added more info to the sitelen pona page

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/dev/urandom 2020-06-13 14:35:05 +03:00
parent 2f3e83d5d5
commit d7c7125f0d
2 changed files with 54 additions and 15 deletions

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@ -101,6 +101,7 @@ language's 120 word dictionary.
* [extra page 1 - old and new words](x1.html)
* [extra page 2 - other writing systems](x2.html)
* * [sitelen pona](sitelen_pona.html)
* [credits and acknowledgements](credits.html)

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@ -43,8 +43,11 @@ border-radius: 4pt;
## sitelen pona
"sitelen pona" ("simple writing" or "good writing") is a logographic writing
system designed for toki pona by its creator, Sonja Lang.
> %info%
> The part of the book describing sitelen pona was published with a
> The part of the official book describing sitelen pona was published with a
> non-commercial [CC-BY-NC 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
> license. Hence, it's easily available online in other courses,
> such as ["o kama sona e toki pona!"'s
@ -52,6 +55,32 @@ border-radius: 4pt;
> describes it almost exactly the same as the official book.
>
### logographic systems
In a logographic system, **each character generally represents one word** (or
sometimes even a phrase). The most commonly known example of a logographic
system are the Han characters, used in Chinese and (in addition to their own
writing systems) Japanese and Korean.
> %info%
> Logographic systems are well-suited for languages in which words have little
> to no inflection (change very little, if not at all, based on grammar), and
> the grammar is instead based around putting existing words together (such a
> language is called "isolating"). Chinese languages fit that idea really well,
> as does toki pona.
>
But since toki pona's basic dictionary only uses **120 words** (plus a few
community additions), a logographic system for toki pona also becomes
**significantly easier to learn** and use than that of Chinese, which requires
knowing at least 1500 characters to achieve fluency. In addition, most
characters in sitelen pona visually represent the words they mean -- for
example, "lawa", meaning "head", is literally a symbol of a head with a cap on.
"nanpa", meaning "number", is based on the "#" number sign, and so on. (To some
extent, the same is true for a number of Han characters as well.)
### sitelen pona chart
<noscript>
<div class="error">
Your web browser has JavaScript disabled. Without it, this page cannot check
@ -192,15 +221,8 @@ document.fonts.load("12pt 'sitelen pona'").then(function () {
</script>
Much like the Latin alphabet, it is written left-to-right and top-to-bottom.
Each character represents one word (or sometimes even a phrase), or one letter
in a proper name.
Since toki pona's basic dictionary only uses 120 words, there are only 120
characters one needs to learn. And most of these characters are, in one way or
another, direct representations of the words they mean.
For example, "lawa", meaning "head", is literally a symbol of a head with a cap
on. "nanpa", meaning "number", is based on the "#" number sign, etc.
Each toki pona word is written using its character, without extra spaces between
words.
An adjective character can be put inside or over/under a noun character to
represent a noun phrase.
@ -211,14 +233,30 @@ represent a noun phrase.
> composite character for "toki pona", with the "pona" symbol written inside the
> "toki" symbol.
Unofficial words are written inside a "cartouche" symbol (a rounded shape that
Unofficial words are written inside a cartouche (a rounded shape that
surrounds all the characters), with characters for words that start with their
first letters. For the example linked above (and used in the official book), "ma
Kanata" is written as "ma [kasi alasa nasin awen telo a]".
first letters. For an example, in the page linked at the beginning (and used in
the official book), "ma Kanata" is written as "ma [kasi alasa nasin awen telo
a]". (In some fonts, the cartouche may be replaced with parentheses or brackets
between the characters.)
### sitelen pona as commonly used
> %info%
> The information in this part is not part of the official design of sitelen
> pona. It is based entirely on how sitelen pona is used by the toki pona
> community.
Sentences are separated either with a dot or with a space. All other punctuation
(commas, colons, etc.) is either omitted or written as their corresponding
characters (since in practically all cases, their presence or absence doesn't
change the meaning of a sentence).
Words added by the toki pona community usually have their own separate
characters and are not written as unofficial words.
Since the question mark is used as the character for "seme", question sentences
may be ended with a period (or a smaller question mark) instead, depending on
the text.
may be ended with a period (or a smaller question mark) instead.
### Examples