toki, ale o!
suno pi toki pona is well and truly finished, and it’s time to return to our regularly(-ish) scheduled coverage. Let’s catch up on a whole month of cool things that have happened in the Toki Pona community!
Our longstanding community projects continue to bear fruit:
- The lipu tenpo magazine has released its August issue — nanpa pilin! Read about early human migration, Laozi’s teachings, video game development, and more!
- The kalama sin podcast released a new episode, in which kon Okisen tells jan Tepo about the science fiction of Derin Edala!
- The yearly Linku survey is still open. It gathers data on which toki pona words the community reports to use. This year, there is also a similar survey about sitelen pona usage. The survey closes in just a few days, on September 9th.
Learning Toki Pona is becoming more accessible:
- Wasona, a Toki Pona course made this year, is available in 7 languages — with the recent addition of Polish, Spanish, Portuguese, and Hebrew!
- jan Ali started making a toki pona video course, relying purely on images and comprehensible input.
- jan Olipija created learning courses for luka pona and toki pona in BSL.
There are new activities you can take part in:
- jan Olipija is looking for actors, technicians and spectatros in a virtual theatre in Minecraft! Sign up in her form to get involved.
- jan Lapi, jan Sujute and several others translated the TTRPG Cairn and are inviting you to play it together in Discord!
- kije Enki started a collaborative conlang based on toki pona. Changes to the language are decided by voting from the community, in the spirit of the topěkalne project from 2021.
Immerse yourself in spoken Toki Pona:
- mun Kekan San played Deltarune Chapter 4!
- jan Polijan made a lizard friend, foraged for fruit, and looked at a grasshopper!
- jan Koselu showed how to create bunting with photographs transferred onto fabric, and attended the KrakĂłw Fashion Week!
There are lots of stories and comics you can now read in Toki Pona:
- meli mun translated another part of Chainsaw Man!
- jan Siwali translated The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn’t a Guy at All.
- jan Wemi made an existential comic!
- soweli Kapi translated and illustrated three more chapters of Alice in Wonderland! Also a few verses of the Epic of Gilgamesh.
- jan Pikesike began translating the Bocchi the Rock manga!
- jan Shihali translated the first chapter of Nights with a Cat!
- jan Eta translated The Runaway Bunny!
- Lunarkido made a comic about cats! A parallel Esperanto version is also available.
The list of original music in Toki Pona grows:
- lipamanka released a new EP of 3 toki pona songs, mama sewi o, including bossa nova, progressive rock, and funk!
- jan Sepulon made a new song, “mi o sin” that uses the microtonal 17 EDO system!
- soweli Ilisa wrote a song about her gender feelings.
And song translations are abundant as always:
- jan Pikesike had a second go at translating “If I Could Be a Constellation”!
- jan Tesuno translated “Nee Nee Nee” by PinocchioP!
- lili Kuwita translated “Cat Loving”!
- jan Alonola translated “Macht euch Laut”!
- jan Kajo translated “Suisei Ni Nareta Nara”!
- jan Eli translated “The Lazy Song” by Bruno Mars! (version with back-translation)
- jan Liwe translated “Young Girl A” by siinamota!
- jan Apen translated “Holy Diver” by Dio!
The infrastructure around Toki Pona keeps getting better:
- ilo kalama pi kili loje made a highly tweakable random sentence generator for Toki Pona!
- jan Nikola made a tool that converts numbers to nasin nanpa pona! (You can find a similar converter in lipu Linku.)
- jan Juwan and several others are translating Firefox for Android. You can contribute to the project on Mozilla’s translation platform. The project just reached its 50% completion milestone.
But wait, there’s more!
- jan Lupen animated the lyrics for jan Usawi’s monsuta!
- jan Lilija put together a Bluesky feed for toki pona taso!
- jan Sepulon played around with Strudel, a live web-based music making tool!
- wan Tansin talked about the difference between nimi sin proposals and nimi kulupu, and shared some cute examples!
- jan Kuwi wrote about aloe on a print using toki pona using sitelen Kuwi!
- jan Talisoso made hand bracelets!
And, of course, some weekly events you can take part in:
- As usual, the VRChat community holds its weekend meetups, which you are welcome to join!
- jan Lakuse hosts luka pona lessons in kama sona every Sunday!
- jan Ke Tami hosts a weekly voice chat meetup for jan Eta’s lipu tenpo reading group. Both beginners and proficient speakers are welcome!
This edition of sin kulupu has been put together with lots of help from kon Okisen, jan Ke Tami, jan Lakuse, jan Lapi and others. I have been feeling overwhelmed with the amount of work that it takes to keep this newsletter up to date, and the help they offered makes a huge difference. If fate so decrees, the next issue might be less terribly lengthy!
o awen pona.
— kala Asi