Toki Pona is the world’s smallest language. It’s a constructed language and so should warm the cockles of many a geek’s heart. It was designed by Sonja Elen Kisa and has just 123 words. And you’d be surprised at how much you can express with these.
While Toki Pona is not necessarily meant to be a primary language, its minimalism is an exercise in getting to the very core of what you’re trying to say. It values good-natured simplicity over bureaucracy and obfuscation. In fact it’s somewhat influenced by Taoism and the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (the discredited notion that linguistic categories determine the concepts we are able to think about). But you don’t have to buy into any of that to enjoy it!
There are just 14 sounds and the syllable structure is similar to Japanese to make it as easy as possible to pronounce no matter what your native language. Vocabulary is drawn from many languages: Tok Pisin (originally from English), Russian, Cantonese, Esperanto, Finnish and more. Grammar is very small. Compound words are made by combining basic words (eg. crazy + water = alcohol, house + mammal = pet).
If you have any interest in language I recommend you check it out. More on a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toki_Pona”>Wikipedia and the official site. A few years ago I made 9 translations of classic works into Toki Pona and 6 original works — you can find them here.
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