语言与文风2020theatlantic.com
道本语 Toki Pona：只有一百个词的语言
Toki Pona: A Language with a Hundred Words (2015)
导读
这篇文章介绍人造语言 Toki Pona——它只有约一百个词，所有复杂概念都要靠有限的词绕圈子表达。对写作者来说它有意思的地方在于：词汇越少，每个词的负担越重，语境和组合方式就成了表达的关键，这恰好是简洁写作要练的基本功。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
把词汇压到最少时，每个词都要承担多种意思，写作时必须靠上下文把歧义消除干净。
- 02
真正难用的是 the、turn out 这类高频小词，而不是 banish 这种生僻词，因为它们义项多、含义全靠语境；改稿时要把精力花在这些词上。
- 03
用已经有的基本词拼出新表达（显微镜就是“小观察器”），用熟悉的词描述陌生概念，是造词，也是写作比喻的思路。
- 04
给自己设词数限制做练习（比如只用一百个词复述一个故事），能逼出简洁表达和重新组织语言的能力。
HN 评论精选
高频小词义项多、依赖语境，是写作中真正需要打磨的地方。
只有一百个词的问题在于，这一百个词是任何语言里最难的一百个词。对学外语的人来说，容易的词反而难，难的词反而容易。“banish”只有一个意思，记住就能认出；“turn out”有五六种意思，全看语境。极端情况是：向母语里没有冠词的人解释“the”。
yongjik查看英文原文
I've said it before, but the problem with having only a hundred words is that they are the hardest one hundred words in any languages. To a foreign learner, easy words are hard, and hard words are easy. To someone learning English as a foreign language, "banish" is easy to understand: it has just one meaning, so once you memorize it, you can recognize it whenever it's used. "Turn out", on the other hand, has half a dozen meanings and you have to rely on context. In the extreme case, imagine explaining the word "the" to someone whose native language doesn't have an article.
小词汇量的语言上手极快，代价是表达啰嗦、经常绕圈子。
我高中时创办了校内的世界语社团，每周上课，按一年期课程设计；坚持来听讲还能自学的人，年底就能比较流利地用世界语交流。有位国际学生英语很吃力，参加几个月后，世界语反而说得比英语顺。高三时来了一位新生，力推 Toki Pona；我们便拿出一个月的活动专学它，大家上手速度之快令人惊讶。当然，它比世界语啰嗦得多：世界语一个大词就能说清的意思，它得绕好几句话。但学得特别开心，我现在还记得很多。
elldoubleyew查看英文原文
In high school I was the founder of our (small) Esperanto Club. I gave Esperanto lessons each week at our club meeting designed as a one year course, usually by the end of the year if someone attended each week and did moderate self study outside of class they could communicate in Esperanto really well. We even had one international student who really struggled with english that after a few months of attending our club could communicate with us in Esperanto more fluently than English! We had one a freshman join during my senior year who was a huge advocate of Toki Pona as a conlang. We decided to devote a month of the club to Toki Pona instead of Esperanto and it was mind boggling how quickly everyone was able to get a grasp of it. Granted Toki Pona is much more "wordy" than Esperanto, you often have to use many words to convey an idea that you could express quickly in a language with a larger vocabulary. Regardless it was an absolute blast to learn and I'm surprised by how much I remember. Once I got to college there seemed to be a severe lack of interest in Esperanto, or any conlang for that matter, amongst the student body. I could never really keep enough people interested the same way I could in high school so I gave up after my sophomore year. I really miss teaching people Esperanto. I believe the club at my high school still runs to this day, I'd love to be able to go back and visit one day.
把受限词汇做成游戏化的描述练习，既好学又能立刻用。
能不能做一个英语版的 Toki Pona？英语已经普及，这样既有两个可用的词库，也真的有人会去学、去用。人造语言最大的问题就是实际用途太少。延伸想法：做一个类似字谜的游戏，把有限的词表印在板子、卡片或纸上，让人用这套词去描述一件事、一本书、一个故事、一个物件或一部电影。谁都能立刻玩，小孩也行，顺便学一门新语言——让学习变得好玩，是最容易学会的办法之一。再进一步，日语版、俄语版、德语版、法语版都用同一套词，学会一个版本后，其他版本很容易上手。
RobertRoberts查看英文原文
What about an English version of Toki Pona? (maybe Eng-Toki Pona?) Why? Because English is very common already, and it seems an easy way to not only have usable words in two languages (English and Eng-Toki Pona) but also it would be useful to actually learn. (foreigners could _actually_ use this for real) This is the biggest hurdle I have with made up languages, they have very little actual utility value. As an afterthought, a simple charades like game where you have the limited vocabulary on a board, card or print out where people have to describe an event,book/story, object, movie, etc... using Eng-Toki Pona. Everyone could do it right now (even kids), and learn a new language at the same time. (one of the easiest ways to learn something is by making it fun and a game) Edit: A reverse of this - Japanese-Toki Pona, all the same words, but in Japanese. Same with every other language (Russian, German, French, etc...). Then, after you learn one Toki derivative, you can easily pick up others. I figure it's possible you could learn the choppy/odd sentence building technique in your native language, and then add other languages later. Could also be fun as a group game once the English version gets easy. And all of these would be useful everywhere... not just speaking with other Toki Pona speakers.
yongjik查看英文原文
I've said it before, but the problem with having only a hundred words is that they are the hardest one hundred words in any languages. To a foreign learner, easy words are hard, and hard words are easy. To someone learning English as a foreign language, "banish" is easy to understand: it has just one meaning, so once you memorize it, you can recognize it whenever it's used. "Turn out", on the other hand, has half a dozen meanings and you have to rely on context. In the extreme case, imagine explaining the word "the" to someone whose native language doesn't have an article.
用基本词组合造新词，本身就是一种比喻思维。
在冰岛语里，指南针叫“方向淋浴器”，显微镜叫“小观察器”。拉丁语的 microscope 也是“小观察器”，即 microscopium。
kazinator查看英文原文
> In Icelandic, a compass is a direction-shower, and a microscope a small-watcher. In Latin, microscope is also "small-watcher", namely, microscopium.
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