jan Sewe o, toki!
Without having "native" toki pona speakers, it will never be possible to confirm or falsify Sapir/Whorf's hypothesis. As a German interpreter of Arabic and English interpreting at Berlin schools more or less difficult discussions between teachers, parents and pupils of non-German origin, I dare say that learning toki pona first would not in the least make anybody unable to master other languages soon after. I know dozens of Arab children who talk in good Arabic with their parents and good German with their teachers or nurses. So, I don't think that learning toki pona first would be in any way disadvantageous. Besides, toki pona is so easy that even a child of 1 1/2 years (maybe) could easily start to express him/herself better than using baby English/German/any other language. If this assumption were correct, it might lead to revolutionary changes in the views to speech-learning in early childhood. But without testing, we will probably never know
whether toki pona is or is not the ideal tool for (linguistic) understanding between adults and small children.
Just as not being misunderstood: of course, children have also be taught the native language of their country before going to school. But at home, toki pona is "pona mute tawa mi".
jan Elumutu
jan_sewe <***@laposte.net> schrieb am Mo, 12.1.2009:
Von: jan_sewe <***@laposte.net>
Betreff: [tokipona] Re: toki pona chatterbot
An: ***@yahoogroups.com
Datum: Montag, 12. Januar 2009, 0:45
Post by Helmut Voigtmi wile e ni: jan mute mute li kama sona li kepeken e toki pona. mi
lape la mi pilin e ni: jan sin li kama lon li kama sona e toki pi
nanpa wan. toki ni li toki pona. tenpo kama la, ona li ken kama sona e
toki ante kin. That would be the first native tp speaker 8-)) who at
some time could tell us which words/notions to add and which to delete
to make tp a really and easily usable language.
Post by Helmut Voigttenpo sike sin o pana e pona tawa jan ali.
jan Elumutu
Your dream that people learn TP as their first language might get a
symbolic interpretation - maybe you'd like everyone to have good
thoughts. Now, do you really think it would be a nice thing to do to
raise children exclusively in Toki Pona - as this could make them
unable to learn a more complex language?
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