Many and a handful of years ago, a small language made its way to our hearts, slowly growing a group of interested minds around it. It is, as languages go, still incredibly young. There will probably be a lot of interesting moments ahead of us.
How much have things changed already? We’ll find out, there are a couple of surveys that answer different parts of that question! What kind of works are people making? You can find out right now, right here, in this newsletter! What kind of works do people like? People have voted on entries of the writing contest and the winners are here!
⚂ = sitelen pona
Community Projects
- Fill out the big toki pona census and share it everywhere!
- The annual Linku word survey is here! What words do you use? How many people use what words? Let’s find out!
- But wait… what about sitelen pona? There’s now also Linku’s ⚂glyph survey!
- suno pi toki pona, the 24 hour livestream celebrating the 25th anniversary of toki pona, has ended! Many of the works listed in this newsletter were created for the livestream. If you have watched the stream, you can give some feedback.
- The annual writing contest is over and here are the winners!
- Short texts:
- First place: ⚂o lape a! by jan Etekin
- Second place: len lawa suli by jan jape!
- Third place: mi tu li soweli by soweli Solen!
- Comics:
- First place: kijetesantakalu en ma kasi by jan Pala!
- Second place: lawa toki pi toki Inli by kapesi Pake!
- Big stories:
- First place: ⚂tomo sewi li wile e seme by jan Etekin!
- Second place: o moku pona by jan Satase!
- Illustrated stories: waso Seko won first place with o kule e lipu!
- Short texts:
- Typesetting is slowly becoming a focus, leading to texts being layouted ready for publication, be it digital or in print! As an example, the complete story of jan Pili Nakamula got typeset - this is the story by Anna Löwenstein many people learn Esperanto with (on “lernu!”), and it got translated into toki pona by jan Opela. It is now available as an EPUB and a PDF!
- The map of toki pona people has reached over 1000 pins (1149 to be exact)!
- UK people are meeting up at Bullring in Birmingham, 12:00, 2026-08-30, and decide where to go from there. (People might also be there the day before, but the main time is the 30th). Join the European meetup server to learn more.
Songs
- jan Kowa wrote a song called ⚂alasa tawa sewi (wan tu san po)!
- waso Seko made a toki pona version of an original song: la mi weka, which is also available on Soundcloud!
- monsuta Lili sang all toki pona words using Billy Joel’s ⚂We didn’t start the fire
- len Ke Tami translated ⚂Charleston by James P. Johnson and Cecil Mack!
- pona guy translated Gut genug by KitschKrieg!
- jan Ansi translated Love, Older You by ILLIT!
- melbug translated ⚂Cutie Mew Mew Magic by Toby Fox!
- nja Alila translated Skitur by Ivar Børsum and Bjørn Hornmoen
- (てつ)² / tetsusquared translated RetasuP by Toluthin Antenna!
- jan Ansi translated ⚂the cure by Olivia Rodrigo!
- jan Ansi translated ⚂Superscar by Adéla!
- jan Ansi translated ⚂A Pearl by Mitski!
- ko Sosuwa translated I Don’t Know What We’re Talking About by Ninja Sex Party!
- jan Pikesike translated ⚂Science by MIMI!
- jan Pikesike translated ⚂mumei by Nanashi Mumei!
- moku Sonkekin translated ⚂Washed Clean In The River by BSlick!
- telo kule made a kijetesantakalu version of ⚂Looping the Rooms by rusino!
Videos in Toki Pona
- jan Polijan finds himself ⚂in the rain!
- kili Potato made a video for the writing contest entry ⚂mi sona a e nasin pi ijo “kili” ale la seme!
- ilo Leki Leki made a little vlog!
- jan Ke Tami went to the European meetup in Tiana; second day; third day; watching the total eclipse; fifth day!
- jan Pala made a video for the writing contest entry kijetesantakalu en ma kasi!
- jan Lepeto talked about ⚂orbits and years!
- jan Kilikalama showcased glitches in Portal!
- len Ke Tami explained how compound nouns work in German!
- seli Ana explained the ⚂features of the Ilo Sitelen Pona keyboard! The ⚂keyboard has many ways to be customized and was made with ChatGPT.
- During the monthly crossover between Ma Toki Pona VR and Projekto Babel, mun Kekan San explained .beat time and how to use it on VRChat!
- And jan Pa talked about string theory!
- And jan Netakin presented an instrument!
- And len Ke Tami talked about postal stamps!
- And poni Kita installed Linux!
Games
- ka Lupala translated BFDIA 5b into Toki Pona!
- HiImTracherButHyde is making a ⚂card game!
- jan Tamalu made a game to write numbers fast in a newly invented number system!
- jan Jopa played Ori and the Will of the Wisps: part 9, part 10, part 11, part 12, part 13, part 14, part 15, part 16, part 17!
- soweli Sawen played Minecraft without dying!
Comics
- jan Pikesike continued translating the manga Bocchi The Rock up to ⚂chapter 23 (alt link)!
- jan Pikesike also released a text transcription of the Bocchi The Rock translation’s prologue and chapter 1 on lipu pona.
- ⚂soweli Nalin translated the first volume of the manga Kuro up to page 30! 1-18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30!
- soweli Wiken made a comic about the word “kijetesantakalu”!
- jan Iwi translated ⚂Hatarakanai Futari chapter 1048!
- jan Ke Tami made another ⚂kijetesantakalu o comic!
- druids-crow ⚂imagined his Mewgenics characters speaking toki pona!
Cool graphics
- kasi Jajasin made a sitelen sitelen illustration of the USA by drawing the names!
- CodOk4768 made a ⚂logo for the 25th anniversary of toki pona!
- Dangerous_Mud3845 ⚂animated the toki pona logo!
- VTuber エレノア / Eleanor Ashbourne made some hamster stickers in toki pona and also a ⚂sitelen pona version!
- jan Kale animated the sitelen pona characters from ⚂a to kiwen!
- hazyaltcare made some sitelen pona flashcards and ⚂published a stim gif set!
- squid-ink-on-toast recognised ⚂unpa!
- arlyonit added ⚂sitelen pona to their AAC board!
About toki pona
- jan Asele is learning toki pona with Minecraft. Part 1, part 2, part 3!
- ilo Tani talked about Word2Vec and what computers can learn about toki pona!
- waso Kanse tried describing toki pona’s grammar in toki pona!
- jan Tipo talked about how toki pona changed their life!
- With the addition of Japanese by ijo Jomo with help from pakala Mapuju, Wasona is now available in 16 languages! This is the first modern Toki Pona course in Japanese.
- lipamanka translated Genesis from biblical Hebrew - that’s right, the entire book!
- MinuteEarth had some ⚂sitelen pona in one of their illustrations!
Have we missed something? Did you see something cool to share? Help us fill this newsletter! See you soon!
— jan Ke Tami