Vocabulary
The 120-root vocabulary is designed around the principles of living a simple life without the complications of modern civilization.
Because of the small number of roots in Toki Pona, words from other languages are often translated using a collocation of two or more roots, e.g. "to teach" by pana e sona, which literally means "to give knowledge". Although Toki Pona is generally said to have only 115, 118 or 120 "words", this is inaccurate, as there are many compound words and set phrases which, as idiomatic expressions, constitute independent lexical entries or lexemes and therefore must be memorized independently.
On the word list on the official website there are 123 roots including those not present in the vocabulary.
Read more about this topic: Toki Pona
Famous quotes containing the word vocabulary:
“A new talker will often call her caregiver “mommy,” which makes parents worry that the child is confused about who is who. She isn’t. This is a case of limited vocabulary rather than mixed-up identities. When a child has only one word for the female person who takes care of her, calling both of them “mommy” is understandable.”
—Amy Laura Dombro (20th century)
“My vocabulary dwells deep in my mind and needs paper to wriggle out into the physical zone. Spontaneous eloquence seems to me a miracle. I have rewritten—often several times—every word I have ever published. My pencils outlast their erasers.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“[T]here is no breaking out of the intentional vocabulary by explaining its members in other terms.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)