[gerdesj]

A language should be complicated but only complicate enough to convey the concept in mind.

A 200 word limit will render a language too shallow to even discuss the concept of shallow.

Assertion: no proof. [soz, lol etc]

[karencarits]

Yes, I guess (never heard about toki pona before) you would have to rethink how to communicate. Maybe shallow could be presented as "lukin ala" (nothing to examine), "taso sele" (only a surface) or "kote muli" (hearing something dead)

I am more surprised that you would spend one of your 137 words on "sex, to have sexual relations" as almost every language has countless ways of referring to sex without using the word itself

[nmz]

Interesting, I thought of something more of like incompleteness, something like sona wile pini.

It also went ahead and put non binary... which is like, right there "non" and "bi" and "nary" (which could be sex).

[alexambarch]

> It also went ahead and put non binary... which is like, right there

I think the general idea of adding a word for non-binary was that there were already words for man and woman, but if you didn't identify with either of those, you'd have to come up with your own phrase as opposed to other people who got their own dedicated word. A surprisingly high number of non-binary people speak toki pona (or at least that's my impression from the Discord server), so I think it made sense to add.

[nmz]

I don't think you need man/woman in a language like toki pona either, it's supposed to be this deep philosophical language. If you want to talk philosophy, reproduction is the least of your problems. There's plenty of ways to indicate the sex as well. so long as you have the word for animal/organism, you can say animal + hole/stick, who nurses for the young, hunter, whatever. Its even better because its not exact. the more exact you get, the more words you'll need.

[nmz]

Shallow indicates incompleteness, it lacks a whole, it does not achieve fullness. "wile pini sona" maybe? my toki pona is beyond rusty, I've forgotten all of it.

I think it should be possible but few have attempted to do so. even in programming languages, the goal is to overflow not underflow. Forth-ian languages seem to be the only ones that try to build down not up.

And doing so is difficult because it would require simplification, and simplification is difficult when you lack completeness. English itself is infinite and symbolic. A new concept was identified? lets just make up a word/symbol for it. It does not matter if it breaks structure/grammar.