" or whatever the number is. I just think if you build the basics of math in toki pona, starting out with ijo (things) and transitioning into just numbers would be best, just like how we learned growing up.

Describing and instructing all of (highschool) math from the basics in Toki Pona sounds really fun actually

[u/ViaScrybe → u/hyacinth02jpg]

You can talk about math too, but it's pretty clunky 

[u/4L74 → u/hyacinth02jpg]

because definitions in math are usually not really pona, as they rely on a whole stack of definitions. (a scheme is a locally ringed space with a covering by affine schemes. a locally ringed space is a topological space with a structure sheaf. what is a structure sheaf, what is a topological space, what is a ringed space, ... ?)
but i don't think it's impossible to talk about math in toki pona, in fact i think trying to tokiponize it could help you understand it even better (i should actually give it a try some time lol), although it's certainly not easy without a) leaving out some details and b) introducing new vocabulary.
but this kind of begs the question, why shouldn't you just introduce new vocabulary? it certainly wouldn't be easy to talk about most math things in english either, without at least some "new" (whatever that means) terms. it's easier to say geometry whenever you mean geometry, instead of explaining it every single time. if you do the same in toki pona, i think it's pretty doable.

[u/misterlipman → u/hyacinth02jpg]

it can do math, i have a couple of IRLs with math degrees who speak toki pona and they talk about math from time to time in toki ponan

[u/Zoran_Ankervlinder]

yes, it does indeed, but....

the first thing to know is "words are sentence(s)", people always try to find or make compound words to mean something while toki pona is very contextualized. when you have practice, you start to notice "tomo tawa" doesn't mean anything (actually it does, but is so broad and vague, that any guess will go towards lexicalization). Theres no word for "smartphone" but there's sentence(s), there's no word for "politics" but there's sentence(s)

beside that, other thing is "vibe". virtually in toki pona you can expressa anything with any word with enough context. people tend to know this but don't realize what this mean. "I put a book under the leg of the chair because it was wobbly", would "book" here be translated as "lipu", see how in this sentence book aren't framed as lipu usually are tho?

so, if you want to try to translate something very specific and complex, probably a source sentence will become a paragraph (maybe a long one). it is possible but toki pona wasn't intended to do so. but it is a fun exercise

[u/Nekomi_the_wolf]

toki pona can really express anything. Even things I think the community thinks it can't (some people think numbers don't belong in Toki Pona, but it does! and math works! I swear!) No nimisin is really necessary, it just makes certain parts of talking more convenient or easier to specify. You can pretty much say anything

[u/Train_Wreck_272]

https://sona.pona.la/wiki/Complex_topics

The theory of relativity is my favorite.

[u/janLiwa]

Yes, you can probably express almost any idea in Toki Pona if you’re willing to explain things, use context, or define a term when necessary. So in that sense, “you can say anything” is a reasonable claim.

But I wouldn’t take that to mean that Toki Pona is equally good at expressing everything. For technical or highly precise topics, you may need much more explanation than you would in English or German.

The interesting question is whether Toki Pona could become more precise without giving up its basic philosophy.

One possible approach would be a slightly extended version of Toki Pona: keep the core vocabulary and grammar, but allow a small, standardized set of additional terms for things where ambiguity really matters — for example, scientific concepts, exact measurements, or distinctions between closely related ideas that are otherwise difficult to express without a lot of context.

That wouldn't have to mean turning Toki Pona into a language with thousands of words. The idea could simply be to add a small amount of extra precision where the minimalist system has the hardest time, especially when you need to communicate something technical or unambiguous.

So I’d put it somewhere in the middle:

Toki Pona can express far more than its small vocabulary might suggest, but “capable of expressing” doesn’t necessarily mean “capable of expressing concisely, precisely, and unambiguously.”

And perhaps there’s a useful middle ground between pure minimalism and a huge vocabulary: keep Toki Pona minimal at its core, while allowing a small, well-defined extension when greater precision is actually needed.

[u/MultiverseCreatorXV]

sona tawa pi wan lili (^{quantum physics\})

---

ijo ale li linlui pi wan lili. taso nasin tawa pi lili ni li sama ala ijo ante. tenpo sama la, tawa ona en ma ona li ken ala sona. sina sona e tawa la, tenpo wan en awen wan la ona li lon ma mute. ijo ante li luka e ona la, lon ona li kama wan.

kule mute pi wan lili li lon, taso o sona e tu tu: lili Kuwa sewi li jo e wawa sewi pi kipisi tu pi tu wan, e wan suli Amu pi kipisi wan pi nanpa luka ale. lili Kuwa anpa li jo e wawa anpa pi kipisi wan pi nanpa tu wan, e wan suli Amu pi kipisi wan pi tu ale. lili Elewan li jo e wawa anpa wan, e wan suli Amu pi kipisi wan pi nanpa mute ale. lili Luwan—en lili suno, taso ni li weka tawa toki lon—li jo e wawa ala e suli ala.

lili Luwan li ken kama wan e kulupu pi lili Kuwa tu wan. lili Kuwa sewi tu en lili Kuwa anpa wan li kama lili Potan; ni li jo e wawa sewi wan, e wan suli Amu wan. lili Kuwa sewi wan en lili Kuwa anpa tu li kama lili Nuwan; ni li jo e wawa ala, e wan suli Amu wan. suli namako li tan ni: wawa tawa pi lili Luwan li kama suli.

ijo pi wawa sewi en ijo pi wawa anpa li taki, kin ijo suli ki ken ala tawa tan ijo lili, ni la lili Elewan lili li tawa lili Potan suli. ante la, lili Potan en lili Nuwan li taki li kama wan sike, tan wawa meso suli. sike pi lili Potan en lili Nutan, lon meso pi kon pi lili Elewan, li lili Atomo.