Rules for translating and style in Toki Pona

Welcome to the Toki Pona translation of Haiku!

To achieve a consistent result, all translators have to respect a few rules. For a language as context-dependent as Toki Pona, this is especially important.

1. Don't change the formatting

All HTML tags used in the English Original, like <span class="menu">, <i>, <b>, as well as links etc. have to be used as well. Only the contents within these tags have to be translated.

2. Golden Rules of Toki Pona Translation for Haiku

1. We DO use lower case in all cases except for proper nouns and loan words. Yes, even at the beginning of phrases.
2. We do NOT tokiponize app names, loan words or proper nouns/monikers in general. Names of countries and languages use the Toki Pona version though (e.g. toki Tosi = German). This includes very tech-specific terms like file formats (sitelen Bitmap) or units (nanpa Byte).
3. We DO use words from the Official Toki Pona Dictionary (ku) whereever applicable.
4. Multiple variations for the same lexicon entry are fine to use interchangeably based on sentence flow or string length limitations (e.g. sin/namako, lukin/oko)

3. Grammar Conventions

1. Progressive: li <verb>
   Example: "searching..." > "li alasa..."
2. Lonely transitive verbs: <verb> e
   Example: "contains" > "jo e"
3. Imperatives/Choices: o <word>
   Example: "Continue" > "o pali" or "Delete" > "o weka" >> This only applies when the action results in direct action, like in "Delete". Otherwise, like in "OK", just write the word.

4. Numbers, dates, times

1. In general, we use numerics, not the cumbersome counting system (luka luka luka luka luka... no.). So, "3 files in this directory" gets translated as "lipu 3 lon poki ni"
2. The date format is as follows: "t.sk. #2020; t.s. #22; t.m. #3" (or long: "tenpo suno #22 pi tenpo mun #3 pi tenpo sike #2020" represents the 22nd of March, 2020. If that's too long for a string, go ahead and use standard YYYY/MM/DD formats.
3. The time format is similar: "tenpo 8 pini" = 8 minutes; "tenpo 11:52" = 11:52 AM (we use a 24 hour clock, so tenpo 22:52 = 10:52pm)

5. Terminology

You can find a list of established terminology at https://dev.haiku-os.org/wiki/i18n/tok/Terminology . Please always refer to that wiki page before translating something non-trivial. It helps using CTRL+F.