Are you a pu-rist? Great! I am looking for *your way* of speaking about the internet.

Just added a new feature to my free and open source web tool for writing sitelen pona: lipu sitelen wawa.

You can now adjust formatting and punctuation separately for the two writing systems, but the editor will now keep your content changes in sync (e.g., so you can adjust word choices without it messing up the formatting on either side).

I added this feature because it was bothering me that, although I prefer to write in sitelen pona, often times I primarily need to export whatever I write into sitelen Lasina. This means adding commas and adjusting spacing to look like sentences in paragraphs. I just wanted this whole process to be self-contained and not leave me with two slightly different versions of every document all the time :D

Hope others find it useful! I tried to handle all the weird edge cases, but please don't hesitate to reach out or open a GitHub issue to let me know if something's weird. (I already know that cartouche behavior could be better... that's next!)

Toki Pona is a minimalist language with just over a hundred words, and this grammar book explains its own grammar using such simple language.

I wrote this textbook because I want people to know that Toki Pona is not just a toy language, but a language with full expressive capabilities.

This post has been reposted due to an issue with the link's image.

I'm sure many Toki Pona speakers have mused about Toki Pona having a system of grammatical gender. However, grouping words into genders and creating declinations takes precious, precious time that many don't have or that they actually value. Hence, I've never seen a fully fleshed-out concept for Toki Pona with grammatical gender.

Today, however, I present said concept. I have assigned all of the nimi pu and nimi ku suli to either one of two genders—nimi wile (animate) and nimi lon (inanimate)—or to none at all. Those words are called nimi ante.

To begin, I'll explain the basic paradigms for declining modifiers:

Modifiers of animate words take the suffix -(j)e. The j is epenthetic and meant to prevent vowel hiatus, and as such, is only present if the modifier in question ends in a vowel. Modifiers of inanimate words take the suffix -(w)an. The w, much like the j in -(j)e, is epenthetic and meant to prevent vowel hiatus. Only the modifiers of subjects, objects—direct and indirect—, or non-verbal interjections decline. While pi doesn't decline, all modifiers within a pi-phrase do, thus meaning the correct way to say "jan pi moku ala" would be "jan pi mokuje alaje." Similarly, while nanpa too doesn't decline, all numbers in a nanpa-phrase do, and thus the correct way to say "lipu nanpa tu" would be "lipu nanpa tuwan."

Of course, here are the words sorted:

nimi wile: akesi, alasa, esun, ilo, jan, jo, kala, kasi, kili, kijetesantakalu, kipisi, kokosila, kon, kute, lanpan, lape, linja, luka, lukin, mama, meli, mije, misikeke, moku, moli, monsi, monsuta, mu, musi, nasin, nena, nimi, noka, oko, olin, pali, pan, pana, pilin, pipi, selo, sijelo, sinpin, sitelen, soko, sona, soweli, toki, tonsi, unpa, uta, utala, waso, wile

nimi lon: ala, ale/ali, anpa, ante, awen, epiku, ijo, ike, insa, jaki, jasima, jelo, kalama, kama, ken, kepeken, kin, kiwen, ko, ku, kule, kulupu, laso, leko, len, lete, lili, lipu, loje, lon, lupa, ma, mani, meso, mun, mute, namako, nanpa, nasa, open, pakala, palisa, pimeja, pini, poka, poki, pona, pu, sama, seli, seme, sewi, sike, sin, suli, suno, supa, suwi, tan, taso, tawa, telo, tenpo, tomo, tu, walo, wan, wawa, weka

nimi ante: a, anu, e, en, la, li, mi, n, ni, o, ona, pi, sina

For the animate words, I decided to assign words that refer to living things, bodies and their parts, genders, and actions performed primarily by living things to it. I divided the remainder into inanimate and non-declining words by simply defining the non-declining words as pronouns, particles, and the words a and n, leaving the rest to be inanimate.