I avoid using the phrase “toki pona” in toki pona, as I consider this phrase to be lexicalized. Instead, I prefer “toki ni” in most contexts.
Do other people here feel the same?
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i definitely do. i think naming the language “toki pona” was kind of a mistake, because toki pona is also just a phrase in the language
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alternatively: how about toki Toki Pona
I think replacing it with another fixed compound might not solve the problem.
I feel very differently, actually! the reason why “toki pona” works so well is because the semantic space of “pona” matches up exactly with the design goals of toki pona. I do think people should use the compound to mean more other things, but the prototypical toki that is pona is “toki pona,” created by Sonja Lang. I do get the feeling though. I frequently use “toki ni” to mean “this conversation” and as @shamu mentioned, replacing one compound with another never fixes anything (see: replacing “tenpo ni” with “tenpo toki”)
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This is why I said “in most contexts”.
Without context, people seem to interpret demonstrative pronouns as self-referential (examples include the famous “this sentence is false”), which is why I think “toki ni” can work in many contexts. However, if “ni” is likely not self-referential in some context, I would say “toki ni” is a bad choice.
the problem is that “toki ni” as a self-referential statement can mean either “this language” or “this conversation.” it’s not the hardest thing to disambiguate though so it’s not usually a problem ime.
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I just realized that “toki pona” can also be used in the verb position, such as “o toki pona e ona” in the title of another topic. In these places I will probably use “o toki sama mi” or “o kepeken ala toki ante” rather than “o toki ni”
well for me personally I would just use “toki pona” because the language itself is a part of the semantic space of “pona” but those work very well!
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i use it all the time, but it’s not the only thing i call the language! i call toki pona toki pona because i think it’s pona, it’s a description of the language. i do frequently use “toki ni” or another situational phrase, but i don’t think this requires the elimination of “toki pona”
i don’t like situations like toki ‘toki pona’ or toki Toki Pona (or rather toki ｢toki pona｣ / toki [toki pona]); they feel like cementing that name even more when it’s just a description of the language to me. if you don’t like toki pona then you should not call it toki pona. you can call it toki ike, toki kulupu, toki pi lili nimi (that’s not an error!), etc.
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I agree that “toki pona” is an accurate description of the language, however the reason I care about toki pona is often “I am speaking toki pona right now” rather than “toki pona is good”, so I avoid the use of “toki pona” in places where its goodness doesn’t matter that much.
it is like the pu example of a car being referred to as “tomo tawa” “ilo tawa” “kiwen tawa” and “kiwen utala”. If the goodness of toki pona matters, use “toki pona”. If its goodness isn’t very relevant to the conversation, use something else.
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makes sense! that’s a very respectable usage.
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tenpo la mi toki e “toki penpo” anu “toki Toki Pona”
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ni li ken a! i feel that it’s pona-ness is a good descriptor to set it apart from other languages, so it’s a good way to specify which language i am talking about. in the same way, if i see a car while walking by i might call it an ilo tawa to distinguish it from, oh i don’t know, myself (mi ilo a a)
(or a tomo tawa, to distinguish it from the skyscrapers around me that definitely do not tawa)
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nimi “penpo” li kama e pilin utala (pi suli ala a) lon mi a a
mi utala penpo e sina >:3
aaaa sina anpa e mi lon utala
“toki ni” I can totally empathize with as a reasonable autonym (it seems very common for natlangs to call themselves “language” or “this language”) but ni seems really common as a modifier for aforementioned things, so I think the modifier being more of a content word helps its distinction in conversation.
I think another part of the benefit of “toki pona” as a name is mainly because that combination of words doesn’t seem to come up super often anyways, although I absolutely think it should! (immediate examples of English phrases that could parse as toki pona would be “advocacy” or “inclusive language” or more euphemistically in a terse manner “the jargon of mechanics (the profession)”)
toki kijetesantakalu la nimi Toki Penpo li mu musi e mi
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In our experience, other valid referents of the phrase toki pona do come up very often—advice, compliments, eloquence, a pithy proverb, or just a good chat. Speaking the Language of Good is just one form of toki pona. Sure, that sense does verge on namehood despite being grammatically non-proper, which is funky when there are otherwise such specific guidelines around names. But i don’t think the phrase is “lexicalized” if so many other feasible, non-idiomatic meanings are readily used and understood
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Thoughts on using tokipona as an endonym with the toki head noun as in toki tokipona? Contrasted to toki Toki Pona, this is consistent with how endonyms of other languages are constructed (toki Inli, toki Sonko, etc).
Alternatively, there’s always toki pu which just references back to the origin book. Or that could get lifted as an endonym to become toki tokipu lol…