How toki pona time works - AlbeyAmakiir/tenpo GitHub Wiki

Origin

As stated on the readme, I am using designs by other people:

Design goals of these that I intend to share include:

  • Lack of reliance on existing time systems
  • Lack of precision, much like the language itself (I will be using precision internally, but much of that won't reach the user)
  • An emphasis on intuitiveness, especially that which hunter gatherers might have

Calendar

The calendar is a lunisolar calendar. Months roughly follow the cycles of the Moon, while years roughly follow the Earth's orbit around the Sun.

  • Days always start at sunset. I take "sunset" to be the moment the top visible edge of the sun touches the horizon. This makes days (in both the 24 hour sense and the day/night sense) vary in length.
  • Months alternate between 29 and 30 days long. 29 on odd days, 30 on even. Years usually have 12 months, but sometimes have 13. The 13th month, when present, is also 30 days long. Months begin with the New Moon, at least roughly.
  • Years may be 12 or 13 months long, 354 or 384 days long respectively. They run in an 8-year cycle of 12, 13, 12, 12, 13, 12, 13, 12. Then it repeats.
  • The first day of the calendar is said to be "the Spring Equinox of 2001, The year Sonja published toki pona to the world.". While it's often treated as 2001/03/27, this neither lines up with the equinox, nor the new moon. I am instead using the sunset nearest to the moment of the nearest new moon to the equinox: 2001/03/25 01:21:37 UTC+0. That means the sunsets of the 12 hours before and after this moment should cover the whole world.
  • This was sunset at (0°N, -107.99°W), which puts the dateline at +72.01°E.
  • The first date is: Year 0, Month 1, Day 1.
  • Month names are written as mun <Name>, with the name using a capital initial letter even though they're all toki pona words. They are, in order:
29 days 30 days
mun Wan mun Kon
mun Seli mun Ma
mun Telo mun Mama
mun Kasi mun Pipi
mun Kala mun Akesi
mun Waso mun Soweli
n/a mun Namako
  • Technically, every 19 8-year cycles (152 years), the toki pona calendar gets more out of sync with the equinox by 1.18674 days.

Clock

Since the clock was already specified to start at sunset, I took inspiration from "temporal hours", or unequal hours. However, this system doesn't really use "hours", per se.

  • A day is split into 6 segments. Within the two "halves", the three segments are roughly the same size, using the locations of the sun or stars to determine which you are in (though, of course, this software uses precise code).
  • 3 tenpo pimeja segments use the metaphor of a cover being drawn over the sky.
    • pimeja pana
    • pimeja len
    • pimeja weka
  • 3 tenpo suno segments simply describe the movement of the sun.
    • suno kama
    • suno awen
    • suno tawa
  • tenpo pimeja begins at sunset, and tenpo suno begins at sunrise. As such, the size of the segments change over the course of a year, and the changes are more extreme the further from the equator you are. Thus, there are not clearly defined "timezones". It relies more on your longitude and latitude.
  • Close to the poles, this system breaks down, as there are days or even months where the sun neither rises nor sets, or does so within an hour. Users of this software will need to choose arbitrary times that make sense to them. While not as dramatically, common time systems tend to break down, too, so people close to the poles often have arbitrarily chosen clocks anyway.
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