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Template:Did you know nominations/Toki Pona

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The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:23, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

DYK toolbox

Toki Pona

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A symbol of the constructed language Toki Pona
A symbol of the constructed language Toki Pona
  • ... that Toki Pona (symbol pictured), a constructed language devised in 2001, uses only around 120–125 root words? Source 1: "Toki Pona has only 120 words" The Guardian, Source 2: "Toki Pona is the smallest language in the world. It is 123 words long" The Irish Times, Source 3: "Toki Pona only contains about 125 words" Still Hoping: The Relation of International Auxiliary Languages to Worldview and Perception
    • ALT1:... that one of the aims of Toki Pona (symbol pictured), a constructed language with around 120–125 root words, is to induce positive thinking? Source: "Toki Pona is a language exploring the Sapir – Whorf hypothesis, designed to encourage positive thoughts." The Routledge Linguistics Encyclopedia
    • ALT2:... that Toki Pona (symbol pictured), a constructed language with around 120–125 root words, has been studied as a therapeutic method for eliminating negative thinking? Source: "Ms. Kisa, a linguist who is fluent in five languages, devised Toki Pona as a coping mechanism during a bout of depression. Her motive unintentionally had good theoretical grounding in what's called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which holds that language affects the way you think, how you see the world and how you behave. She finds that her pared-down language is useful when trying to work through a problem. Thinking in Toki Pona strips away confusion and superfluous fluff. 'It helps you see patterns, and how things are connected in different ways,' she says. Pekka Roponen, a psychiatrist at the central hospital of Hameenlinnan, in southern Finland, is taking this therapeutic methodology one step further. He is studying the language's usefulness in treating patients, having them keep track of their daily thoughts in Toki Pona. 'Classical languages can be used in your inner world to avoid something,' says Dr. Roponen, noting that the Finnish language is notoriously complex, and that the country's suicide and depression rates are among the world's highest. Toki Pona, he adds, 'is meant to focus on the positive, so negative thought patterns and cognitions can be transferred and eliminated by simply using the language.'" The Globe and Mail
    • ALT3:... that Toki Pona (symbol pictured), a constructed language devised in 2001, has only five root words for colours? Source: "Toki Pona has a five-color palette: loje (red), laso (blue), jelo (yellow), pimeja (black), and walo (white)." The Atlantic
    • ALT4:... that Toki Pona (symbol pictured), a constructed language with around 120–125 root words, once had its own Wikipedia? Source in Polish: "Wersje Wikipedii w językach klingońskim oraz toki pona zostały wycofane z tego serwisu i przeniesione na Fandom." English translation: "Wikipedia versions in Klingon and Toki Pona have been withdrawn from this site and moved to Fandom." Sztuczne języki wobec mediów społecznościowych

Improved to Good Article status by Ddrahoslav (talk). Self-nominated at 09:10, 4 October 2019 (UTC).

  • @RebeccaGreen: Just pinging you to see whether you're still interested in reviewing this nomination. Ddrahoslav (talk) 12:59, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Hi Ddrahoslav, yes, my apologies for the delay. I've just been finishing a couple of reviews from August! I'll get on to it now. Cheers, RebeccaGreen (talk) 13:17, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
  • @Ddrahoslav: One question I had was about the creator's name. In the intro para, it says "created by Canadian linguist and translator Sonja Lang", but both sources cited there name her as "Sonja Elen Kisa". I have just found a source [1] (published today!!) which says "The language was created by linguist Sonja Lang (née Elen Kisa)". I suggest that you include her former name in the intro para or the 'Purpose' para, citing this source (or another one, if you have one that links both her names). RebeccaGreen (talk) 13:30, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Hi again Ddrahoslav, glad you like it! Thanks for adding it. I am reading through the article and the sources, and looking at which parts are unreferenced. One of the rules of DYK is "The article in general should use inline, cited sources. A rule of thumb is one inline citation per paragraph". I am also aware that some editors who review and promote articles at DYK like to see a citation at the end of each paragraph, not just within the para (which is not necessarily the same as at GA review, nor at Wikipedia:You don't need to cite that the sky is blue - rather confusing). So, to head off queries at later stages, here are a few places I have noticed where either a paragraph does not have a reference, or there is no reference at the end of the paragraph:
  •  Done In 'Etymology', the sentence ends "ultimately from Latin bonus". While the source says that pona is from Esperanto, it doesn't include the info that the Esperanto word is ultimately from Latin (and I haven't found a source that says exactly that). I suggest that you could just delete "ultimately from Latin bonus" - some readers will be aware of that, some won't, but all the source says is that Esperanto is the immediate source, and that is enough here. (I have just looked at the GA review, and I see that a reviewer there said "You don't have to add a reference when you are stating the obvious (for example, that Esperanto bona ultimately comes from Latin bonus)." We could leave it and see, I guess - my feeling is that it would not be obvious to the general reader, and so should have a source for DYK.
  • This claim once had sources tagged unreliable which I deleted here upon the comment you are referring to. I have to say I'm not sure how to handle this and the rest of the comments. I do appreciate your work on this, though, and understand your concerns. As you suggested, there is a bit of a clash between GA and DYK requirements concerning the citations. Indeed, I deleted some of the unreferenced claims you are talking about but they have been reverted as the reviewer seems to hold the view (and I stand up for them) that it's better to have the info unreferenced, where not absolutely necessary for GA, than not having it mentioned at all. Please see my comments to each point, I'm open to suggestions. Ddrahoslav (talk) 21:49, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Thanks for these links to earlier versions. DYK rules say that it's OK to link to a Wiktionary definition, so I think a reference to Wiktionary for something like the etymology of Esperanto bona should be OK. I've added that reference back in. RebeccaGreen (talk) 07:35, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
  • That's great, thanks for that. Ddrahoslav (talk) 17:44, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
  •  Done In 'Purpose', the first para ends "with several objectives in mind". There is a citation just before that, but not for that phrase. If you have one, could you add it, please? Otherwise, could you perhaps delete that phrase and edit the first part of the sentence to read something like "Sonja Lang (née Elen Kisa) started developing Toki Pona as a way of simplifying her thoughts during depression."
  •  Done The para about the Yahoo group has no source.
  • This claim was deleted during the GA review by me. Later on, an editor reverted it here (with which I don't disagree). There exists no supporting source for this to my knowledge. Am I supposed to delete it yet again? I wouldn't like to cause a dispute by deleting reverted edits. Ddrahoslav (talk) 21:49, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
  • In general, secondary sources are required to demonstrate notability, and also because Wikipedia doesn't present original research, but reflects what others have published about subjects. Once notability is demonstrated, some primary sources can be used to provide verification of information, although the policy does say "primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia". The archived Yahoo groups webpage verifies that a Toki Pona group existed and was closed. But including that information may be considered original research, though, if there is no secondary source. What was your source of the information? RebeccaGreen (talk) 07:35, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Okay, this claim wasn't added by me so I can't tell you what the source for it was. I guess it was original research basically. I've managed to find and add one source, although I'm not certain if it stands as reliable and if it sufficiently covers the claim. Ddrahoslav (talk) 17:44, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Hi Ddrahoslav, thanks for the explanation (which I could probably find if I went right through the edit history!) The source you've added appears to be a blog, and in general, blogs are not regarded as reliable (blogs associated with museums etc may be). I have a suggestion: what about moving the information about the Yahoo group, and the Toki Pona Wikipedia, from History to Community? So go from "It quickly gained popularity" straight to "From 2002 to 2009, members of the group discussed the language with one another ..." (Did they stop discussing the language in 2009?? Do we need start and end dates?)
I'd suggest moving the Yahoo and Wikipedia info to after "Users of the language are spread out across multiple platforms." in the Community section, as they are examples of platforms. You could say something brief there like "A Yahoo group existed from about 2002-2009, when it moved to a forum on a phpBB site. For a short time there was a Wikipedia written in Toki Pona (called "Wikipesija"). It was closed in 2004 and moved to Wikia." Use the references that are there - although either not independent or not reliable, they provide some verification, and if more reliable independent sources are found, they could be replaced. Zorrilla also mentions WhatsApp and Twitter, so perhaps you could mention them in that para too. Then, the info would be within a para which has several references, including a final one. RebeccaGreen (talk) 07:49, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
  • I've made the suggested edits, thanks for that. I haven't used Zorrilla's mentions as they seemed literary like mentions to me and I didn't feel comfortable with that. I hope that's okay as the paragraph still ends with a reliable source. Ddrahoslav (talk) 21:14, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
  • That's fine, they were just single mentions, no need to include them. RebeccaGreen (talk) 06:00, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
  •  Done In 'Allophony', the last para has one reference, which is about Korean, so is not a source for "Both its sound inventory and phonotactics are compatible with the majority of human languages, and are therefore readily accessible." or for "which is convenient when writing Toki Pona in alternative scripts". Are you able to add citations for the first sentence and the end of the second sentence, please?
  • Again, these claims were deleted during the GA review and reverted by the reviewer here. If I had found sources for these, I wouldn't have deleted them. Ddrahoslav (talk) 21:49, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
  • OK, I'll have another look at this and the other sections - you never know what's been published since then, as with that Irish Times article! RebeccaGreen (talk) 07:35, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Some further thoughts on this: I have added a source for the first sentence of the last para. I'm not sure that this sentence really relates to Allophony, though. What would you think about moving the sentence to be the last sentence of the paragraph in Inventory? Then, I would suggest deleting the sentence about the impossible syllables in Korean, and the convenience when writing Toki Pona in other scripts. Again, this is not really relevant to Allophony, and also, in the section on Writing systems just below this, you say that other scripts including Korean hangul are rarely used. So I don't think the article would lose useful information by not having this sentence. RebeccaGreen (talk) 13:56, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
  • I completely agree with you. I have made the suggested edits, thanks. Ddrahoslav (talk) 17:44, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
  •  Done In 'Writing systems', 3 paras don't have references at the end.
  • I've added these unreferenced claims after this comment suggesting improvements to the article which had already passed the GA review. I'm afraid there are no sources to support them, which I think the editor was aware of when making these suggestions. Ddrahoslav (talk) 21:49, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
  • I have found and added one other source for sitelen pona (and added a quote about it). I have changed the last sentence to reflect the info in Omniglot, that this script can be written with symbols from dingbats, maths, etc. In the last para, I deleted the final bit about other scripts being rarely used - I don't think that is really necessary, as it starts by saying that individuals have adapted other scripts. Please let me know what you think about these changes!
The last two sentences of the 3rd para, about sitelen sitelen, are still unreferenced. What was your source for them? I see that in the comment you linked to that an editor asked about the purpose of the writing systems, especially the complicated sitelen sitelen. It's a good question, but unless you have a source for the explanation given here, I suggest that it's better not to include those sentences. RebeccaGreen (talk) 13:56, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
  • While I'm okay with the first edit, I don't think the slightly outdated info from Omniglot reflects present-day reality. In other words, dingbats and math symbols are virtually never used within the community so don't deserve a mention here, in my opinion. (In fact, a standardised downloadable font for sitelen pona has been developed and is sometimes used in practice, e.g. here. As much as I'd like to add this to the article, there are no secondary sources.)
  • OK, the info from Omniglot is not necessary. On the other hand, an encyclopaedic article does not need to exclude info that doesn't reflect current reality - it could say something like "It has also been written with symbols used in fonts such as dingbats, mathematical symbols ...." Unless Omniglot is wrong, that would reflect a past situation, I think? And it has a source ..... not the best reason for including it in an article, perhaps, but would help end the para with a reference, and one that's fairly independent!! RebeccaGreen (talk) 07:49, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Okay then, I've made the edit. Ddrahoslav (talk) 21:14, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
What concerns the third paragraph, I have added a source for one of the two sentences and deleted the other unsupported one. Ddrahoslav (talk) 17:44, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
  •  Done In 'Sentence structures', the first sentence doesn't have a reference.
  •  Done Neither of the paras in 'Verbs' has a reference at the end.
  • Once again, these were deleted during the GA review and reverted here. Ddrahoslav (talk) 21:49, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Hmmm. OK, so is there a source for that information and those examples? Even if it is Lang's book, it is better to have a primary source than to have completely unsourced information. I see that GA reviewers weren't sure about using primary sources in an article about a language. I had a look at articles about a few other conlangs, and I can only say that your article is much better sourced than many! RebeccaGreen (talk) 13:56, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
  • I don't think there is. Certainly not for the passive. The last sentences of the section could possibly be said to be (not explicitly) included in the last mentioned source, i.e. Warnke. Ddrahoslav (talk) 17:44, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
  • OK. I don't really understand why a GA reviewer would have re-inserted unsourced information. But anyway, I would suggest that the two sentences about the passive are not really necessary. The first sentence says "Toki Pona does not inflect verbs according to person, tense, mood, or voice", so we know there is no difference between active and passive voice in the verbs. If anyone wants to know how to express the idea of passivity, they can learn the language. (There are quite a few languages which don't have passives, eg Australian Aboriginal languages, but the articles about them don't mention passive at all.)
As for the last few sentences about prepositions used as verbs: I don't see them as essential to an encyclopaedic article about the language (which is not a grammar of the language, or a course in it). I would suggest just deleting it. If you want to give some examples, they need to come from a source, like Lang's book or the Warnke source (which has some examples of lon and tawa as both prepositions and verbs). Otherwise, readers will not know that someone hasn't just made up these examples and the grammatical description. I'm sorry this differs from what the GA reviewers said and did, but because DYK articles are on the main page of Wikipedia, they are subject to more scrutiny than articles which don't appear on the main page (articles for In the news and Recent deaths get the same kind of review before they are approved to go on the main page, and if the articles aren't complete enough or completely referenced, some events/deaths don't appear there at all). RebeccaGreen (talk) 07:49, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
  • I understand and have deleted the sentences, thanks. Ddrahoslav (talk) 21:14, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
  • I'm also wondering about the introductory statement that "Toki Pona is an oligoisolating constructed language". You don't mention oligoisolating again in the article, and the sources I have read that mention it say it's oligosynthetic. Oligoisolating may well be correct, but might be considered original research without a source.
  • I know the sources mention oligosynthetic but I do believe the term oligoisolating describes the language better. I am not able to find a (reliable) source supporting this, however. Does there really have to be a reference for this? Should I rather change it to oligosynthetic, which is supported by sources, despite not being entirely accurate? Ddrahoslav (talk) 21:49, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Perhaps you could just delete oligoisolating? I agree that saying it's oligosynthetic is not really accurate (although the writing systems seem to combine elements!), so although more than one source says that, I don't think it would be very useful to include it. RebeccaGreen (talk) 13:56, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
  • I'm still hesitant with this one. Is this something likely to be challenged? Ddrahoslav (talk) 17:44, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
  • We could leave it and see. Someone might well put a "citation needed" tag on it, in which case you'd need to delete it before it appeared in DYK. (You could add it again afterwards, and then someone could add a "citation needed" tag again!) RebeccaGreen (talk) 07:49, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
  • We shall see I guess. I'd like to keep this one in the article for now and would delete it if needed. Ddrahoslav (talk) 21:14, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
  •  Done Not about referencing, but a suggestion: I think it would be useful to either move the first para of 'Writing systems' to the 'Inventory' section of 'Phonology and phonotactics', or to repeat there "They have the same values as in the International Phonetic Alphabet: j sounds like English y, and the vowels are like those of Spanish or Italian." Otherwise, I think English readers may read j as in 'jam' (even with a link to the article about approximants, which they may not look at).
  • I'm not sure about this one, to be honest. The phonemes are written in slashes and a note even shows up upon hovering over them stating that the characters are a representation in the IPA. I wouldn't expect to read that /j/ is not pronounced as English 'j' in a language phonology section. The readers may obviously not click on the links, but then what is their purpose. Ddrahoslav (talk) 21:49, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
  • I've just added at the end of the first sentence "shown here with the International Phonetic Alphabet symbols". I hope that's OK. RebeccaGreen (talk) 07:35, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
I've got more of the article to read, but this is something to start with. I hope it doesn't seem daunting! I'm happy to help where I can. Cheers, RebeccaGreen (talk) 15:58, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Thanks for your replies and explanations, Ddrahoslav - confusing indeed. Here are some more comments and suggestions. I've been trying to find more sources too, and have found a couple - plus added extra citations to existing sources in some places. I've ticked off the queries that have been addressed, and added ? for the points that still need work. RebeccaGreen (talk) 13:56, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Thanks for all the work, RebeccaGreen. I've made some edits and additional comments. Ddrahoslav (talk) 17:44, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Thanks, Ddrahoslav, here are some more thoughts and suggestions! We're getting there :-) RebeccaGreen (talk) 07:49, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
  • I've made some more comments and edits. Thanks for the encouragement, RebeccaGreen. Ddrahoslav (talk) 21:14, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Hi Ddrahoslav, thanks for all the work, and your patience with my suggestions and edits. I'm happy that we have addressed the issues with sources and references now.
I have just checked for another issue, that the article "is free of close paraphrasing issues, copyright violations and plagiarism". I checked this with a tool called Earwig [2]. That tells me that there is a 68.5% chance of copying from Toki Pona language [3], and a 45.1% chance of copying from the Blahuš source [4]. Earwig highlights text which is identical in the wikipedia article and the source. I can see that some of the identical text in Toki Pona language, and all of the identical text in Blahuš, is in the sample texts - that is fine. There are also identical sentences and phrases in the descriptions, for example "The vocabulary is designed around the principles of living a simple life without the complications of modern civilization" and "as an international auxiliary language".
Would you be able to have a look at the Earwig comparison and have a go at changing the wording in the article of the highlighted sentences and phrases? I would be happy to help if, if you'd like. If there is some wording that you want to keep exactly as it is, you could mark it as a quote with " ", and place a citation immediately after it. It would be good to reduce the amount that is the same, though. Cheers, RebeccaGreen (talk) 06:00, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Thank you, RebeccaGreen, although I'm not sure we have actually managed to resolve the sourcing issues. What I think has happened with copyright violations with Toki Pona language on encyclopedian.com is that this website used to copy-paste content from Wikipedia. See this version of the Toki Pona article on Wikipedia, which is identical with the source article on encyclopedian.com. At the bottom of the page you can even find a 'View live article' link which takes you to the Wikipedia article. Thus, it should never have been used as a source and the claim about head-directionality is in need of a proper reference. What do you think about this? Ddrahoslav (talk) 18:10, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Hi Ddrahoslav, what I think is - I'm really glad you noticed that! (Also, wow! Wikipedia articles in 2003 were so different! " More to come later "?!) I did see the website name, but I should have realised what it was. Thankfully you did, as using Wikipedia mirrors as sources is a no-no. I see that you have now inserted a reliable source for the head-directionality. It's less of an issue that the wording is the same as a Wikipedia mirror, but it could possibly be reworded anyway. (I was going to suggest something, but I'll come back to it tomorrow.) Thank you again for spotting that source, and for working on the problem! I'll get back to you again soon. RebeccaGreen (talk) 13:04, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Hi again Ddrahoslav, sorry I didn't get back to you sooner. I have made some edits in parts of the article - would you like to have a look and let me know what you think? I have rewritten the 2nd and 3rd paras of the Modifiers section, and deleted the beginning of the Vocabulary section that said "The vocabulary is designed around the principles of living a simple life without the complications of modern civilization" - even on the Toki Pona forum, it seems that people weren't sure that was really true, and couldn't find a source. The other edits are smaller. I see that some of the wording of Signed Toki Pona is copied from the source - it would be good to paraphrase those sentences too. I'll have a go another time, unless you would like to try first. It's not a big problem, but better not to have wording that is identical to a source unless it's a quote or an example text. Please let me know what you think, and I'll get back to you again soon and do a full review. Cheers, RebeccaGreen (talk) 15:17, 27 October 2019 (UTC)


General: Article is new enough and long enough
Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Image: Image is freely licensed, used in the article, and clear at 100px.
QPQ: None required.

Overall: All hooks are sourced in the article. I prefer the hooks ALT0, ALT1 and ALT4. ALT3 is not so unusual, and I tweaked ALT2 to say "studied" rather than "used", as it is only one study by one psychiatrist that we have evidence for. (All issues noted above have been addressed. Earwig picks up the sample texts as identical to sources, which is to be expected.) RebeccaGreen (talk) 03:07, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

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