MH Oldschool

toki! mi jan Lun. mi wile toki kepeken toki pona lon lipu ni a! taso, kulupu pi toki pona lon kulupu pi alasa monsuta la, mi sona ala. sina toki pona la, o sitelen lon lipu ni. kulupu pi toki pona li lon la, mi wile toki e jan lawa tan ona ken pana e lipu pi toki pona. pona tawa sina ale!

hi! i'm rune. i want to speak toki pona here! but i don't know if there's a group of toki pona speakers in the monster hunter community. if you speak toki pona, please write here. if there's a community of speakers here, i'll talk to a moderator so they can make a language subforum for toki pona. have a nice day!

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context: toki pona is a constructed language with a very small vocabulary (120 or 137 words, depending on how you count it.) it's fun to use because you have to phrase yourself very creatively to fit within the vocabulary constraints, and it's fun to learn because it's very achievable to learn completely and the grammar is very easy to get a hold of.

I don't particularly expect anyone here to already be familiar with the language, but my hope is that maybe I can find a couple people who would be interested in spending a weekend learning the language and talking about Monster Hunter with it. (it really does only take a weekend to learn.)

free resources for those interested:
https://linku.la/ <-- toki pona dictionary
https://lipu-sona.pona.la/ <-- 12-part course which teaches vocabulary and grammar in digestible chunks
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... LfmxB2U5rJ <-- 12-part video course which inspired the above

please post if you want to talk about conlanging, i'm desperate

toki! mi wile lukin toki pona, taso mi ala sona toki pona.

I've been interested in learning toki pona for a long time but have never sat down and actually taken the time to do so. I'd love to try, though! And for some reason it just... feels right for Monster Hunter, ya know?

mi pona pilin tan sitelen sina a! alasa monsuta la, mi en sina ken toki pona
pilin mi li ni: sina ken kama sona e toki pona a!
alasa monsuta la toki pona la, pilin mi li sama. n, ken la, toki pi alasa monsuta li sama lili e toki pona tan kalama pi toki pona li sama lili e toki Nijon. mi sona ala a a a

aa, i'm excited to see someone reply! We can definitely talk Monster Hunter in toki pona
you should definitely try learning toki pona! you can do it
I feel the same that toki pona feels right for Monster Hunter! hmm, maybe Monster Hunter Language feels similar to toki pona because toki pona has compatible phonology with Japanese? i dunno

a musi!

sona toki pona la ala tenpo mute taso mi lukin e sina lipu sama pakala lawa kama pona. ala ken pini!

toki kalama sama toki Nijon. sitelen sama alasa monsuta sitelen (mi pilin).

suli nimi la pali seme? ante nimi la pali seme? sina kepeken "alasa monsuta". toki pona tan la mi pilin e sitelen tan kalama taso mi ala ale nimi ken sona. a seme?! Monsuta Janta e ken seme?

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Wow, this is fun!

I don't have a lot of time to learn, but reading what you wrote was like solving a puzzle - It was hard to stop!

The phonology is similar to Japanese, and the logography is kinda similar to writing in Monster Hunter (imo).

How do loan words and proper nouns work? I've seen you using "alasa monsuta", and i get spelling it out according to the phonetics. But surely some titles would be difficult to translate, right? What about Monsuta Janta?

(idk if it's in the spirit of the language, but if you have any suggestions/corrections I'm all ears )

pakala lawa pi toki pona la pilin mi li ni: sitelen la, toki pona li pona mute. lukin la, toki pona li pona lili a a a

nimi pi toki ante li sitelen kepeken kalama pi toki pona taso. kin la, nimi mi pi toki Inli li "Rune". ante la, nimi mi pi toki pona li "Lun." (kin la, "English" li "Inli" a a a)

ante toki la, "alasa monsuta" li pona tawa mi tan ni: ona li pona tan nimi "monsuta" en nimi "alasa" li lon toki pona. pilin mi la, nimi Monsuta Janta kalama sama e toki Inli, taso ona li ike lili.

with regards to the puzzle of reading toki pona: my feeling is that writing toki pona is simple, but reading it can be a litle less simple

Loan words are written using the sounds of toki pona; for example, my name is "Rune", but it would be changed in toki pona to "Lun." (another example is "English" to "Inli") More complicated sounds can get simplified in weird ways, like "Discord"->"Siko". here is a lipu pona about it: https://lipu-sona.pona.la/7a.html

As a translation, i like "alasa monsuta" because it's simple; "monster" and "hunt" have direct translations in toki pona. i feel like a loan-word-style translation like "Monsuta Janta" is more faithful in terms of sound, but ends up less pona. There are definitely situations where I think translating a title word-for-word would be ike. But part of what makes Monster Hunter feel pona is that it has such a simple name and concept that works with this approach

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mi ken pona e sitelen sina!
mi wile pana sona kepeken toki Inli.

i can pona-ify your writing!
i'll write this part in english (mostly)

a musi!

usually people write a at the end of the sentence ("musi a!") but your intent is clear so i think this is perfectly pona

sona toki pona la ala tenpo mute taso mi lukin e sina lipu sama pakala lawa kama pona. ala ken pini!

pilin mi li ni: sina o, sitelen e nimi "mi" a!
toki pona is not very good at sentences without clear subjects, like "it was hard to stop!" I think in this context, it would be pona to place yourself as the subject: "mi ken ala pini!"

also, be careful about adjective ordering; i think you meant "lipu sina" (my post) rather than "sina lipu" (doesn't really parse literally as a noun phrase. me as relating to posts?). your adjective-noun word order is frequently mixed up but that is very easy to fix

i really love your description of a puzzle! it's very evocative to imagine a "pakala" becoming "pona" and that is very much how solving a puzzle (or reading/writing toki pona) feels. pona mute a!

toki kalama sama toki Nijon.

don't be afraid of grammar words like "li" and "e"; sometimes more words is pona
every sentence whose subject isn't "mi" or "sina" should have "li".

i would say "kalama toki li sama e toki Nijon."; without "e" to denote the subject, i think "sama toki Nijon" sounds like a verb-phrase meaning "becoming similar in terms of language to Japan."

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sorry if i wrote too much, i got excited to talk about toki pona.

have you seen anything written in sitelen pona yet? a few months ago was idly considering the idea of an MH1 toki pona language patch and I was thinking that it would use sitelen pona as a sort of analogue to the dense pictographic textboxes it has in Japanese.

when i write toki pona for myself, i usually write in sitelen pona. it's fun to draw the symbols

pona tawa sina a!