Slovura and Toki Pona

Toki Pona

Toki pona is a minimalistic conlang created by Sonja Lang.

More info about Toki Pona can be found here.

Slovura

Slovura is derived from Toki Pona, and much of its grammar is intentionally compatible with it.

This means that learning Toki Pona provides a useful starting point for Slovura. Many Toki Pona sentences can be translated into Slovura very directly by replacing Toki Pona words with their Slovura equivalents and applying the few grammatical rules where the languages differ.

Direct Translation

Slovura uses grammatical particles such as li and e in the same basic roles as Toki Pona.

For example:

The corresponding Slovura sentence is:

The content words can be replaced directly:

• Toki Pona mi → Slovura mi
• Toki Pona moku → Slovura mo
• Toki Pona kili → Slovura fru

The particle e remains e and has the same basic function in both languages.

There is, however, an important grammatical difference visible in this example.

In Toki Pona, li is omitted when mi or sina is the only subject. Slovura has no such exception: li is always used between the subject and predicate.

Therefore:

Toki Pona: mi moku e kili.

Slovura: mi li mo e fru.

Direct translation is therefore mostly a matter of substituting equivalent roots, while still applying Slovura's own grammatical rules.

Compounding Is Optional

One of the major differences between Slovura and Toki Pona is that Slovura can combine several roots into a single compound word.

However, compounding is optional.

Roots do not have to be joined simply because Slovura allows them to be. They can remain separate in the same way that words remain separate in a Toki Pona phrase.

This means that translating from Toki Pona does not require restructuring its phrases into Slovura compounds. A translator can keep the original construction and substitute the corresponding Slovura roots.

Compounding can then be used when the speaker wants to treat several roots as a single, more specific concept.

An Exception: Colours

Although compounding is generally optional, Slovura does not have separate basic roots corresponding to Toki Pona colour words such as loje, laso or jelo.

Instead, Slovura colours are constructed using compounds headed by ku, meaning colour. A Toki Pona colour word therefore cannot be translated simply by substituting a corresponding Slovura root.

This is an example of an intentional difference in Slovura's vocabulary: some concepts represented by basic roots in Toki Pona are instead expressed through Slovura's compounding system.

See Colours for the colour system.

From Toki Pona to Slovura

A useful approach to translating a Toki Pona sentence is:

1. Keep the original grammatical structure where Slovura uses the same construction.
2. Replace each Toki Pona word with its Slovura equivalent.
3. Apply any grammatical differences, such as Slovura's mandatory li.
4. Leave words separate unless there is a reason to turn them into a compound.

This gives a direct Slovura translation without requiring the sentence to be reinterpreted from scratch.

Compatibility and Difference

This compatibility is intentional. A Toki Pona speaker should be able to use their existing understanding of Toki Pona grammar as a starting point for Slovura.

At the same time, Slovura is not simply Toki Pona with shorter words.

Its compound system allows several roots to become a single structured word, while keeping that compounding optional. Slovura can therefore stay close to a Toki Pona construction or use its own compounding system when that is useful.

A useful way to think about the relationship is:

Toki Pona provides much of the grammatical foundation. Slovura replaces its vocabulary with monosyllabic roots and adds optional structured compounding.

For Toki Pona Speakers

If you already speak Toki Pona, you do not need to forget the way you construct simple sentences.

Start with the Toki Pona sentence, substitute the corresponding Slovura roots, and then account for the grammatical differences documented in this lesson.

Knowledge of Toki Pona is not required to learn Slovura. The rest of these lessons explain Slovura's grammar independently.

Remember