sitelen pona

This page describes the most popular script under this name. For other writing systems sharing the name, see sitelen pona (disambiguation)

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 2014 book Toki Pona: The Language of Good. In this system, each individual word is depicted by its own symbol, typically written in left to right in horizontal lines, the lines being read starting with the top line.

Punctuation

Use of punctuation is not defined within this system. Some users use some forms of punctuation, but using English punctuation can cause confusion, as the exclamation point resembles the glyphs aa and oo, and the question mark resembles the glyph semeseme. In general, the main use of punctuation is to mark the boundary between sentences. Most people use only a sentence boundary mark, and some will use a form of quotation marking.

Sentence Boundaries

Aside from a latin-text-style period, it's most common to see a middle dot used, because sitelen pona is typically written centered around a "midline" rather than a baseline.

Other people prefer using a CJK-style circular period.

Another option is to use no mark at all, but instead separate sentences using double spacing / monospaced spacing (the space one character takes up in a monospaced font) or newlines.

Quotation Marks

The second most common punctuation used is for marking quoted text. Using latin style quotation marks is very common, but Japanese corner brackets are also very common. Note that the corner brackets are also the way that the "te" and "to" quotative nimi sin are written.

Combining Glyphs

Examples of combined glyphs mistakes: pilin ike (wrong size), telo lete (wrong placing), kala lili (wrong form for ‘kala’, form #6 is used instead), toki pona (wrongly written)

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.

Short combinations

While not universal, it's very common to use a "shortened" or "short" form of the word "pi", where "pi" is written as a long vertical line.

Recently, some people shorten other characters as well.

Name Cartouches

Proper adjectives are shown with characters inside a cartouche, inspired by Egyptian hieroglyphs. Within a cartouche, it’s written with the Latin writing script.

jan Sonja li pali e toki ni. ona li sitelen e lipu pu. (written using linja sike)

There's also a nonstandard but fairly common extended system for writing cartouches using syllables or morae, called nasin sitelen kalama.

Flexible 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.

• jaki: any scribble, usually with overlaps
• ko: any blobby unshapely form
• ni: many use ni to point to the part ni is referencing (up, down, right, or other directions, instead of the standard downwards arrow)
• lete, kin: rotation, and maybe even exact number of intersecting lines, aren't important
• linja, kon, telo, pakala, mun: can be mirrored
• soweli: the exact amount of legs might be less important
• ku: the toki pona symbol can range from a simple dot to full-fidelity

Alternative Glyphs

For various different reasons, people have made new glyphs of different characters. The Esperanto translation of the official book includes drawings of these:

• sewi: mirrored glyph of "anpa" (not very common, but listed by ku - alternatively, it has been suggested elsewhere to use other religious symbols, with the possible downside of being less legible)
• akesi: 2 legs instead of 3
• namako: both "sin" with an extra line below, and a hot pepper with emenating lines above, are featured side-by-side
• additionally, 4 different drawings of jaki are included

Other common-ish variations include:

• kala: adding 2 dots for eyes
• epiku, kokosila, lanpan: although there is a more widely accepted version for all of these, their glyphs are relatively recent and have had more than one shape, so older versions are still in use

See also

• UCSUR
• nasin sitelen kalama
• sitelen pona literature