Why do I not use jasima?

First posted on ma pona on 2025-02-01. I’ve later written a shorter explanation for Wasona.

There are a lot of people who express preference towards or against any given word in the language, usually among non-core words. But these conversations rarely go deeper than “I don’t like it”. I decided today to explain to myself (and hopefully to a nonzero number of readers, hi!) why I don’t use jasima, and why perhaps you might consider joining me.

why is it well known in the first place?

In 2020, same as now, there was a general understanding that there are words everyone uses, words that have gained modest popularity, and words that random individuals experiment with and usually drop after a while. In April of that year I had polled who considers which words “real”, whatever that means. Words that were decently-used-but-not-universal will be familiar to you: kin, oko, namako, monsuta, kipisi, kijetesantakalu, tonsi, leko. All of these were >50% in my 2020 poll, and are still in wide use today. (Maybe not oko. Sorry oko you’re a remnant of the past.)

You may notice jasima appeared in the survey but was down near the flatline of obscurity, amidst the pipo’s and itomi’s of that era. In the latter half of 2020, according to ilo Muni, jasima experiences a bit of a comeback, and was then captured by jan Sonja’s surveys, which became the basis for lipu ku. It has consistently remained in use ever since, found in the corpus ~100 times every month since then on average.

it’s a nimi ku suli. why bother avoiding it?

lipu ku is a snapshot of toki pona as it was spoken in the winter of 2020-2021. The living language continues to fluctuate, (if not by all that much). We shouldn’t feel obligated to freeze the language to its state 4 years ago. The language gives us the freedom to do more with less, and it’s always worth exploring when that is a good idea.

why jasima and not other words?

The words chosen by jan Sonja for toki pona have a certain vibe. They feel simple in a way. But that’s not really a sufficient explanation, imo. How can we quantify simplicity?

One feature most toki pona words have is that they correspond to basic vocabulary in natural languages. For any toki pona word, looking at a natlang, you are likely to find a word with a basic morphology (not derived from another word), and it’s probably a native word, not a borrowing. A word like “fire” makes a good “basic word”; “mischaracterisation”, perhaps not so much.

Another feature you’ll notice is that toki pona words like to be used together. For example, supa might be used by itself, but oftentimes it’s in a phrase: it might be supa lape, supa moku, ilo supa, ma supa and so on. This is a good sign that the meaning is basic enough that combinations of meanings are also useful.

There are words that break these patterns, of course. It is difficult to think of a language where “tonsi” might be reflected as a basic vocabulary item. Infamously, Spanish okay, Russian can’t even say “non-binary” without assigning it masculine or feminine gender. But, of course, with tonsi this is the point: it makes a statement that tonsi’s are as welcome as meli’s and mije’s, regardless of how mistreated they may have been in other cultures.

“kijetesantakalu” breaks the pattern by being overly specific. But, of course, that’s the point, it’s a joke about words being specific. And we still use it today because it’s either still funny, or it makes for a really nice mascot for the community.

“linluwi”, (not a nimi ku suli), is hardly ever used in phrases. But maybe that’s okay! The Internet is a novel part of the experience of our daily lives, and it’s hard to describe what it really is. It’s a ma, but also an ilo, but also a kulupu, but also so many other things. I would still describe it using those words instead, but I understand the cultural significance.

Which brings us back to jasima. It’s not basic by natlang standards: mirror means watch-er, an ilo lukin. Reflect means back-bend, some sort of pana ante (e sitelen). Various natlangs have different approaches to deriving these words, but you’ll see lukin-likes and pana-likes quite often.

It’s also barely used in phrases. ilo Muni data gives us collocations. The most frequent ones are ofc with particles, which we ignore, and the top content-word-collocation is… “nimi jasima”, in discussions about the word itself. One of the top 5 is “tonsi jasima”, which is nonsensical… until you remember they’re nimi ku suli, and get listed together. Whoops. All meta-discussion, no real phrases.

And unlike linluwi, there doesn’t seem to be anything cultural about jasima. It’s not a massive novel experience in our existence, it’s just a thing that happens.

why care about breaking the vibe?

Because what makes jasima special? If we can make a word for “reflect”, why not “overcook”? Why not “mystery”? Why not “brotherhood”? It blurs a pretty good line in the design of the language. It distracts people from exploring the possibilities of putting words together by giving them a shortcut.

We found this language in part because of how well put together it is. Let’s make our own choices, not follow faithfully the ways of 4 years ago. Let’s keep it pona.