This was the subject of a few conversations in roljbogu’e a few months ago when people were playing with adding “lonu” as a nimi sin from Lojban to provide a way to embed clauses. I documented it and took suggestions from some others in roljbogu’e, resulting in this very silly Toki Pona dialect. All of the features added in this dialect are inspired by Lojban.
# nasin sin Lonuke
Written in 2024 by ilo Sanli. Idea by jan Wilelen. Suggestions incorporated from jan Awasa and jan Kiwin.
Nasin sin Lonuke is a set of reforms to Toki Pona to resolve existing ambiguities and add nested grammatical structures without creating further ambiguities. It completely removes the need for `e ni:` constructions and makes Toki Pona more expressive and compact. It's named for one of its nimi sin, `lonu`, which encloses nested clauses, and a closing particle that pairs with it, `ke`.
Nasin sin Lonuke is presented in this document "as it is built", with each section only incorporating reforms **above** it. This smoothly and easily introduces each new concept without being overwhelming or confusing.
# Prerequisites
To use nasin sin Lonuke, your existing nasin must do the following:
* Have te/to and allow them to contain an arbitrary number of sentences.
* Have ki
* Use nasin nanpa pona
# Resolving nested pi
The nested `pi` problem is trying to work out the meaning of `A pi B C pi D E`. Does `pi D E` attach to A, or does it attach to B C? If you know your nimi sin, you know the words `te` and `to`, which enclose quotes. The first change that nasin sin Lonuke makes is introducing a new word, `ke`, which is like `to`, except it's used to close off `pi` phrases and more seen later. Here's how it resolves the ambiguity:
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i o toki kepeken nasin sin te Lonuke to tan lonu ny li pona mute
(Yes I am using quotation marks to denote names)