Sonja Lang is a Canadian linguist best known for creating the constructed language Toki Pona. Whereas some constructed languages are designed for global communication, worldbuilding, or just for fun, Toki Pona is an altogether different and very interesting project in philosophy and expression.
Lang grew up in a bilingual household in New Brunswick and cites her upbringing as what first opened her mind to the ways different languages can serve as different types of tools for communication. In 2001, she created Toki Pona as an exercise to understand the meaning of life through extreme simplicity. She whittled down every concept she wanted to express into only 120 words, abandoned verb conjugation and many other grammatical structures, and named her language Toki Pona, literally “The Language of Good.”
Understanding the name “The Language of Good” brings us to another aspect of what makes Lang’s work so creative, but even more interestingly what makes engaging with it a necessarily creative endeavor. Toki Pona could also mean “Talk Simple,” “Good Word,” or “Friendly Hello.” Because of its extremely limited lexicon, each of the language’s around 130 words (it’s grown a little since Lang created it) can mean many different things. The task of the Toki Pona speaker is to string the words together in a way that conveys the right general meaning to others. Therefore, in speaking Toki Pona, you are forced to imagine how to convey complex ideas by combining very simple ones. As you listen, you must try to puzzle out what others mean when they do the same.
This inherently creative experience demands openness to new experience from the language’s users since its meanings can be so subjective, as Lang describes in an interview. She explains: “I could say that a friend is a ‘good person’ (jan pona). I could say that an iPad is a ‘flat information device’. I could say that a cat or dog is a ‘house animal’ (soweli tomo). It's by combining words in this way that you can express yourself” (Radio-Canada). Toki Pona demands that speakers really delve into the meaning of each idea they seek to explain and often question what elements of it are most important. It provides a window into the subjective reality each of us experience within and challenges us to be open to new representations.
Even beyond just the creation of Toki Pona, Lang has remained open to change in the language as the speaking community adapts it and continues her project by experimenting with new ways to use the language. When asked about a project underway to complete an official Toki Pona translation of the game Minecraft, Lang replied, “it's really surprising, and I would even say that it's the youth who pushed the language to new heights in terms of eloquence” (Radio-Canada). For now, Lang is watching her creation grow and change however the speaking community needs it to; as she explains, “I don't try to control or to give a vision of how the language should be used. I simply let people explore it, enjoy themselves, and develop their own” (Radio-Canada).
Maggie, this is so cool! In my developmental psychology class, we're currently learning about the development of language, so this is particularly interesting for me! We learned about how it is an ongoing debate whether we alone dictate what we choose to say and how we communicate it, or if language itself pushes back, its constraints forcing meaning to change. Toki Pona is certainly evidence for the latter, and Lang seems so cool; it would certainly take a LOT of creativity to condense the entire English language into just 130 words!
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