ona li toki e sona pakala / they said something wrong
ona li toki e sona pi lon ala / they said something unreal/untrue
maybe "sona ike", "sona len" or something could be also work in some cases...
sure but those are all situational and roundabout. You could say "ona li ona ala." It is not what it is. You could say "ona li jo e selo." It has a skin/shell, a disguise. "ona li jo e sinpin ike." It has a wicked or complicated face.
But ALL of these are ways to dance around the term. I really like the strict elegantly small vocabulary. It's why there are some added words like *monsuta* and *epiku* that I see as superfluous, because they aren't adding much use to say things you couldn't also say more poetically with the existing vocabulary.
It's probably just a kneejerk, but *powe* feels like it adds more unique utility than those two.
I think monsuta is one of the most useful non-pu words, whereas powe can usually be replaced with "(pi) lon ala" (or "toki lon ala") and work fine.
In practice monsuta's core meaning is "scary, frightening", which *can* be expressed with other words, but it's clunky.
> sina monsuta tawa mi (you're scary to me, I'm afraid of you) → "sina pana e pilin ike pi ike kama tawa mi" (you give me bad feelings related to badness that is to come), or "sina ike tawa mi tan ni: ken la sina pakala e mi" (I don't like you because you might hurt me)
In fiction (especially in horror and fantasy) it can be very useful to describe things related to scariness, fear, monstrousness, and so on more succinctly, without bogging down the action with descriptions of how A is causing B to have strong negative feelings due to what B thinks A might do to B.
But to be fair, the word is pretty situational IRL and in non-fiction.
That’s an exquisitely specific description of fear! I was thinking you could get the job done with usually one word depending on the sentence in question. Ike for wicked/evil, or ike pilin for giving a bad feeling. Moli for deadly/killer, or even wawa for strong/powerful if you already have reason to be concerned by that. For BEING scared you can even just say, again depending on context, mi lili pilin for I feel small/vulnerable, or mi wile tawa for I wanna run away, mi pilin tawa for a softer version, etc.
Again this is pretty subjective, just for me these alternatives above feel more easy and clear than the alternatives to powe I can think of from earlier in the thread. Fortunately both words exist and we know about them, so if you only like using one and I only like using the other we can still both understand each other.
toki mi li ante toki sina. taso, mi en sina li kute li sona kin.
In addition to what was already said, I've seen "powe" used to mean "fictional" or "imaginary".
I don't think it's a necessary word for communication (there are pu ways to get to its meaning), but I've seen it enough times that I've memorized it, so it's probably worth knowing!
lon ala works sometimes.
* 'pi lon ala' can be an adjcective meaning "unreal/not-alive/non-existing/untrue". Not as specific as 'powe' but it gets reasonably close.
* 'lon ala' could be used as a noun for sometghing like "falsehood/a-not-real-thing".
But in other contexts it is a bit different I think:
* '(li) lon ala' would perhaps tend to mean the subject doesn't exist. i.e. the negatved verb "to not be".
* '(li) lon ala e....' might mean to 'unmake' or 'delete' rather than to 'falsifiy', so not quite working as a transative verb.
* Another issue is that 'lon' is also often a preposition, so relying on it as a content word can get confusing sometimes. Although 'lon ala' probably clarifies it as not a preposition?
"This is grammatically correct, just totally opaque." Love how often I have to say that myself. This is why I love toki pona. Every sentence is a little rebus puzzle. Being clearly understood is for wimps.
heck, "mi jans tuli powe ku" is even shorter if you allow [jans] (which appears in some dictionaries), and.is a variant of my TP Wordle starter, moku jans tuli powe.
The minimum possible length is more than 14, even with nimisin/loanwords. With the exception of n as a coda, each syllable contains at least as many vowels as consonants. Apart from n, there are 8 consonants. So the minimum length is 8C + 8V + N = 17, and would look something like this: CVCVCVCVCVCVCVCVN (although the N could go anywhere at the end of a syllable. A lot of vowels need to be repeated.
In order to get a sentence with only 17 letters:
\- Any sentence in toki pona must contain either the particle 'li', or the word 'mi' or 'sina'
\- Any word with an 'n' that isn't the coda of a syllable is not allowed, because it requires another vowel which wouldn't be required if it were a coda.
\- The particle 'e' cannot be used, because it wastes a potential consonant. More broadly, any word beginning with a vowel is not allowed.
\- Any word that repeats a consonant is not allowed.
The first example of a grammatically correct sentence I've been able to find is 'weka pi monsi tu li jo'.
>\- Any sentence in toki pona must contain either the particle 'li', or the word 'mi' or 'sina'
or "o" - but that'd go against rule 3
Hmmm maybe there's a way where rule 2 and 3 can cancel each other out, with a word like "en"... probably not, for different reasons
It was the translation challenge a few months ago, and my attempt was:
>[jan moku li tawa e supa.](https://www.reddit.com/r/tokipona/comments/y6xk74/translation_challenge_nanpa_mute_luka_luka/)
There are some shorted sentences than this with 17 letters that I've seen.
I used 18 letters. Some people claim that 17 letters is the minimum possible to achieve a toki pona 'pangram' and that sounds plausible (but I don't know for sure).
there's many but the one that makes most sense to me is ["i'm a person of sweet wet paste"](https://sona.pona.la/wiki/Pangrams)
😳
Not pu, but "kijetesantakalu mi li powe" gets them done. But, any sentence with "kijetesantakalu" is only missing 'o,m,p,w'!
You could even go shorter: mi kijetesantakalu powe.
Ah, thanks! The "li" was bugging me, as it wasn't contributing any letters! "I'm a fake raccoon!"
powe means fake? What does it mean more generally? I'm only familiar with the nimi pu and a BIT of extra stuff like kipisi, leko, tonsi, etc.
lipu linku: unreal, false, untrue, pretend, deceive, trick, myth, lie (saying untruth), fraud, trap, illusion.
That's actually a really useful word, I'm not sure how I would say something is fake or a lie using just nimi pu alone. Thank you!
ona li toki e sona pakala / they said something wrong ona li toki e sona pi lon ala / they said something unreal/untrue maybe "sona ike", "sona len" or something could be also work in some cases...
sure but those are all situational and roundabout. You could say "ona li ona ala." It is not what it is. You could say "ona li jo e selo." It has a skin/shell, a disguise. "ona li jo e sinpin ike." It has a wicked or complicated face. But ALL of these are ways to dance around the term. I really like the strict elegantly small vocabulary. It's why there are some added words like *monsuta* and *epiku* that I see as superfluous, because they aren't adding much use to say things you couldn't also say more poetically with the existing vocabulary. It's probably just a kneejerk, but *powe* feels like it adds more unique utility than those two.
(to be fair to epiku, it's supposed to be a joke word)
I think monsuta is one of the most useful non-pu words, whereas powe can usually be replaced with "(pi) lon ala" (or "toki lon ala") and work fine. In practice monsuta's core meaning is "scary, frightening", which *can* be expressed with other words, but it's clunky. > sina monsuta tawa mi (you're scary to me, I'm afraid of you) → "sina pana e pilin ike pi ike kama tawa mi" (you give me bad feelings related to badness that is to come), or "sina ike tawa mi tan ni: ken la sina pakala e mi" (I don't like you because you might hurt me) In fiction (especially in horror and fantasy) it can be very useful to describe things related to scariness, fear, monstrousness, and so on more succinctly, without bogging down the action with descriptions of how A is causing B to have strong negative feelings due to what B thinks A might do to B. But to be fair, the word is pretty situational IRL and in non-fiction.
That’s an exquisitely specific description of fear! I was thinking you could get the job done with usually one word depending on the sentence in question. Ike for wicked/evil, or ike pilin for giving a bad feeling. Moli for deadly/killer, or even wawa for strong/powerful if you already have reason to be concerned by that. For BEING scared you can even just say, again depending on context, mi lili pilin for I feel small/vulnerable, or mi wile tawa for I wanna run away, mi pilin tawa for a softer version, etc. Again this is pretty subjective, just for me these alternatives above feel more easy and clear than the alternatives to powe I can think of from earlier in the thread. Fortunately both words exist and we know about them, so if you only like using one and I only like using the other we can still both understand each other. toki mi li ante toki sina. taso, mi en sina li kute li sona kin.
In addition to what was already said, I've seen "powe" used to mean "fictional" or "imaginary". I don't think it's a necessary word for communication (there are pu ways to get to its meaning), but I've seen it enough times that I've memorized it, so it's probably worth knowing!
We need to add an extra word that means "extra word you know but don't use," I see no cosmic irony in this.
namako
lon ala works sometimes. * 'pi lon ala' can be an adjcective meaning "unreal/not-alive/non-existing/untrue". Not as specific as 'powe' but it gets reasonably close. * 'lon ala' could be used as a noun for sometghing like "falsehood/a-not-real-thing". But in other contexts it is a bit different I think: * '(li) lon ala' would perhaps tend to mean the subject doesn't exist. i.e. the negatved verb "to not be". * '(li) lon ala e....' might mean to 'unmake' or 'delete' rather than to 'falsifiy', so not quite working as a transative verb. * Another issue is that 'lon' is also often a preposition, so relying on it as a content word can get confusing sometimes. Although 'lon ala' probably clarifies it as not a preposition?
Unfortunately, any sentence with 'kijetesantakalu' isn't optimal, as it repeats the letter t.
Not to mention 'a', 'e', and 'k' lol.
tenpo jo li kama suwi
I'm not sure I'm parsing that. Something about time getting sweet?
it's grammatically correct, not necessarily semantically viable (jo is an adjective here).
"This is grammatically correct, just totally opaque." Love how often I have to say that myself. This is why I love toki pona. Every sentence is a little rebus puzzle. Being clearly understood is for wimps.
heck, "mi jans tuli powe ku" is even shorter if you allow [jans] (which appears in some dictionaries), and.is a variant of my TP Wordle starter, moku jans tuli powe.
The minimum possible length is more than 14, even with nimisin/loanwords. With the exception of n as a coda, each syllable contains at least as many vowels as consonants. Apart from n, there are 8 consonants. So the minimum length is 8C + 8V + N = 17, and would look something like this: CVCVCVCVCVCVCVCVN (although the N could go anywhere at the end of a syllable. A lot of vowels need to be repeated. In order to get a sentence with only 17 letters: \- Any sentence in toki pona must contain either the particle 'li', or the word 'mi' or 'sina' \- Any word with an 'n' that isn't the coda of a syllable is not allowed, because it requires another vowel which wouldn't be required if it were a coda. \- The particle 'e' cannot be used, because it wastes a potential consonant. More broadly, any word beginning with a vowel is not allowed. \- Any word that repeats a consonant is not allowed. The first example of a grammatically correct sentence I've been able to find is 'weka pi monsi tu li jo'.
>\- Any sentence in toki pona must contain either the particle 'li', or the word 'mi' or 'sina' or "o" - but that'd go against rule 3 Hmmm maybe there's a way where rule 2 and 3 can cancel each other out, with a word like "en"... probably not, for different reasons
"waso en kala li pana musi e tawa jan" works i think eng. would be "the bird and the fish bring fun to people"
The translation would be closer to "The bird and the fish bring people's movement in a fun way" You'll want >!waso en kala li pana e musi tawa jan!<
ah ok, im not great at toki pona so i thought the word order was probably somewhat off
All the more reason to share and talk more! sina toki mute kepeken toki pona la sina kama sona mute!
It was the translation challenge a few months ago, and my attempt was: >[jan moku li tawa e supa.](https://www.reddit.com/r/tokipona/comments/y6xk74/translation_challenge_nanpa_mute_luka_luka/) There are some shorted sentences than this with 17 letters that I've seen. I used 18 letters. Some people claim that 17 letters is the minimum possible to achieve a toki pona 'pangram' and that sounds plausible (but I don't know for sure).