sitelen pona: Difference between revisions

'''''sitelen pona''''', or more commonly, '''''sitelen pana''''' is a logographic writing system for Toki Pona created by [[Sonja Lang]], the original creator of the language. The system was described in her 20012014 book [[Toki Pona: The Language of Good]]. In this system, each individual word is depicted by its own symbol (except the names), typically written in left to right in horizontal lines, the lines being read starting with the top line.

[[File:Toki Pona sitelen pona examples.png|thumb|Examples offor combined glyphs mistakes: ''pilin ike'' (wrong sizescalar), ''telo lete'' (wrong placingscalar), ''kala lili'' (wrong form for ‘kala’, form #6 is used insteadstacked), ''toki pona'' (wrongly writtenscalar)]]

The glyph of a head word may be combined with the glyph of one modifier. The modifier can either go on top of the head or inside of the head. There are at least 7 forms of the word glyph while using combining glyphs. You need to use the correct form of the word each time or else it will be considered gibberish.

=== ShortExtended combinations ===

While not universal, it's very common to use a "shortenedextended" or "shortlong" form of the word "pi", where "pi"all isglyphs written asin a longpi-phrase verticalare "contained" in the "pi" linemark.

Recently, some people shortenextend other characters as well.

[[Proper adjectives]] are shown with characters inside a cartouche, inspired by Egyptian hieroglyphs. Within a cartouche, it’sonly writtenthe withfirst thesound Latinof writingeach word is read, each then strung together to form the scriptname.

[[File:jan sonja.png|thumb|Example of a common mistake. Meant to say ''jan Sonja li pali e toki ni. ona li sitelen e lipu pu.''. The writer tried to(written sayusing ''jan[[linja Sonjasike]]'' but the writer accidentally wrote ''Bug-yellowness and a feet fetish person with round balls''. Also they used the form #6, #+5, and #3 on ''lipu toki pona'' which is a foolish mistake.)]]

==StrictFlexible Glyphs==

Many characters in sitelen pona are widely considered to not be static and aren't supposed to be drawn the same way every time.

*'''linja, kon, telo, pakala, mun''': cannotcan be mirrored or they could be confused with '''teke, soki, faka, diki, kamin, sekisi and saki.'''

*'''soweli''': the exact amount of legs is exactly 4. Otherwise it canmight be mistaken for '''kami''', the word for quantumless particles.important