mama - parent, ancestor; creator, originator; caretaker, sustainer
ma - earth, land; outdoors, world; country, territory; soil
nimi - name, word
lete - cold, cool; uncooked, raw
seli - fire; cooking element, chemical reaction, heat source
len - cloth, clothing, fabric, textile; cover, layer of privacy
in toki pona, proper names are treated as adjectives, with a capitalized first letter. this means that you have to pick a word which describes what the thing is, and then modify that word with the name.
jan Lisa
~ a jan named lisa
ma Mewika
a country named Mewika (the united states)
names in toki pona are "tokiponized," which means fitting the name into toki pona phonotactics. the general guidelines to tokiponization are the following:
people use lots of different headnouns in toki pona, depending on what word(s) they identify with more. for example, i use soweli as my headnoun!
keep this in mind when speaking toki pona!
for example, since not everyone is a jan, it doesn't make sense to
translate everyone as jan ale, instead you should
translate it as something like ijo ale or just ale.
basically - don't use jan if you're not actually sure you're referring to a jan!
the above note is a very strong personal opinion.
in practice, many people do still use jan for someone/anyone/everyone etc.
my name, tess, turns into soweli Tesa!
technically, my name should be Te, but the s in my name felt important to include, so it's Tesa instead!
my cat, tiara, is soweli Sijala!
the r in her name turns into an l because i tap my r's, and the ti turns into si.
the english language becomes toki Inli.
the ng cluster was simplified to n, and the syllable count was prioritized, meaning the ending sh was removed.
the swedish language becomes toki Wensa, from swedish svenska.
the sv cluster gets simplified to just w, and the sk cluster gets simplified to s!
often, toki pona tries to use the same tokiponization for both language and country name, so the country sweden becomes ma Wensa
i know how to speak a language called Nosiki (norwegian)
i wanna go to your country
i need a lot of clothes because the country called Kanata (canada) is really cold!
i forgot your name recently
(a flying animal named) lisa wants to finish working
soweli Tesa li pana e sona pi toki pona tawa olin ona
pipi ni li tawa ni tan ma Nosiki
ijo pi ma Wensa li sona mute ala
wawa pi mama mi li mute tawa wawa pi mama sina
mama mi li wawa mute · mama sina li wawa lili
nimi sina li pona