jan lupa li seme?
whoa dude, my brain had not switched from the toki pona register to the english register. i meant to ask this in english
1 Like
this is a cool definition by the way i like it
1 Like
also! lakuse dmd me; they don’t want to make an account here due to lack of spoons at the moment, but they wanted to let me know their thoughts. here are my notes on what they said:
- wawa: people should use the term “fluent” the way people in toki pona use the word “wawa” to describe someone’s proficiency. “toki pona ona li wawa” can become “they are fluent.”
- cultural baggage: the term “fluent” in english has a LOT of cultural baggage. lakuse’s said, specifically:
[fluent] is such an egotistical word, don’t you feel? when we talk about who is and isn’t allowed to be fluent in, and what languages what kind of people learn, what qualifies even the descriptor of ‘fluent.’ i’m thinking about esl learners whose language will always be seen as subpar and in process vs white polyglot culture and also in the context of language assimilation in gen 2 newcomers. the word ‘fluency’ is a strategy that shames some language learners and egoboosts others. in the clonging community idk if its exactly applicable. but that’s the baggage behind that word
- lakuse in DMs with me
And I think that this cultural baggage cannot be understated! It’s a BIG deal.
3 Likes
Maybe I’m just way too unsocialized, or maybe it’s the fact that I’m not American, or something, but I don’t feel this baggage! So I can’t really make any useful comments on it!
“jan lupa” is someone who learns toki pona offline and doesn’t interact with the community. They tend to have unique usage things (and a lot of the anglophone ones embed sentences in prepositions and use pi for relative clauses which is interesting)
1 Like
that’s fair! but the english word in my opinon definitely has a lot of baggage, especially for immigrants living in the united states who may learn a hispanic dialect of english in Texas or New Jersey or something. Like there are a lot of complex layers of course.
1 Like
I’ve already told you my perspective on this, so I won’t linger on this. Instead, can someone tell this non-native English speaker what the heck “proficient” means - specifically when people say “I’m proficient” in places where others might say “I’m fluent”?
I think it just means you are able to do it. it lacks all the cultural baggage and doesn’t imply that you’re good at something, just that you are capable. And also i forgot your perspective on this lol but that’s okay.
mi lukin e sitelen toki ni mute la sona sin li kama lon.
toki Inli la nimi Fluent li ante tawa mi. kon li ni: mi toki la jan ante pi toki ni li sona.
taso ni la pilin la mi o kepeken nimi Proficient. ni li pona.
ante musi la mi o ni ala o toki e ken mi pi jan Tepo a a.
sina pana e sona la mi pilin pona 
Proficiency is… an English concept for me. The word is best translated as something like… competency in German, maybe?? And that one conveys weird meanings to me. “oh you have marketable skills”
Proficiency is a term I don’t think I’ve really seen a lot until I came to toki pona, where all kinds of linguistic jargon is more likely to be used, so that makes sense, but it also means that it’s just a more fancy term for me that basically means the same as fluent - at least when I replace one with the other, it seems to work. On top of being a fancy word, for me, the connotation would be with what comes with “proficiency” as a whole - like “what’s your proficiency in English - how have you performed on this proficiency test”, to me implying that it’s something to be measured.
I don’t know what “being good at a language” means, if not “being capable”.
If it has a better connotation for you, good. I’m just navigating the mess that is your language, being used to the mess that is my language
proficiency is definitely not a jargon term in english. but other than that I don’t really know how to explain this concept to you at the moment.
Do you have any examples of this? I’m curious.
2 Likes
I think this kinda goes for any language too maybe.
Again, I think this goes for any language too. Like, how fluent is fluent? At what point does “conversational” become “proficient” and “proficient” become “fluent”? (I certainly don’t have any answers lol)
2 Likes
I think it’s much easier to explain to non-toki pona people that you’re fluent in a language as a measure of how well you can speak a language than to say proficient. The concept of fluency is what we’re used to, and it’s what makes most sense to people who haven’t processed the baggage.
Ideologically it does make sense to not call yourself fluent because it’s generally nebulous but pragmatically it’s kind of weird to go around and say “I’m proficient in [language]” because, at least to me, that’s a level below fluency. maybe it is a buzzword, but something being a buzzword doesn’t mean it doesn’t describe a concept broadly that people can understand in their own way. I think it’s a good thing that it’s broad, doesn’t really have concrete definitions, and means different things in different contexts and ideologies.
We also live in a society where social status wrt language means something and is baked into every interaction about language. I do think saying “I’m proficient in toki pona” at all is a form of social status, because it inherently distinguishes you from people who aren’t proficient in toki pona, and since we live in a society where the social structures exist that divide people based on proficiency vs. non-proficiency (or in this case, fluent vs. non-fluent), it’s sort of pointless to avoid the term fluent and instead choose proficient.
1 Like
I agree that the term “fluent” is useful when speaking to people who don’t know toki pona, which is why in my original messge I said “label yourself as fluent in toki pona within the community.” I see a point in labeling yourself as fluent when you’re facing outward. but that’s specifically NOT what I am talking about.
I do strongly believe that the term “fluent” has significantly more cultural baggage than “proficient” does, by far.
1 Like
(mi musi la) sina toki Inli e wawa sina pi toki pona la o kepeken nimi Viable sama nasin ni
“yeah i’m viable in toki pona”
2 Likes
I think this inconsitency in the meaning of the word fluency is one of the ways that dialects end up like that (although VK is not an example of this, as it was like that just because it developed in isolation from ma pona)
mi pilin e ni: sona ni li nasa lili
o sona e ma Pepu. ona li lon tenpo weka suli tawa ma pi ilo Siko. taso mi awen ken sona e toki ona. nasin li ante lili, taso ante ni li sama ni: jan tu li toki pi ante lili.
sama la ma Pike li lon tenpo weka tawa ma pi ilo Siko. taso ona kin la mi ken sona e toki pi tenpo weka. (mi lukin e toki weka pi ma PK lon tenpo poka tan ni: mi alasa pana e ona tawa ilo Muni, a a)
sina wile sona e kule nasin pi toki pona la, o sona e ni: jan seme li toki pi mute nanpa wan lon open pi jaki Kolona? nasin toki ona en nasin pilin ona li tawa kulupu pi tenpo lon.
sina ken lukin e kama suli pi nasin toki ona lon ilo Muni. o lukin e ni. open pi jaki Kolona la nasin pi nimi toki en nasin pi nimi pona li ante suli; ona li ante tan ni: jan li kama kepeken nimi mute ante.
sina lukin e tenpo pi jaki Kolona ala la, toki pona li lili mute. nasin pi toki ni li lawa lili e tenpo kama.
1 Like
mi pilin e ni kin! sona ni li nasa mute a!
mi pilin e ni: tenpo ni la, mi kama sona ala e ijo lili pi sona ni. taso, mi sona e ni: nasin toki pi kulupu ni li nasa mute tawa nasin pi ma pona (lon tenpo weka ni)
mi sona e ni: jaki Kolona li lon ala lon tenpo pi sona mi. jan li kama sona e kulupu ni pi lipu VK lon tenpo pi jaki Kolona ala. tenpo weka ni la, jan ala li sona e jaki Kolona. ona li lili lili a.
2 Likes