Toki Pona · 24 August 2026
A word a day week
jan
yan · /jan/ · content word
- person
- human
- somebody
A Cantonese word for person passes almost intact into Toki Pona, where jan can be a person, people in general, or a personifying head noun.
Borrowed luggage
Where it came from
Cantonese人 jan4
Toki Ponajan
Jan is borrowed from Cantonese 人, romanised jan4 in Jyutping, meaning ‘person’. Toki Pona j is pronounced like English y.
- Cantonese 人 jan4
Tiny sentence
jan li kama.
person PRED arrive
“A person is arriving.”
Kama covers coming or becoming; context decides how much English machinery the translation needs.
Receipts
Sources and cautions
Tone is not carried into Toki Pona, which has no lexical tone. The sound shape is adapted to a much smaller phonological system.