The European Union's language policy promotes the teaching of at least two foreign languages from an early age, which has a strong influence on the design of educational programmes. However, there are significant differences between the acquisition and learning of foreign languages. From an educational point of view, there is an increasing need, especially for younger children, to promote language awareness rather than language learning per se. This task has been repeatedly fulfilled in the past by Esperanto, a constructed language whose clear structure and linguistic regularity served as a springboard for the learning of other natural languages. In the preschool years, Toki Pona could play the same role. Toki Pona is a minimalistic, constructed language in terms of meaning, lexis and phonetics, allowing for rapid language learning. In addition, it has developed its own sign language and several logographic writing systems, which give the language a motor and visual component in addition to the linguistic one. For these reasons, Toki pona may be suitable as a first foreign language in the preschool years, as I argue in this paper. I compare the phonetic, lexical and semantic features of the language with children's language development and highlight the features that could make learning Toki Pona possible alongside native language acquisition. I also highlight the natural presence of mindfulness, the sign language luka pona and the logographic writing system sitelen pona as key features of the language that simultaneously meet the requirements of language awareness, i.e. accessibility to all ability levels, enabling creative use, enabling language analysis, as well as pronunciation, reading and writing from a very early age. In conclusion, I also highlight some weaknesses and the further steps that need to be taken, such as training, preparation of materials and practical implementation.
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