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The Polyglot Community / Conlangers / General Language Learning Autism - Attention seekers that barely speak the languages they claim, pretentious language creators, grifters shilling language learning scams and more!
Her book Toki Pona: The Language of Good has a religion section that quotes the torah, bible, quran, and Bahai religious texts, and it was published in 2015, so this mental break was a long time coming.
Asher Zvi Hirsch Ginsberg (18 August 1856 – 2 January 1927), primarily known by his Hebrew name and pen name Ahad Ha'am (Hebrew: אַחַד הָעָם, lit. 'one of the people', Genesis 26:10), was a Hebrew journalist and essayist, and one of the foremost pre-state Zionist thinkers. He is known as the founder of cultural Zionism. With his vision of a Jewish "spiritual center" in Eretz Israel, his views regarding the purpose of a Jewish state contrasted with those of prominent figures within the Zionist movement such as Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism. Unlike Herzl, Ahad Ha'am strived for "a Jewish state and not merely a state of Jews".
Lang is plural, with known system members including "nimi ala pona", who is credited as the author for the foreword of nimi ali pu n a, and wasowelĩ. She had previously used the term "Sonja Lang Corps" or "kulupu Sonjalanko" to refer to the system, sometimes abbreviated as "SLC" by community members, but the name has been retired as of April 2026 in favour of "Amatullah".
My 'problem' was that my brain instantly boiled down the concept to 'You know how tards are always happy? Talk like a tard and you too will be happy.' and I just rejected it on that basis.
Kind of unrelated to her mental breakdown, but according to this dictionary, the word tonsi was included due to a vote. However, there's no information on whether Sonja approved of that (Which doesn't really matter for the language anyway. If it is used, it exists.)
Here's a funny comment from the reddit link. I'm honestly very confused as to why this language is so popular in the trans community. I wasn't aware of that. Even with the mental health aspect, I thought that most speakers would be people interested in language or communication.
Red or orange represents votes for tonsi not being a real word. Again: if it's used, it exist. It's weird to assign discrimination to that vote. Someone who simply has no association with the trans community would probably not regard this as a "real" word, regardless of their political beliefs.
Edit @Mikoyan:
But isn't that the point? I think that sounds kind of nice. As long as you use it as a tool to get a different perspective, as opposed to using it 24/7. The parents that tried to teach it to their child as a first language that were discussed in this thread are absolutely insane and actively harm their child by doing this. But as long as you're a responsible adult, breaking down things to retard level can indeed be useful. And it's also fun to try to describe more complex things with this few words available.
But as long as you're a responsible adult, breaking down things to retard level can indeed be useful. And it's also fun to try to describe more complex things with this few words available.
Her book Toki Pona: The Language of Good has a religion section that quotes the torah, bible, quran, and Bahai religious texts, and it was published in 2015, so this mental break was a long time coming.
My 'problem' was that my brain instantly boiled down the concept to 'You know how tards are always happy? Talk like a tard and you too will be happy.' and I just rejected it on that basis.
It's the same principle as Newspeak from 1984. There's a passage in her book, I believe a translation of verses from the quran, where a talking animal's speech is written merely as mu. It reminds me of the passage in 1984 about how either the Declaration of Independence or the US Constitution would be written merely as wrongthink.
It isn't. non of this make any sense because of the schizophrenia.
And I think that has been part of this language since day one. This is from a 2007 academic conference at UC Berkeley, where there already seemed to be drama around toki pona and its "opinionated" (in academic context this should be read as a very polite euphemism) creator link / archive pdf link / archive
Wild guess, but with her born in 1978, whatever parent / relative that was keeping her in check and medicated might have gotten to old to take care of her and she's completely on the loose.
The creator's identity was the subject of some debate in this very forum, with some users alleging Sonja, the nerdy trans-friendly woman that was autistic enough to develop an artificial language, is nothing other than sissified alter ego of Canadian translator Christian Richard - and some others denying even the possibility, citing encounters with Sonja in person. @Rusty Metal Skull Gun and @Gilgamesh, please feel free to provide some input on the matter as you would be more knowledgeable than I am.
Wow, surprised to see all of this. I actually interacted with Sonja more on a professional level a tad bit after the meetup and she just seemed like a nice nerdy older woman (not trans). Nothing unusual about her. I think she mentioned her Bahaist faith once but it was humble and non intrusive in the context of the conversation. She didn’t even talk like your typical weirdo.
I know you all have figured this out but seeing all of this I now suspect she does have some sort of psychotic problem and when I was interacting with her she was medicated. I think all of the religion stuff in her book were all just exercises of translations for stuff that she is interested in, which is common among the largely turboautistic linguistics community. I don’t think an older relative was taking care of her. When I saw her she had travelled alone and certainly had the ability to take care of herself. This is honestly all pretty sad to see. As you said it looks like she’s in a hospital so I hope she’s getting some help. Very unfortunate they allowed her to keep her cellphone. She’s truly a nice lady and doesn’t deserve to be humiliated like this due to her mental problems.
I know you all have figured this out but seeing all of this I now suspect she does have some sort of psychotic problem and when I was interacting with her she was medicated.
This implies that she might recover when she gets properly medicated again. I don't know about psychiatry in the US, but where I live it's legally not that easy to just take someones smartphone. I think that's super unfair towards psychotic people, but my guess would be that it's hard to implement laws for this, since there are also psychotic people who don't respond to medication and are in this state of crazy forever.
The community was insanely quick to disavow her and distance itself from her. I really hope that they'll reconsider, if she's able to recover. Especially since Toki Ponas creation is rooted in dealing with mental illness in the first place.
the "kulupu" and all those faggots on the ma pi toki pona 'cord server are all troons and leftoid turboniggers. to borrow a Greerism, they hate the disabled (like jan sonja (PBUH))
the "kulupu" and all those faggots on the ma pi toki pona 'cord server are all troons and leftoid turboniggers. to borrow a Greerism, they hate the disabled (like jan sonja (PBUH))
Is she active in that server? I hope not, that sounds like a bad idea either way.
I'm really confused by the fact that everyone reports the online community being super trans. I'm not into Toki Pona whatsoever, but due to my language autism, I've met quite a few people who learned the language and they always seemed pretty normal to me (From the point of view of people who are really into languages. So they might be a bit weird to anyone else, but not in that way.)
It's been awhile since I've read this thread, are you an active speaker or part of the community? Also why the fuck is there an actual Toki Pona version of Wikipedia?! I feel like I might be completely off, as to what this language is actually supposed to be about. I'll try to read up on it!
Wow, surprised to see all of this. I actually interacted with Sonja more on a professional level a tad bit after the meetup and she just seemed like a nice nerdy older woman (not trans). Nothing unusual about her. I think she mentioned her Bahaist faith once but it was humble and non intrusive in the context of the conversation. She didn’t even talk like your typical weirdo.
I don't want to PL too much, but I can confirm they're trans and married to a man. Raised Baha'i, but converted to Islam a while ago. I always assumed the hijab was a bonus since not only did it cover up the adam's apple, but it is also a super visible sign of femininity.
@A Suicide of Trannies : The pictures are real. The "Could be her" picture is at least 10-15 years old. "This might be a photo of her" is more recent.
I would not consider them a true polyglot. Yes, they have an interest in languages, but knowing enough words to read a simple children's book or decipher a menu, does not a polyglot make.
This is honestly all pretty sad to see. As you said it looks like she’s in a hospital so I hope she’s getting some help. Very unfortunate they allowed her to keep her cellphone. She’s truly a nice lady and doesn’t deserve to be humiliated like this due to her mental problems.
To add to my comment above: Thanks for the reality check. Sometimes we forget lolcows are real people.
I've always liked her, and despite my thoughts on trans and mental illness, she's never made it her personality. She's pretty harmless, all things considered. It seems her husband (who is of the FUCK TERFS variety) is taking care of her, so I'm glad she's getting some support.
I don't know about psychiatry in the US, but where I live it's legally not that easy to just take someones smartphone. I think that's super unfair towards psychotic people, but my guess would be that it's hard to implement laws for this, since there are also psychotic people who don't respond to medication and are in this state of crazy forever.
