Native Speakers pi toki pona li lon ala lon?
This lipu is written in a toki tonsi of Eng and Toki Pona.
A recent drama has sprung up around if there are truly any native speakers of TP. I will paraphrase in order to avoid furthering the drama as mi wile ala wawa e utala. mi wile taso toki e ona. I have permission from jan Kekan San to share their side of things.
To set the scene; for a number of years a person of the name jan Elike that has claimed multiple times that ona are raising jan lili kili ona with a number of languages including toki pona such that ona are The First Native Speakers pi toki pona. ona are quite young as of right now - and have not grown up yet enough to toki lon kulupu pi toki pona - but perhaps in years to come ona might be some of the most fluent people among us.
One thing jan Elike toki'd was that ona's two year old could make a number of declarative statements with pronouns (e.g. ni li loje, mi olin e sina) but that ona had only ever made one sentence on ona's own; "ni li palisa". This toki got brought up in the insuring drama.
But more recently a controversy has arisen. Within the kulupu
ma pona pi toki pona lon ilo Discord,
jan Kekan San (jan pi pana sona pi toki pona) revealed that they had met jan Elike and jan kili pi jan Elike - and ona's claim to Native-dom was powe. ona claimed that the children only really used the word "toki" and that jan Elike onaself could mostly only write toki pona, responding to toki pona input in English.
These claims were re-posted to reddit with the heading "[jan Elike] is lying about Toki Pona native speakers!" - causing toki wawa lon kulupu. The post was then taken down.
jan Kekan San later made a revised toki that ona sent to the jan that reposted it to the kulupu r/tokipona lon ilo Reddit. I have permission from jan Kekan San to post it here too;
Clarifying statement:
There's a person, Erik Sealander, who's claimed to be teaching his two kids toki pona such that they'd be native speakers of the language. I met them in person a few months ago, and in my experience, they don't know enough toki pona to speak the language in even a basic way.
It could be that they were being taught at one point and then they stopped, or that they were not taught a sufficient amount in the first place I can't speak on when or how they were taught, only that they didn't seem to know toki pona when I spoke to them.
So, I don't think Erik Sealander's claim that there are native speakers is truthful, and I gave my reasons why. But this absolutely does not mean you should start a witch hunt or tear them down or anything else. That's not realistic, and doing otherwise is immature, dangerous, and unnecessary. It's entirely possible that they just didn't want to speak toki pona to me.
I don't believe this to be the case; they spoke English with me happily, but I can't dismiss that possibility. I say that to ground the conversation. Don't just take my word and run with it. I am explaining what I experienced, and why I believe his claim to be false. And jan Olipija's message (link below) is excellent context, more perspective as to what could have happened, why I experienced what I did. https://discord.com/channels/301377942062366741/301377942062366741/1074345597861105694
I just want others to recognize that his claim is not well supported; is at best stretching the truth, and at worst a hoax.
The referenced toki is toki mi. In this lipu I will re-state it and expand on it, with evidence if possible.
pilin mi
I have a bit of a bias in this conversation. mi tan
ma Kinla. ma Kinla la, jan kili lili ale li kama sona e toki Kinla. Precisely how much varies. Primary school nanpa wan mi la, mi kama sona e ona, and the teachers toki kepeken ona. Primary school nanpa tu la, it was far less used, and so I used it less. Secondary school la, I was placed in set 3 - but was one of the best in that set because set 3 was the set for those that couldn't use toki Kinla much and I had a lot of toki Kinla unused in the back of my brain from my first primary school. Towards the end of my secondary school I started to toki kepeken toki Kinla more and had a friend who I practised with more often. As time has gone on I have done a refresher class and take every opportunity I get to use the language.
toki Kinla la, mi native ala native? I learnt in
the critical period, I am from the place and culture where the language is used, I am fluent and I grew up with the language in use around me... I feel like its one of
my languages. But its not my L1, kulupu mama mi li toki Inli li toki Kinla lili taso, and I have less fluency in it than I do in English as well as parts of the critical period where I wasn't learning. I am not unusual, even amongst my friends this is a common story - and it happens with other languages too. The answer is nuanced.
Native-speakerism is a neo-racist ideology that has wide-ranging impact on how teachers are perceived by each other and by their students [such as] falsely position[ing] each as culturally superior and inferior with separate roles and attributes.
I feel like these jan kili may be in a similar position to mi and jan mute ante pi toki Kinla. I want to take all accounts in good faith so this is my attempt to wan e accounts tu ante;
These jan kili were possibly taught toki pona more when ona were lili a, but for many reasons this may not have been upkept. Be it less time with parents as children get older, life requiring use of a particular language, or even the fact that it was musi ala tawa ona and ona chose not to because children are agents in their own lives. Its not clear how long it takes to loose a language, but one claim is that it
can take 3-5 years. In addition there is evidence that
0-2 year olds that are adopted into new families will loose their mother tongue which happens to line up neatly with some of jan Elike's claim that ona was teaching ona's jan kili pi sike tu.
The biggest evidence for this course of events is that aformentioned "ni li palisa" claim. It demonstrates some, but not extensive, use of toki pona - perhaps enough to make a basis off if kama sona sin.
mi pilin e ni: ona li kama jan suli li kama sona sin e toki pona li kama lon kulupu pi toki pona la, ona ken kepenen nimi "native speaker" lon ona. ken ante la, ni ale li lon ala la, ona li jan pi toki pona ala.
Overall - mi wile encourage jan ante to see the nuances in any situation rather than jump to conclusions of jan being ike.
o pona!:)
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