Q: разве ‘li’ не глагольная связка?

When learning a second language, it’s natural to try to find analogues between the words you already know and the words you learn. English learners often look at Toki Pona and think ’󱤧 li’ and ‘is’ are the same:

Unfortunately, this is incorrect! They are different words, and they exist for different purposes. Let’s talk about why ‘is’ and ‘li’ exist.

Why does ‘is’ exist?

In English, all meaningful words are divided into nouns (like ‘person’), adjectives (like ‘good’), and verbs (like ‘eat’). There are other parts of speech too, but we can ignore them now.

In English, a sentence must have a verb.

• The person eats. (✅ there is a verb!)
• The person good. (❌ no verb! not allowed!)
• The person an animal. (❌ no verb! not allowed!)

So what happens if we want to state a noun or an adjective? Those statements get a linking verb ‘is’:

• The person eats. (✅ there is already a verb! no ‘is’ necessary!)
• The person is good. (✅ there is a verb!)
• The person is an animal. (✅ there is a verb!)

Also, ‘is’ is only one of many forms of the verb ‘to be’: be, am, is, are, was, were, been, being. Other forms fulfil the same purpose, but they also carry other information, for example past tense.

Why does ’󱤧 li’ exist?

󱤧 li tells us something is a statement:

The opposite of 󱤧 li is 󱥄 o — instead of a statement, it’s a command:

Aren’t these questions the same thing?

Nope! “Is this a verb or a noun/adjective?” and “Is this a statement or a command?” are two questions that exist independent of one another! Let’s take a closer look at these four sentences:

Now you know that a sentence can have ‘li’ and no ‘to be’, and it can have ‘to be’ and no ‘li’. So, there is no relation between the two!