This "essay" stemmed from a question that I had recieved in response to a discussion about nimi sin overall. I have copied my lengthy answer into this as a way of displaying my conception of the language at one point in time.
Let's start with the first assertion that I'm going to make, which is that toki pona's philosophy is dynamic and open to constant (re)interpretation. It is through this that I feel as though I can justify the non-inclusion of particular aspects of toki pona reality into the cohesive statement about toki pona's philosophy for the sake of this particular post.
Now, what do I conceive of the philosophy of toki pona as? I think I can sum it up in a few points:
- All things are inherently relative to contextual information. In toki pona, something is lili only when in juxtaposition to something that is suli. Something is suno only when pimeja is or has been observed. All speech in toki pona is framed as the interpretation of the speakers perspective, describing their perception of reality instead of reality itself.
- Meaning is inherently communicative. In other words, a shared understanding of the meaning of words, phrases, sentences, and larger can all be conceptualized as a process of interpreting the world through the lens of the other party. Because toki pona is as relative as it is, there is an indeterminate number of ways to describe a given concept. Phrases themselves are very "cheap", and as a result one's way of talking about things forms something almost equivalent to a fingerprint of their perspective!
- All things should be pona. pona here is an interesting word. In my interpretation of the concept, pona means "simplicity without badness", "complexity without inessentiality", and "inessentiality without unpleasantness". In this way, toki pona's minimalism isn't a vulgar kind (one could observe from the perspective of a language such as tuki tiki that toki pona is not nearly as minimal as it could be while remaining usable); instead, toki pona prioritizes "meaningful trivality", a concept that may appear more paradoxical than it actually is.
- Only that which is perceived or experienced directly exists (even though intersubjectivity definitely informs people's conception of truth). Consider that toki pona largely1 avoids (societal, but many other more general) explicitly defining abstractions into words; toki pona could easily have a positional decimal number system or egocentric directions (actually also absolute directions, too) in words of their own, but it doesn't and there's a reason why it doesn't. I know that sona li lon because mi ken pilin e sona. I know that olin li lon because mi ken pilin e olin li ken pana e olin. However, I can't pilin a direction; I walk relative to what is perceptible.
These points are, in general, the things that make toki pona as effective as it is as a philosophical statement. Following this, a nimi sin that further elaborates in this direction is definitely a nimi sin pona, but it's not something that "contributes to the philosophy of the language".
In order to do that, I believe that a word would have to take these principles and attempt to establish another conclusion that is unmistakably in the spirit of toki pona, but further cultivates the very foundation of the language's philosophy.
Footnotes
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Yes, I am aware that jan, mani, meli, and mije exist. I think it is worth pointing out that even though these words do represent societal constructions (sentience, currency, and gender respectively), a massive amount of flexibility exists within their space that allows for the potential to refer to ijo that are more tangible. Furthermore, these potential conflicts are constantly discussed, and elaboration or (gradual) reinterpretation of words could prove to resolve some of them. Just as an illustrative example more than an actual suggestion, why couldn't mani refer to one's health, vitality, or wellbeing? ↩
