nasin sitelen kalama
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nasin sitelen kalama is a popular alternative method of writing names in sitelen pona based on morae. It was created by jan Pumiko of kulupu kasi as a response to similar, but unmarked systems, which she felt were too unreadable.
Description[edit | edit source]
The system is primarily based on morae, a unit of speech similar to a syllable. In the moraic analysis of Toki Pona, a mora is either a vowel (V), a consonant–vowel pair (CV), or the coda -n (N). For example, the word anpa is split into the morae a-n-pa.
In nasin sitelen kalama, a word followed by no symbol is read by their first letters, similarly to the system in pu. Each dot adds another mora. For example:
jan [pona] *jan P jan [pona ..] jan Po jan [pona .. ..] jan Pona jan [taso .. pona .. linja .. ..] jan Tapolin
If the word starts in a valid mora (i.e. a single vowel), the first dot indicates the next mora. For example:
jan [anpa] jan A jan [anpa ..] jan An jan [anpa .. ..] jan Anpa jan [en .. wile ..] jan Enwi
Colons indicate the entire word and is equivalent to dots with the number of morae in the word. For example:
jan [kepeken] *jan K jan [kepeken ::] jan Kepeken jan [pali :: jo ::] jan Palijo
In writing, the dots and colons are usually placed in the midline of the text and sometimes with fullwidth.
History[edit | edit source]
Previous attempts at syllabic spellings[edit | edit source]
Over time, some sitelen pona users began to write their names in more experimental ways. Based on the existing pu way of representing a name by writing a sitelen pona character for each letter in the name inside of a cartouche, these ways changed into usually using less characters to write a name. These experimental methods include:
- Preferring a glyph to be used syllabically:
jan [sitelen sona] jan Siso nimi [insa pan telo] nimi Inpante
- Impossible sequences of sounds adding sounds based on what the next sound in the sitelen pona character would be:
jan [sitelen sona ale] *jan Ssa → jan Sisa telo [uta anpa] *telo Ua → telo Uja
- Using different forms to the cartouches to indicate a name that is spelled like a word:
kasi {seli} kasi Seli nimi {insa pan telo} nimi Insa Pan Telo / nimi Insapantelo
- Characters get combined to form syllables:
soweli [kili-awen wile-esun] soweli Kawe
None of these were solidified and virtually all of them were met with confusion by others for a number of reasons. For example, forming cartouches differently is just something that happens in handwriting and isn't really enough to mark the cartouche as having a different system; unmarked systems are largely backwards-incompatible with pu spelling and it's not clear if [insa pan ale] spells out Ipa or Inpana or Insapanale or anything in-between; unexpectedly encountering another system stops reading flow and requires nice knowledge; no one can agree on using the same system
Creation of nasin sitelen kalama[edit | edit source]
![Screenshot from a discord message in sitelen pona: "toki a. mi pali e nasin sitelen sin. ona la sina ken sitelen pona e kalama pi nimi sina. nasin ni li: sitelen nimi wan la o toki e kalama open taso. kalama [nena] li sama nimi n. sitelen [dot] li lon poka pi sitelen nimi la o toki e kulupu open pi nimi ni. kalama [mu dot] li sama nimi mu. sina pana e sitelen [dot] mute la o toki e kulupu kalama ante. nimi [kalama dot dot] li sama nimi kala. sitelen [colon] li lon poka la o toki e ale nimi. nimi [telo colon] li sama nimi telo. nasin ni la sina ken lili e sitelen kalama sina li ken sona pona e ona. -jan Pumiko"](/wiki/File:nsk.png)
nasin sitelen kalama was created by jan Pumiko, a member of the kulupu kasi system, in 2022. This was in order to formalize the previous systems.
Adoption[edit | edit source]
In an informal emoji reactions poll on the Discord server ma pona pi toki pona[1], 77.4% of those who can read sitelen pona and 81.5% of those who write in sitelen pona can read nasin sitelen kalama. 54.8% of sp readers and 61.1% of sp writers use it.
Applications[edit | edit source]
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nasin sitelen kalama can be used to write sitelen pona lyrics in sheet music.
Criticism and limitations[edit | edit source]
- small dots are too easy to mistake for "lili"
- people use it as if it were the new default system, but it's only meant to formalise a way for the people who would otherwise use much worse systems, not to replace or officially expand the sitelen pona cartouches
- Cartouches may be ambiguous on the rare, but feasible, occasion that multiple words share a glyph. Examples include [ale ::] representing Ale or Ali, and, less standardly, the case of abbreviations with different pronunciations but unchanged glyphs.
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ link to poll, data from 2023-01-30; 72 responses, of these, 62 reported being able to read sp and 54 reported writing in sitelen pona
| Features | Words · Combined glyphs · Extended glyphs · Radicals · nasin sitelen kalama (pi linja lili) |
|---|---|
| Usage | History · Literature · Fonts (Guidelines) · UCSUR · ASCII · Wakalito |