Article from 20 minutes

Toki Pona is the latest trendy language on the net

Published in the free French and Swiss newspaper 20 minutes
August 30, 2007
http://www.20min.ch/ro/rechercher/story/28747330
Translated by Sonja Elen Kisa

A student has invented a 120-word language that is all the rage on the Internet among fans of Lord of the Rings.

Practiced in the blogs of Tolkien fans that are accustomed to the language of the Elves, Toki Pona has turned into a real fad and identity symbol within a community. Toki Pona, which translates as "good, beautiful, positive" and "language", consists of the bare minimum of words essential to communication. Nevertheless, these are sufficient to compose songs, write poems, and of course, chat online. "It's an easy and universal language," explains the inventor of the language, Sonja Elen Kisa, to the Los Angeles Times.

The 28-year-old Canadian wanted to have a language that focuses solely on positive thinking. "It's the result of a bout of depression and my fascination for the world of Tolkien, and for Zen and Taoist cultures," further explains Sonja Elen Kisa. Toki Pona joins other new languages in full growth. The website Langmaker.com counts over a thousand of them. Some languages have also become popular thanks to movies, for example the "African" language spoken in The Interpreter with Nicole Kidman. If you take up Toki Pona, ale li pona (all will be well).

Comments and corrections by Sonja Elen Kisa

This article contains many factual errors and even fabricated quotes that I never said. They never bothered to contact me or interview me and decided to make up their own facts and quotations!

They seem to have assumed that Toki Pona is all about Lord of the Rings! Sure, J.R.R. Tolkien constructed some languages, and so did I with Toki Pona, but the comparison ends there. The Toki Pona fan base has very little to do with Lord of the Rings. They fabricated a quote where I talked about "my fascination for the world of Tolkien", something I never said, and which is unrelated to Toki Pona. They seem to use the term "fans of Lord of the Rings" to mean "fans of constructed languages". Maybe they found the website of the fan who proposed a method to write Toki Pona using the Tengwar script and got all confused.

Also, they say that Toki Pona is solely focused on positive thinking. This is not entirely true. Toki Pona is very positivity-oriented, but it also allows for negative thoughts with words like ike and pakala.

I don't mind the publicity, but seriously, what unprofessional journalism! It would have taken them 10 minutes of research to get the facts and story straight about what Toki Pona really is and isn't. I guess nowadays the news contains as much fiction as fact.