[conlang_learners] Tokana (Okuna)

[Paul Roser]

I heard back from Matt Pearson. Tokana has undergone considerable change
since the 2004/5 version and is now called Okuna. Here's what Matt told me--

At the moment I'm in the midst of a massive overhaul of the reference
> grammar. I'm trying to do two things at once, namely inputting all the
> changes to the language since the 2004/05 version (and there have been
> many), and converting the document to LaTeX. It's an enormous project, and
> (as with our illustrious patron saint of the Secret Vice) I have to steal
> time for it that should probably be spent on other pursuits, like summer
> research.
>
> I've attached what I have so far, just to give you a sense of the scope of
> the project. As you can see, the document is pretty huge, but still
> massively incomplete, and everything after about page 92 is either
> out-of-date and inconsistent with the first half, or not fully
> (re)formatted. And I haven't even *begun* updating the dictionary.


The in-progress pdf that Matt sent me includes just phonology, nouns,
pronouns and quantifiers, so there is still a huge chunk of the grammar that
has yet to be updated (and there appear to be a few gaps in the noun section
at least).

So... I'm not sure what to say in answer to your questions. In principle I'd
> *love* for other people to try their hand at learning Okuna. But while I
> intend to keep working on the grammar throughout the summer, it's highly
> unlikely that it will be finished by September. And the dictionary, at
> least, will no doubt have to wait until next summer. I suppose if you wanted
> I could send you an
> incomplete-but-at-least-updated-and-internally-consistent version, once I
> get to that stage, and you could see how far your learning group can get
> with it (with me providing feedback and answering questions). Then again, if
> there are other conlangs you're considering which are more completely
> documented--even if less detailed--you might want to go with one of those.
> Anyhow, let me know what you think.


Any opinions? If there were specific vocabulary items that we needed we
possibly could ask Matt for them. On the other hand, the 2004 pdf version of
the grammar  that I have is certainly detailed enough to cover everything,
but even though there are a lot of vocabulary items in it, it is not
exhaustive and a reverse (English>Tokana) vocabulary would have to be
constructed. The other issue is would it make sense to try to learn an older
version of a conlang (minus a complete dictionary) when the creator is
actively revising it. Personally, I plan to learn Okuna once Matt has
finished updating it, but it might not be entirely practical until after he
has completed the dictionary.

Paul
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