Talk:Lesson 1: Letters and sounds

From Toki Pona

Rhyme

Many Toki Pona words also rhyme and have cute rhythms:

ma mama	motherland
telo jelo	yellow water, urine
ona li pona	she is good
waso laso	blue bird

Practice

Here are some imaginary Toki Pona words that sound almost like English words and sentences. Say the Toki Pona words aloud. Then check if you pronounced them right. For example, the Toki Pona word mi sounds just like the English word me.

1. supi (show answer)

1. jami jelo kon
2. lonli lisa
3. lin poni
4. laki ken taki ku
5. jo, wi only wu kinki su.
6. onli papi pu

(show answer)

Theoretically, these rules allow a total of 92 possible one-syllabe words, 6624 possible two-syllable words, and 476,928 possible three-syllables. In practice, however, the entire language has only 118 words.

Linguist corner

Toki Pona has five vowels /i, e, a, o, u/. Each occurs in both stressed and unstressed syllables.

Although there are only two nasal phonemes, the nasal consonants assimilate to the place of articulation of following consonants (but not across word boundaries). Nasals are only contrastive before vowels.

assimilatory allophones m N fully assimilates to the following consonant

A retracted [a], [a] [A] [6] /e/ lowered [e̞] (lowered), somewhere between cardinal [e] and [ɛ], I i I O as e U u U Plosives and /s/ can be voiceless or voiced, aspirated or unaspirated.

Front Central Back Close i

u Mid e̞

o̞ Open

ä

a between [a] and [A] e between [e] and [E] i [i] o between [o] and [O] u [u]

Toki Pona doesn't distinguish between long or short vowels.