pilin namako nimi mi pi toki pona - Hot Takes

 pilin namako nimi mi pi toki pona

toki pona hot take time

mi weka tan kulupu pi toki pona. taso mi pini toki pona ala. mi toki pona mute lon mi taso. ken la, ni li nasa e toki pona mi. taso mi wile pana tawa jan ante e pilin mi. jan ante li pilin ante la, ale li pona. mi wile taso e ni: jan li lukin e pilin mi. ken la, ona li kama lon nasin toki sama li kama ala. tenpo mute la, sitelen mi li toki pona taso. taso lipu ni la, en toki pona en toki Inli li lon poka. mi wile e ni: jan ale li ken lukin e ni li ken sona e kon pi toki mi. taso mi ante toki ala e toki. toki pona li awen toki pona. toki Inli li awen toki Inli.

ni li pilin namako nimi mi pi toki pona. Get ready for some hot takes!

(cw: brief mentions of birth, death and sexualised body parts)

    Life - konwe and pilin

Life has always been a difficult thing to describe in toki pona. The debates on what to call it have gone back and forth ad infinitum. I liked using laso metaphorically for a while in my head. moli ala is suggested and used a lot, as are ale, kon and tawa - each with their own merits and problems. A bit more recently the nimisin konwe from Conway's Game Of Life is around. I find it cute but at risk of being stale and calquey if it just adds in the same concept of life from English. If it were to gain popularity then perhaps if it was specified that it meant lifecycle or evolution this might have some more philosophical insight. This isn't the hottest take and others have floated the idea before as far as I'm aware.

But this wouldn't have to just apply to life. It could equally apply to any selective/evolutionary process and lifecycle such as neural nets.

o lukin e ni:

tenpo pini mute la, sike ma la, konwe li ala. taso telo li seli la, ijo li kama ante li pakala lili li awen lon li awen kama ante la, ona li kama konwe. tenpo ni la, konwe li awen li pali e jan.

mama li konwe e jan sin la, ona li open konwe li kalama suli pi pilin ike.

mi konwe e ilo mi la, ilo wawa taso li awen.

But my preferred current method is to use pilin. 

All that can pilin is alive. Whether that is the use of pilin to mean emotion or thought that still remains the case. That which is dead no longer thinks or feels. For multicellular organisms with brains that's clear, but even for smaller and simpler organisms we could (in toki pona) classify what they do as pilin (feel). A more reactive pilin than what we do but a pilin none-the less.

The word pilin wouldn't so much mean alive as it would retain its current meanings and be used to mean life/alive in certain contexts as an extension of what it means to pilin.

o lukin e ni:

mama li mama e jan sin la, ona li kalama pi pilin suli. ni li pilin nanpa wan. ale li sin tawa ona li pilin suli a. ona li pilin.

mama majuna li kama moli lon tenpo lili la, ona li lon supa lape la, mi wile lon poka. mi wile lon pilin nanpa pini ona. ona li moli la, pilin ona li kama pini. ijo pi pilin ala li tawa li pini ala. ike li lon la, ona li pilin ika ala la, ona li pini tawa ala. ijo pilin li lon li pilin e ike la, ona li pini li tawa ante. Perhaps both and more could exist in harmony and show toki pona as a living language with multiple ways of phrasing things.     Entrances - uta and lupa... and moku This will one of the few cases where I argue for the dissolution of a pre-established pu word. I don't say this to rail against anything but its good for languages to evolve and words to become archaic. I think that uta could take over lupa's meaning in almost all cases. The other way round is true also but I feel having it as uta just feels more pona to me. Think about where lupa is used - mostly on inanimate objects to mean an entrance/exit; a door, a window and perhaps a gate. It can also mean orifice and is sometimes used for the non-oral orifices on the body. The word emphasises the openness and passage through into an inside. But in the case of inanimate objects if I described an uta tomo would it really be unclear what I meant? o lukin e ni: mi tawa uta tomo. mi tawa insa. insa tomo li suli a. This may sound a little dramatic and poetic but I feel its relatively clear. Some more disambiguation may be needed but I don't see a case where it makes any less sense than most other toki pona words given the correct waleja (context). As for other bodily orifices - I suggest uta noka and uta pi nena monsi. Given uta's extended meaning, moku's could also extend to mean take inside. o lukin e ni: suno li kama lon sewi la, jan mute li open pali. tomo li moku e ona la, ona li pali mute. suno li weka la, uta tomo li weka e ona ale la, ona li tawa tomo ona li lape. The second is a bit more of a silly one for you to consider :).     Senses - lukin, kute, oko, kule and pilin Honestly, I have long felt that the words around senses are a bit of a mess. We have unique words for sight and hearing, but touch, taste and smell have to make do on messy equivalencies like pilin or luka e. But even the sight and sound ones are messy with sight having both lukin and oko, as well as kute also meaning obey (which has problematicness irt to those of us who cannot kute). To be fair being messy is part of the charm of toki pona and I don't intend to eliminate it but try my best to streamline juuust a little and add some hopefully fun philosophy. I suggest an active/passive dichotomy. lukin being an active use of the senses and kute being a passive use. This takes them away from sight and sound which may feel confusing at first but can be pretty simply disambiguated using [lukin] lukin suno, lukin kalama, lukin moku, lukin luka, lukin kon [kute] kute kalama, kute suno, kute moku, kute luka, kute kon. I suggest oko be used for all sensory organs not just eye with the same modifiers - oko kalama (ear), oko moku (tongue), oko luka (fingertips), oko kon (nose). Likewise kule can become generalised to all senses, meaning variations, wavelengths, taste, smell, type, texture (etc) using the same system. Overall the use of pilin for sensory experiences becomes archaic. This way too kute can retain its meaning of obey as it means to passively take instructions and could even become passively understand. I also think this makes using lukin as try to make more sense. Some of this may seem like trying to lexicalise compounds but I also want to stress that these compounds don't have to be lexicalised. For instance; oko moku could just as easily be tongue as it could be taste bud and lukin kon could just as easily be actively sniffing as it could be looking at someone's aura, reading the room, or measuring wind speed/direction. The point is to give greater adaptability. o lukin e ni: jan lawa li lawa e mi. ona li toki luka mute tawa mi la, mi kute suno e luka ona e ona. oko kalama mi li wawa ala. mi ken ala kute kalama ale. mi ken lukin kalama kepeken wawa. sitelen toki li lon sitelen tawa la, mi ken kute e ona. ale li pimeja. mi lon tomo sin. mi sona e ala. mi lukin luka e ale kepeken oko luka. mi alasa e uta tomo. moku ante pi ma ante li pona a tawa mi. kule pi ona ale li pona a li ante a.  EDIT (KIN LA): A thought just leaped into my brain! oko could also be removed in favour of uta. uta suno, uta kalama, uta moku, uta luka, uta kon. The gods have made me mad with power!!! I don't think that absolute reductionism is the way to go though. I feel like uta here would be cute, especially in poetic contexts, but they don't have to exist to the exclusion of each-other. o lukin e ni: suno tan ijo li tawa uta suno mi la, mi kute suno e ona. mi moku e suno ona. I think each of these can retain their base meaning. lukin, kute, oko and kule can each mean look, hear, eye and colour when unmodified if the context is correct - but a wider use feels neat to me.     Subjectively.... - en I caused a bit of an argument with this one a while ago but oh well. My use of en is a tincy bit controversial but I like it. I take the idea that en is a subject marker a little more extremely and thus when using it to mark multiple subjects I use it double, like other particles (li and e) instead of looking like and. Its a simple change and I feel like it rounds off toki pona grammar well in a nonintrusive way. o lukin e ni: jan li tawa ma kasi. en jan en soweli li tawa ma kasi. The generalised rule becomes: en A en B li C li D e E e F. Not really much else to say here other than en is NOT and.     Choices - anu I think I have finally come to peace with anu. It has bothered me for a long time but I have found a rationalisation that helps me deal with it. The problem is its considered a particle but doesn't function like other particles - instead taking their place like a cuckoo and expecting us to treat it the same. But no longer shall we live under it's tyrany! I think it should mean choice or choose. Its use as equivalent to or should be considered a prepositional use of the word, not a particle. Essentially nothing needs to change here just the grammatical analysis (also prepositions should be freer in what they attach to in a sentence cause it feels nice). o lukin e ni: mi anu sina li tawa ma kasi?  mi anu e kili e pan. o anu. jan li anu sitelen e sitelen suli. anu ale mi li pona! o kuntu ala! I know thats not usually how prepositions work but I think that considering it a preposition meaning something like '[that] may be replaced by/with' makes it fit better within toki pona theory.  Dictionary - lipu nimi (1) pilin

Content word heart, feeling (emotion, instinct), thought, an internal experience, life (alive)

or konwe      Content word life, lifecycle, Darwinian system, evolution (2) uta      Content word mouth, lips, oral cavity, jaw door, hole, orifice, window     (radical usage) eyes, ears, nose, fingertips moku      content word to eat, drink, consume, swallow, ingest, take in, internalise, be taken inside (3) lukin      content word look (see, read, watch), actively experience (if modified; listen, feel, taste, smell), seek a sense, observe, examine, look into, watch out for      pre-verb to seek, look for, try to, look into, look-up how to kute      content word hear (listen to), passively experience (if modified; watch, feel, taste, smell), understand, obey, take in, internalise oko      content word eye, sensory organ (if modified; ear, nose, fingertips, sensitive areas of skin) kule      content word colour, pitch, tone, frequency, wave-lenth, flavour, smell, type, variation (4) en      particle (before and between multiple subjects, dropped if there is only one subject at the start of the sentence) (5) anu      Content word choice, choose, free will, freedom, consent      pre-verb choose to      preposition or, may be replaced by/with Endnote; Please don't see any of this saying how things should be beyond my opinion. I don't intend to prescribe. This is largely my nasin and a nasin I want to show to others to consider. I think it'd be a workable and pona direction for toki pona and I'd be delighted if anyone took any of it up and used it - but I doubt that will happen. I just hope that this post was interesting and maybe (if I ever write anything substantial in toki pona again) it might be helpful for explaining some of the waleja behind why my usage is a bit nasa. o pona!