Toki Pona Flashcards

Understanding Toki Pona & Sitelen Pona

Toki Pona is a philosophical constructed language created in 2001 by Canadian linguist Sonja Lang. It is designed around minimalism to simplify thoughts and communication.

1. Sitelen Pona (The Visual Script)

sitelen pona ("good/simple writing") is the official hieroglyphic script for Toki Pona. Each word has its own intuitive, stylized symbol. They are read left-to-right, top-to-bottom.

2. Pronunciation Guide (Phonology)

Toki Pona uses a minimal alphabet of 14 letters (5 vowels, 9 consonants). They are pronounced just like in Spanish or the International Phonetic Alphabet:

• Vowels: a (ah), e (eh), i (ee), o (oh), u (oo).
• Consonants: p, t, k, s, m, n, l, w sound the same as they do in English.
• The letter J: This is pronounced like an English Y. So the word jan sounds like "yahn", not "John".

3. Vocabulary: The 137 Essential Words

When Toki Pona was first published in 2014 in the book Toki Pona: The Language of Good (known as pu), the language officially consisted of exactly 120 core words.

Over the years, the community organically created new words. In 2021, the Toki Pona Dictionary (known as ku) canonized 17 of these widespread additions as essential vocabulary (the ku suli words). This expanded the official standard vocabulary to exactly 137 words. All 137 words are included in this game!

4. Basic Sentence Grammar

• li (Verb/Predicate Separator): Separates the subject from the verb or adjective.
  Example: jan li moku = The person eats.
• mi and sina (Exceptions): When the subject is purely mi (I) or sina (you), li is dropped!
  Example: mi moku = I eat.
• e (Direct Object Marker): Introduced before the object receiving an action.
  Example: jan li moku e kili = The person eats fruit.
• pona (Modifiers come after): Adjectives always follow the word they describe.
  Example: toki pona = Good language / simple speech.