added more info to the sitelen pona page

pages/tokipona/index.md

@@ -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)
 

pages/tokipona/sitelen_pona.md

@@ -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
+Each toki pona word is written using its character, without extra spaces between
-in a proper name.
+words.
-
-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.
 
 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
+first letters. For an example, in the page linked at the beginning (and used in
-Kanata" is written as "ma [kasi alasa nasin awen telo a]".
+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
+may be ended with a period (or a smaller question mark) instead.
-the text.
 
 ### Examples