Toki Pona

Also known as: Toki Pona

Toki Pona ("good language") is a minimalist constructed language created by Canadian linguist Sonja Lang and first published online in 2001 (Toronto), with the official book Toki Pona: The Language of Good appearing in 2014. It uses just 137 root words (the official "pu" canon) — there is no native counting system beyond "two," no separate words for sibling/parent (mama / mije), no specific verb tenses; meaning is conveyed through compound phrases and context. The vocabulary draws eclectically from English, Tok Pisin, Finnish, Mandarin, Cantonese, Esperanto, Croatian, Acadian French, Georgian, Dutch, and Welsh. Phonology: just 9 phonemes (5 vowels + 4 consonants from /p t k s/, the smallest of any Latin-orthography language; m, n, l, j, w add more in the full inventory of 14 phonemes). Inspired by Taoist philosophical minimalism (the simpler the expression, the closer to truth) and Buddhist non-attachment. The community has developed multiple writing systems beyond Latin: sitelen pona (logographic, 2014), sitelen sitelen (illustrative, 2012), and sitelen suwi.