Sitelen Pona

Sitelen Pona
Sitelen Pona
Range	U+F1900..U+F19FF; (256 code points)
Plane	SPUA-A
Scripts	Sitelen Pona
Assigned	155 code points
Unused	101 reserved code points
Source standards	UCSUR
	Note: Part of the Private Use Area, font conflicts possible

Sitelen Pona
*sitelen pona*
Sitelen Pona; sitelen pona
	"sitelen pona" in Sitelen Pona
Script type	Logographic
Creator	Sonja Lang
Created	c. 2013
Published	2014
Direction	Left-to-right
Languages	Toki Pona
	This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

Sitelen Pona (rendered in lowercase as sitelen pona, lit. 'good/simple writing',^[1] IPA: [ˈsitelen ˈpona]) is a constructed logography used for Toki Pona.^[2] It was originally designed circa 2013 and published in 2014 by Canadian linguist Sonja Lang, the language's creator.^[3]

History

sitelen pona was designed by Lang in preparation for her upcoming Toki Pona textbook release. In 2013, she published a page listing 20 characters as a sample of the book's contents.^[4] The book, Toki Pona: The Language of Good, was published in 2014, and it included the first full description of sitelen pona in a dedicated section.^[5]^[2]

In 2024, Lang published The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Toki Pona edition), the first in the su series of illustrated storybooks aimed at beginners, in which all Toki Pona text is written in sitelen pona.^[6] This was the first published book that used sitelen pona as a primary script.^[6]^{[non-primary source needed]}

Overview

sitelen pona is typically written left-to-right, top-to-bottom. As a logography, each word is written with a single grapheme. Many of the characters are derived from translingual and universal symbols such as pictograms, road signs, mathematical symbols, and emoticons.^[7]^[8] They have been described as "mostly easy to recognize, quick to remember and simple enough that even a child could draw them."^[2]^[9]

A head followed by a single modifier (e.g. a noun followed by an adjective) may be combined into one character by stacking the modifier grapheme above the head grapheme, or by nesting the modifier grapheme inside the head grapheme if there is space.^[2] The symbol of the language ^[10] is written this way, with the grapheme (pona) nested inside the grapheme (toki).^[11]

Names

The sentence "ma Kanata li suli" written in Sitelen Pona. The name Kanata is spelled with the characters kasi alasa nasin awen telo a.

Names (grammatically proper adjectives) are written by enclosing multiple characters in a cartouche shaped like a rounded rectangle. Each character inside represents the first phoneme (or, equivalently, letter) of its word. The specific characters used in a name may be chosen creatively to convey meaning about its subject.^[12]

In an alternative system called nasin sitelen kalama, characters inside a cartouche can be followed by interpuncts or dots, where each interpunct represents the next mora of the word, and a colon represents all morae of the word.^[13]^{[non-primary source needed]}

Punctuation

sitelen pona punctuation is unstandardized and thus highly variable, as The Language of Good features only the cartouche.^[12] As a result, some texts use no punctuation at all, instead relying on formatting and context.

Sentence boundaries are typically marked with an interpunct, period, line break, or a wide space. Question marks and exclamation marks are often proscribed due to their similarity to the characters for the words seme () and o () respectively.

Where quotation marks are used, CJK-style corner brackets (「...」) and double high quotation marks (“...” or "...") are most common.

Characters

The original English edition of Lang's book Toki Pona: The Language of Good introduces 120 hieroglyphic characters, one for each of the core words taught in the book.

a
akesi
ala
alasa
ale / ali
anpa
ante
anu
awen
e
en
esun
ijo
ike
ilo
insa
jaki
jan
jelo
jo
kala
kalama
kama
kasi
ken
kepeken
kili
kiwen
ko
kon
kule
kulupu
kute
la
lape
laso
lawa
len
lete
li
lili
linja
lipu
loje
lon
luka
lukin
lupa
ma
mama
mani
meli
mi
mije
moku
moli
monsi
mu
mun
musi
mute
nanpa
nasa
nasin
nena
ni
nimi
noka
o
olin
ona
open
pakala
pali
palisa
pan
pana
pi
pilin
pimeja
pini
pipi
poka
poki
pona
pu
sama
seli
selo
seme
sewi
sijelo
sike
sin
sina
sinpin
sitelen
sona
soweli
suli
suno
supa
suwi
tan
taso
tawa
telo
tenpo
toki
tomo
tu
unpa
uta
utala
walo
wan
waso
wawa
weka
wile

The 2022 Esperanto edition of the same book (Tokipono: La lingvo de bono) includes alternative ways to write three words.^[14]

akesi
^[a]
jaki
^[b]
sewi
^[c]

The same edition presents characters for the 17 additional words spotlighted as "essential" in Toki Pona Dictionary (nimi ku suli).^[15] According to the accompanying text, these were the most commonly used characters for those words as of 2022, but there were still disagreements in the speaking community, and the following characters might be subject to change based on future community consensus.^[16]

epiku
jasima
kijetesantakalu
kin
kipisi
kokosila
ku
lanpan
leko
meso
misikeke
monsuta
n
namako
^[d]
namako
^[e]
oko
soko
tonsi

Notes:

^ Four-legged (two-leg-stroke) form of akesi
^ Clarifying that jaki can be written as an infinite variety of scribbles
^ Secular form of sewi (above, holy) that isn't based on the Arabic word for God, analogous to the character for anpa (below, humble) and other location words
^ sin-based variant of namako created by the community in 2016
^ Chili pepper variant of namako designed by Sonja Lang for personal use and first shared publicly in 2022

Encoding

As of November 2024^[update], Sitelen Pona has not been encoded into Unicode. It is included in the unofficial Under-ConScript Unicode Registry since 2022, at the Private Use Area codepoints range U+F1900–U+F19FF.^[17]^[18]^[19]

Sitelen Pona^[1]^[2] Under-ConScript Unicode Registry
	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	A	B	C	D	E	F
U+F190x	󱤀	󱤁	󱤂	󱤃	󱤄	󱤅	󱤆	󱤇	󱤈	󱤉	󱤊	󱤋	󱤌	󱤍	󱤎	󱤏
U+F191x	󱤐	󱤑	󱤒	󱤓	󱤔	󱤕	󱤖	󱤗	󱤘	󱤙	󱤚	󱤛	󱤜	󱤝	󱤞	󱤟
U+F192x	󱤠	󱤡	󱤢	󱤣	󱤤	󱤥	󱤦	󱤧	󱤨	󱤩	󱤪	󱤫	󱤬	󱤭	󱤮	󱤯
U+F193x	󱤰	󱤱	󱤲	󱤳	󱤴	󱤵	󱤶	󱤷	󱤸	󱤹	󱤺	󱤻	󱤼	󱤽	󱤾	󱤿
U+F194x	󱥀	󱥁	󱥂	󱥃	󱥄	󱥅	󱥆	󱥇	󱥈	󱥉	󱥊	󱥋	󱥌	󱥍	󱥎	󱥏
U+F195x	󱥐	󱥑	󱥒	󱥓	󱥔	󱥕	󱥖	󱥗	󱥘	󱥙	󱥚	󱥛	󱥜	󱥝	󱥞	󱥟
U+F196x	󱥠	󱥡	󱥢	󱥣	󱥤	󱥥	󱥦	󱥧	󱥨	󱥩	󱥪	󱥫	󱥬	󱥭	󱥮	󱥯
U+F197x	󱥰	󱥱	󱥲	󱥳	󱥴	󱥵	󱥶	󱥷	󱥸	󱥹	󱥺	󱥻	󱥼	󱥽	󱥾	󱥿
U+F198x	󱦀	󱦁	󱦂	󱦃	󱦄	󱦅	󱦆	󱦇	󱦈
U+F199x	󱦐	󱦑	󱦒	󱦓	󱦔	SP STJ	SP SCJ	SP SLG	SP ELG	SP SGE	SP SRLG	SP ERLG	󱦜	󱦝
U+F19Ax	󱦠	󱦡	󱦢	󱦣
U+F19Bx
U+F19Cx
U+F19Dx
U+F19Ex
U+F19Fx
Notes 1.^ Proposals 2022-01-31; revision 2022-05-20 2.^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points

References

^ Coluzzi, Paolo (29 June 2022). "How learning Toki Pona may help improving communication strategies in a foreign or second language". Language Problems and Language Planning. 46 (1): 78–98. doi:10.1075/lplp.00086.col. ISSN 0272-2690.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Kocman, Tomaž (2023). "Prednosti toki pone kot prvega tujega jezika predšolskih otrok : magistrsko delo" (in Slovenian). T. Kocman. Retrieved 4 April 2024.
^ Chamero, Baggetto (2022-09-01). Study and automatic translation of a language with limited resources (Proyecto/Trabajo fin de carrera/grado thesis). Universitat Politècnica de València.
^ Sonja Lang (19 May 2013). "hieroglyphs_sample.pdf" (PDF). tokipona.org. Retrieved 29 March 2024. (Date retrieved from PDF metadata).
^ Lang 2014, p. 104–111.
^ ^a ^b Lang 2024.
^ Cerino Jiménez, Rigoberto; Pinto Avendaño, David Eduardo; Vergara Limon, Sergio (26 June 2023). "Pictographic Representation of the Toki Pona Language for Use in Augmentative and Alternative Communication Systems". Computación y Sistemas. 27 (2). Instituto Politecnico Nacional/Centro de Investigacion en Computacion. doi:10.13053/cys-27-2-4418. ISSN 2007-9737.
^ Cerino Jiménez, Rigoberto; Pinto Avendaño, David Eduardo; Vergara Limon, Sergio (2023-06-26). "Pictographic Representation of the Toki Pona Language for Use in Augmentative and Alternative Communication Systems". Computación y Sistemas. 27 (2). doi:10.13053/cys-27-2-4418. ISSN 2007-9737.
^ Coluzzi, Paolo (2024-08-08). "Esperanto, Klingon and Toki Pona: evaluating non-speaker perceptions of the orthographic and phonological characteristics of three popular constructed languages". International Journal of Multilingualism: 1–16. doi:10.1080/14790718.2024.2384593. ISSN 1479-0718.
^ "Toki Pona – The language of good". Smith Journal. Melbourne, Australia. 2019-06-03. Archived from the original on 2019-10-20. Retrieved 2019-10-20.
^ Lang 2014, p. 110.
^ ^a ^b Lang 2014, p. 111.
^ jan Ke Tami (2022-05-05). "nasin nimi sin pi sitelen pona" [A new way to write names in Sitelen Pona] (PDF). lipu tenpo (in Toki Pona). No. 13, nanpa pipi. pp. 5–6. ISSN 2752-4639. Retrieved 2024-04-04.
^ Lang, Sonja (2022) [2014]. Tokipono: La lingvo de bono (in Esperanto). Translated by van der Meulen, Spencer. Spencer van der Meulen. pp. 116, 117, 120. ISBN 978-94-6437-609-8.
^ Lang, Sonja (2021). Toki Pona Dictionary. Illustrated by Vacon Sartirani. Tawhid. ISBN 978-0978292362.
^ Lang, Sonja (2022) [2014]. Tokipono: La lingvo de bono (in Esperanto). Translated by van der Meulen, Spencer. Spencer van der Meulen. pp. 148–149. ISBN 978-94-6437-609-8.
^ ^a ^b Bettencourt, Rebecca G. (2021-08-06). "Under-ConScript Unicode Registry". KreativeKorp. Archived from the original on 2021-09-28. Retrieved 2021-10-23.
^ ^a ^b Bettencourt, Rebecca G. (2021-08-06). "Sitelen Pona: U+F1900 - U+F1AFF". KreativeKorp. Archived from the original on 2021-09-28. Retrieved 2021-10-23.
^ Galán Rodriguez, Carmen (December 28, 2023). El júbilo de la palabra [The Joy of the Word] (in Spanish). Editorial Dykinson, S.L. pp. 109–127. ISBN 9788411708548.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)

Publications

Lang, Sonja (2014). Toki Pona: The Language of Good. Tawhid. ISBN 978-0978292300. OCLC 921253340.
Lang, Sonja (2024). The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Toki Pona ed.). Amazon Digital Services LLC - Kdp. ISBN 978-0-9782923-7-9.

External links

Chapter on Sitelen Pona in Toki Pona: The Language of Good (lipu pi jan Ne)
lipu Linku, an online Toki Pona dictionary that lists Sitelen Pona characters, including characters for uncommon words and common alternative ways to write a word

[15] Four-legged (two-leg-stroke) form of akesi

[16] Clarifying that jaki can be written as an infinite variety of scribbles

[17] Secular form of sewi (above, holy) that isn't based on the Arabic word for God, analogous to the character for anpa (below, humble) and other location words

[20] sin-based variant of namako created by the community in 2016

[21] Chili pepper variant of namako designed by Sonja Lang for personal use and first shared publicly in 2022

[Coluzzi_2022_pp._78–98-1] Coluzzi, Paolo (29 June 2022). "How learning Toki Pona may help improving communication strategies in a foreign or second language". Language Problems and Language Planning. 46 (1): 78–98. doi:10.1075/lplp.00086.col. ISSN 0272-2690.

[Kocman_2023_m257-2] Kocman, Tomaž (2023). "Prednosti toki pone kot prvega tujega jezika predšolskih otrok : magistrsko delo" (in Slovenian). T. Kocman. Retrieved 4 April 2024.

[3] Chamero, Baggetto (2022-09-01). Study and automatic translation of a language with limited resources (Proyecto/Trabajo fin de carrera/grado thesis). Universitat Politècnica de València.

[4] Sonja Lang (19 May 2013). "hieroglyphs_sample.pdf" (PDF). tokipona.org. Retrieved 29 March 2024. (Date retrieved from PDF metadata).

[FOOTNOTELang2014104&ndash;111-5] Lang 2014, p. 104–111.

[FOOTNOTELang2024-6] Lang 2024.

[Cerino_Jiménez_Pinto_Avendaño_Vergara_Limon_2023_p.-7] Cerino Jiménez, Rigoberto; Pinto Avendaño, David Eduardo; Vergara Limon, Sergio (26 June 2023). "Pictographic Representation of the Toki Pona Language for Use in Augmentative and Alternative Communication Systems". Computación y Sistemas. 27 (2). Instituto Politecnico Nacional/Centro de Investigacion en Computacion. doi:10.13053/cys-27-2-4418. ISSN 2007-9737.

[8] Cerino Jiménez, Rigoberto; Pinto Avendaño, David Eduardo; Vergara Limon, Sergio (2023-06-26). "Pictographic Representation of the Toki Pona Language for Use in Augmentative and Alternative Communication Systems". Computación y Sistemas. 27 (2). doi:10.13053/cys-27-2-4418. ISSN 2007-9737.

[9] Coluzzi, Paolo (2024-08-08). "Esperanto, Klingon and Toki Pona: evaluating non-speaker perceptions of the orthographic and phonological characteristics of three popular constructed languages". International Journal of Multilingualism: 1–16. doi:10.1080/14790718.2024.2384593. ISSN 1479-0718.

[Smith-10] "Toki Pona – The language of good". Smith Journal. Melbourne, Australia. 2019-06-03. Archived from the original on 2019-10-20. Retrieved 2019-10-20.

[FOOTNOTELang2014110-11] Lang 2014, p. 110.

[FOOTNOTELang2014111-12] Lang 2014, p. 111.

[13] Ke Tami (2022-05-05). "nasin nimi sin pi sitelen pona" [A new way to write names in Sitelen Pona] (PDF). lipu tenpo (in Toki Pona). No. 13, nanpa pipi. pp. 5–6. ISSN 2752-4639. Retrieved 2024-04-04.

[14] Lang, Sonja (2022) [2014]. Tokipono: La lingvo de bono (in Esperanto). Translated by van der Meulen, Spencer. Spencer van der Meulen. pp. 116, 117, 120. ISBN 978-94-6437-609-8.

[18] Lang, Sonja (2021). Toki Pona Dictionary. Illustrated by Vacon Sartirani. Tawhid. ISBN 978-0978292362.

[19] Lang, Sonja (2022) [2014]. Tokipono: La lingvo de bono (in Esperanto). Translated by van der Meulen, Spencer. Spencer van der Meulen. pp. 148–149. ISBN 978-94-6437-609-8.

[ucsur-22] Bettencourt, Rebecca G. (2021-08-06). "Under-ConScript Unicode Registry". KreativeKorp. Archived from the original on 2021-09-28. Retrieved 2021-10-23.

[ucsur_sp-23] Bettencourt, Rebecca G. (2021-08-06). "Sitelen Pona: U+F1900 - U+F1AFF". KreativeKorp. Archived from the original on 2021-09-28. Retrieved 2021-10-23.

[24] Galán Rodriguez, Carmen (December 28, 2023). El júbilo de la palabra [The Joy of the Word] (in Spanish). Editorial Dykinson, S.L. pp. 109–127. ISBN 9788411708548.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)

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