The Toki Pona Wizard of Oz

 Hello lovelies! 

I have just gotten the most fascinating version of the Wonderful Wizard of Oz for my book collection. Has anyone heard of the language Toki Pona? 

According to Wikipedia:

Toki Pona translated as 'the language of good’ is a philosophical artistic constructed language known for its small vocabulary, simplicity, and ease of acquisition  

It was created by Sonja Lang, a Canadian  linguist and translator to simplify her thoughts and communication. 

Toki Pona only has 14 phonemes and focuses on simple, near-universal concepts to maximize expression from very few words. In  her book Toki Pona: The Language of Good, Lang presents around 120 words. Despite the small vocabulary, speakers can understand and communicate, mainly relying on context, combinations of words, and expository sentences to express more specific meanings.

And did I mention that it is all in GLYPHS? That’s right. The title of the book looks like this in Toki Pona:

How amazing is that??? As a very lonely child who didn’t connect well with my peers, I spent years creating secret codes in the hopes that one day there would be a like minded weird friend who would want to write messages back and forth. Bonus points if they wrote it in lemon juice with a toothpick so I could hold the letter over a candle and expose the secret writing. It is for reasons such as this that I was bullied and beaten up frequently as you can imagine. But I digress.

 To see why it is endearing take a look at the table of contents. I love that because there are not words for certain concepts like Scarecrow, Tin Man, Cowardly Lion and Wicked Witch of the West they are described as The Person of Bird Removal, The Metal Person of Plant Cutting, The Strong Beast of Fearful Feelings and The Evil Powerful Woman of the Ending Sun. Click on the photo to enlarge it. 

The illustrations are delightful and the text has an interesting literal but also poetic translation to it such as lines like:

The foot clothing of the Evil Powerful Woman of the Sun's Arrival became the foot clothing of Dorothy. 

I absolutely LOVE this book and the idea of the language. I really want to learn to read and write it. And maybe some day there will be a weird friend who wants to send secret messages in code to each other.