Toki Pona is not a substitute for professional therapy, medication, medical care, crisis support, or a supportive environment. It should be used in conjunction with therapy from a licensed professional therapist. Therapists learn all sorts of things that go beyond the scope of any hobby, and they know which to apply to which situations. Nevertheless, … Read more
It is a view commonly alluded to by amateur linguists, among whom I count myself, that Modern Hebrew is a constructed language “invented” by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda. The official Tumblr of the Language Construction Society once alluded to this, sparking a discussion on the LCS list which introduced a number of equally ridiculous claims, such as … Read more
Here’s the continuation of my comparison of Esperanto with Globasa using a translation of Esperanto’s Ekzercaro. This blog post is devoted entirely to La feino; the intervening sections will be translated in the next part in this series. Peari (La feino) 11 Unu vidvino havis du filinojn. La pli maljuna estis tiel simila al la … Read more
The three-part Fundamento de Esperanto forms the basis of how people speak Esperanto. It begins with a 16-rule grammar, but the Ekzercaro is where most of the practical details of Esperanto are really hashed out. It’s thanks to the Ekzercaro that grammarians are able to derive most of the other rules of Esperanto grammar. As … Read more
I’ve been Jewish my whole life, but I was a spiritual seeker in my 20s and explored all sorts of different religions, whether to learn more about them or see if they offered something better. I came to learn there was no such thing as better when it came to religions: that they all offered … Read more
Four years ago, I was thinking about the threats faced by the LGBTQIA+ community throughout the world, and got the idea to make a chai symbol in the colors of the pride flag. The Hebrew word חי, meaning “living” or “alive,” is a Jewish symbol for life, and is worn by many Jews as a … Read more
It’s that time of year when all the Discord servers say “Happy Pride” and give a long spiel about it. The Globasa Discord server was no exception. Despite reading their pride speech, I was inspired to create some pride flags mashed up with that of Globasa. Globasa comes from the current generation of international auxiliary … Read more
I go by Rifkele dos Ketsele in my visual art life, and it’s close to my name in real life. The name Rifkele is a diminutive of Rifke, which is “Rebecca” in Ashkenazi Hebrew. The Modern Hebrew equivalent is Rivka. In the 130-word minimalist constructed language Toki Pona, names are all adapted to a very … Read more
Toki Pona is a 130-word minimalist constructed language created by Sonja Lang. Because of the extreme paucity of words, you have to really think about what you mean when you translate something. This makes it a great tool for clarifying your own thoughts. There is no single word for “free” in Toki Pona. The community-sourced … Read more