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Radio-Canada interview (3-60) |
Radio-Canada, première chaîne (Atlantique)
Denis Robichaud, host of 3-60, interviews Sonja Elen Kisa about Toki Pona
July 18, 2007
MP3 audio file in French (8:46, 4.01 MB)
English translation by Sonja Elen Kisa
| Denis (0:00): | ale li pona. Did you understand what I just said? Until this morning, this sentence wouldn't have meant much to me. This was before I knew the basics of Toki Pona. Now I know that ale li pona means more or less that "life is beautiful" in this language invented by an Acadian woman. Sonja Elen Kisa, a native of Moncton, [New Brunswick, Canada,] is a language enthusiast. Among others, she has studied Dutch, Cantonese and Arabic. At the age of 28, she speaks five languages fluently. Toki Pona has generated quite a bit of interest a bit everywhere in the world, has been the topic of several news reports, and is spoken in several countries, for example, in Russia, where we've found some people who speak Toki Pona. So to find out more, I contacted Sonja Elen Kisa, the inventor of this language, in Toronto. Hello! |
| Sonja (0:46): | Hi! How are you? |
| Denis (0:47): | I'm great. Thank you so much for agreeing to talk to us about it. Obviously, our first question, it has generated a lot of interest but also a lot of curiosity. Where did you get this idea of creating a language? |
| Sonja (0:59): | Well, I have a lot of experience in learning languages. My passion is to learn all kinds of different languages. When I learn a language, it's a bit like opening a door to a new culture. You can discover a different experience, a different way of thinking, a different reality. I've always loved learning languages. Ever since I was a teenager I would pick up lots of different languages in my spare time. And Toki Pona came to me fairly naturally. As I was studying various languages, I noticed that there were many universal features, many similar things, ideas, structures, values, all kinds of things that all humans had in common, regardless of their culture, code or language. I was inspired by this, and I decided to design a language that specifically focuses on these universal aspects of human experience. |
| Denis (2:03): | And it's not a language that contains a lot of words, eh? I think there are 120 words in total, is that right? |
| Sonja (2:08): | Yes, that's correct. It's what I would call a minimalist language, or you could even say a Zen language, a language with very few words. Only 120 words, only 14 phonemes or 14 sounds. It's a language that was designed as a bit of an intellectual or spiritual exercise to find the meaning of life, because modern life is very complex. |
| Denis (2:35): | Yes. |
| Sonja (2:35): | And also, at the time when I designed Toki Pona, I was suffering from depression, and so I was asking myself all kinds of questions about life. What is the meaning of life? Who am I? What is the role and relationship of all the various things I see around me. So I dissected all the different concepts I saw or experienced around me and broke everything down to a list of 120 primitve and universal ideas that inspired me. So all the complicated words, I would try to break them up into simpler ideas. |
| Denis (3:12): | So how do you function and say what you really mean with only 120 words? I imagine that you already have some examples to share with us. Is it possible to function, if somebody decided to spend a day using Toki Pona? Would it work? |
| Sonja (3:26): | Yup, it works! Obviously Toki Pona doesn't have the same goals as say French, English or Chinese. It's not a language you could use for example to write mathematical treatises or the history of all kinds of complicated things. It's a very simple language, and this forces you to be really be here in the present moment, to really be aware of your surroundings and the context that everything is in. So for example there is no word for "decentralization" or other advanced concepts of modern life, but things can be combined. For example, there's no word for, let's say, "eagle", the bird... |
| Denis (4:11): | Yes... |
| Sonja (4:12): | But there's a word, which actually I took from French, waso, which means bird or any flying animal actually. It could also be a bat. |
| Denis (4:20): | OK. |
| Sonja (4:21): | And if you wanted to say "an eagle", you could say for example "strong bird". Oh OK, so it's a bird of prey, a bird that's really strong, which could mean an eagle or a hawk or something... |
| Denis (4:34): | So maybe sometimes you have to guess a bit to fully understand. |
| Sonja (4:36): | Yeah, sometimes. It's really a language, like I said, that has a bit of a spiritual side... |
| Denis (4:42): | Ah. |
| Sonja (4:42): | A minimalist or Taoist aspect, which is for really being present in the moment. So if an eagle is there, I see it. If i talk about the eagle, it's really something present. |
| Denis (4:51): | We were talking about the buzz, the interest that there's been a bit everywhere in the world with regard to this language. You have some examples to give us, and I mentioned Russia earlier. |
| Sonja (5:00): | Yeah. |
| Denis (5:00): | You've heard of people in Russia who speak this language and are very interested in it. |
| Sonja (5:06): | Yeah, actually, there's people interested in Toki Pona... It really surprised me, because when I created the language in 2000-2001, it was a bit of a creative exercise for me. I love creating new things and combining my ideas together, and I love languages. But I never thought it would be interesting for other people too. And I think it's precisely the elegance of the language: with very few words, you're really able to express a maximum of ideas. So yeah, there's people who contact me and tell me they're taking Toki Pona night classes in Russia, and there's different groups around the world organizing Toki Pona gatherings and things like that. It really surprises me. |
| Denis (5:51): | Isn't there a singer who wants to use it in a concert or something like that? |
| Sonja (5:55): | Yeah, I've received many songs from people who've composed songs in Toki Pona. And interest in the language has even grown so much in the last seven years that I've now given myself the project to write a book that properly documents the language and answers many of the questions that people have been asking me. I'm going to include a CD with all the musical creations in Toki Pona that people are making. |
| Denis (6:24): | And a dictionary too, maybe? |
| Sonja (6:25): | Yes, of course. A dictionary, and comics in Toki Pona. |
| Denis (6:30): | This is all very interesting, and I imagine it can be fun too for certain people. Could there be a real use? For example, couldn't it become a sort of universal language to allow people from different backgrounds to communicate together? |
| Sonja (6:46): | Well... it could. As I was saying, Toki Pona has a fairly limited scope. You wouldn't be able to talk about anything too complicated, but you could get by in everyday life in Toki Pona. There's also other languages that have been constructed with this specific goal, for example Esperanto, which was invented in the 19th century by a Jewish man in Poland, which has been successful. Many people hear about Esperanto and may think it's not that common, but for example, in Moncton or Dieppe there's a French teacher, Jean Codjo, who's originally from Benin [Africa] who may be offering Esperanto classes in Moncton. Esperanto is a language that's spoken by about two million people around the world, a very useful language for travelling and making contacts between different cultures. Maybe Toki Pona could be useful for this too. Personally, when I created the language, it was more of an experiment to really discover the meaning of things and unravel the mysteries of life, but there's all sorts of things happening in Toki Pona. There's people who are translating Lord of the Rings and other things. It's really funny. |
| Denis (8:00): | So people who want more details can of course go on the Internet? |
| Sonja (8:04): | Yes, of course. |
| Denis (8:05): | You have a website... |
| Sonja (8:06): | Yes, it's tokipona.org, and I also have the website languageofgood.com, which is easier to remember if you don't know how to spell Toki Pona. |
| Denis (8:22): | OK. |
| Sonja (8:22): | languageofgood.com, which dedirects to the same site. |
| Denis (8:25): | So to finish off, how could I say "good day"? |
| Sonja (8:29): | Uhm, tenpo pona or ale li pona. tenpo suno pona, which means sun time or day. |
| Denis (8:36): | So there you are... |
| Sonja (8:37): | tenpo suno pona. |
| Denis (8:38): | tenpo suno pona, is that right? |
| Sonja (8:40): | Yup! |
| Denis (8:40): | Sonja Elen Kisa, born in Moncton. Thank you very much for the interview. |
| Sonja (8:45): | Thank you, Denis. See ya! |
o tawa lipu lawa |
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