Lesson 1: Letters and sounds
From Toki Pona
Contents |
Alphabet
Toki Pona has a very simple sound system. There are only 9 consonants and 5 vowels, for a total of 14 letters.
- a e i j k l m n o p s t u w
Toki Pona spelling is regular. Each letter always corresponds to the same basic sound. Toki Pona is written all in lower case, even at the beginning of a sentence. Upper case letters are only used at the beginning of proper names.
Question: See anything missing? Name at least three letters we use in English but not in Toki Pona. (show answer)
Answer: The letters b c d f g h q r v x y z aren't used in Toki Pona.
Vowels
Like 20 percent of the world's languages, Toki Pona has only five vowel sounds.
| Toki Pona letter | English sound |
|---|---|
| a | ah like in father or bra |
| e | eh like in bed or head |
| i | ee like in litchi, machine or beaver |
| o | oh like in pony or gonad |
| u | oo like in moose or couscous |
Consonants
Toki Pona uses 9 consonant sounds. The letters p t k m n s l w sound the same as in English.
The letter j is pronounced like the English y in yippee or Yugoslavia. For example, the word jelo sounds just like yellow.
Flexibility
Because there are so few sounds in Toki Pona, there's a lot more freedom on how you can pronounce each letter. This makes Toki Pona easy to pronounce for anybody in the world, regardless of their language background or accent.
For example, the letters b, d and g are not used. They're very similar to p, t and k. Therefore, if you had a cold, you could say dogi bona instead of toki pona, and it would still be correct.
Many languages don't distinguish between l and r. Toki Pona prevents this problem by only having l. Many languages don't have an f sound, just p. And so on.
Stress and intonation
In Toki Pona, stress falls on the first syllable of a word. Pronounce it a bit louder, longer or higher pitched. For instance, the word pakala is pronounced PA-ka-la and not pa-KA-la or pa-ka-LA.
There are no set rules for sentence intonation. It is not necessary to raise the tone in questions as we do in English, however there is also nothing wrong in doing so.
Syllable structure
Syllables follow a very simple structure: consonant + vowel + (optional n)
Other rules:
- The first syllable of a word can begin without a consonant.
- n cannot occur at the end of a syllable if the next one begins with m or n.
- The following syllables are impossible: ji(n), wu(n), wo(n), ti(n). (The ungrammatical sequence ti becomes si in loan words.)
Examples: kama, pona, kepeken, nasin, sinpin, Sonko, sewi
Syllable-final n
When n appears at the end of a syllable, it represents any nasal consonant. It usually matches the sound that comes after it. For example, nanpa and unpa sound like nampa and umpa, and the n in ma Sonko sounds like the English ng in ding dong.
