tuki tiki

mi paka i tuki pula la titi lu ku li upi tiki. tuki tiki li la li upi.

tila ki ilu i a li lu ilu CC BY-NC 4.0 (tila titi i mi; tila lu ka li uli ala taka i iku ka i muti tila).

toki sike

mi pakala e toki pona la nimi en sitelen en kalama li kama awen sin lon nasin sike. toki sike Tukisiki la ni li open.

kepeken sin la o kute e nasin CC BY-NC 4.0 (o nimi e mi o esun ala).

repeating language

I broke the good language so hard the words and letters and sounds started repeating in a cyclical pattern. The circly language of Tuki Tiki was born.

Released under CC BY-NC 4.0 (Attribution-NonCommercial).

it's not done yet sorry

Note: this is a work in progress update of the grammar guide I made on Google Drive in 2024. While this one is unfinished you may look there for TT info. I would not call it outdated, I just thought it wasn't very good (does go over all the grammar, but not all the words; is also a bit dense maybe) so I try to fix yes. ok

Tuki Tiki ('cyclical, repetitive, roundabout language') is a constructed language with very few sounds (8) and words (39). It was derived from another minimalist language, Toki Pona ('good language'), by removing sounds, words and constructions from it. All Tuki Tiki words must have source words in Toki Pona (that are commonly used and understood), and no words or sounds can be added, only removed. The exact count has gone down and back up many times, depending on how I felt.

There is no end goal to how small the language is supposed to be. Tuki Tiki is not trying to be a better version of Toki Pona, nor the 'smallest possible language'. In fact, it's pretty tame in comparison to many others (such as: the Toki Pona-inspired Puna & Pulu by arpee (18 words), Jack Eisenmann's Facilish (2 words), arseniiv's U (1)…). Tuki Tiki's 'goal', if you want to call it that, can be summarised as 'Toki Pona but smaller': I just tried my best to do something interesting with that premise. Shrinking Toki Pona seemed more fun to me than expanding it, precisely because it's the more restrictive option.

The main areas of difference between Tuki Tiki (TT) and Toki Pona (TP) are sounds and words. The syntax (how words are combined together to eventually create sentences) has changed much less in comparison. If a grammatical property of Toki Pona is missing in Tuki Tiki, that's usually because a word associated with that property was lost (e.g. TP o, pi have no TT counterparts).

For me, Toki Pona was easier and more fun to learn than other constructed languages (conlangs), which I struggled getting into. Similarly, Tuki Tiki started because I struggled to make full-fledged conlangs of my own and found the process frustrating. I created this language between my first exams at university in January 2020, as a way to relax and to think about what a language needs to (barely) function. It's a weird hobby that's helped me through stressful periods. I don't think you'll find it very useful, but I hope you'll find it fun.

– ka Tumu