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116 lines
4.7 KiB
Markdown
116 lines
4.7 KiB
Markdown
% toki pona extra page 2 - other writing systems
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% /dev/urandom
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% 2020-04-09
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While the most common writing system for toki pona by far is the Latin alphabet,
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there have been others adapted, or created specifically, for toki pona.
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## Adapted writing systems
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Toki pona only uses 5 vowel and 9 consonant sounds. This means that adapting
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toki pona for an alphabet only requires picking 14 letters (or sequences of
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letters) that would correspond to the same or similar sounds. For example,
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here's how they can be converted to Greek and Cyrillic:
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| Latin | Greek | Cyrillic |
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|:-----:|:-----:|:--------:|
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| a | α | а |
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| e | ε | е |
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| i | ι | и |
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| j | γ | й |
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| k | κ | к |
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| l | λ | л |
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| m | μ | м |
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| n | ν | н |
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| o | ο | о |
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| p | π | п |
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| s | σ | с |
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| t | τ | т |
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| u | υ | у |
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| w | β | в |
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> %note%
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> These alphabets are not fully phonetically compatible with Greek and Russian
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> sounds. Some of the letters in toki pona are pronounced differently from their
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> corresponding letters.
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It's a little harder to adapt toki pona for an abugida or an abjad -- a writing
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system where consonant sounds have specific letters, and vowels are written as
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diacritics or additional symbols next to them. The most famous abjad is the
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Arabic writing system, and the most famous abugida is Devanagari (which is used
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for many languages in India).
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* ["ARABI PONA - Arabic Script for Toki Pona | sitelen musi" video][arabic]
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* ["Toki Pona in Devanāgarī" (archived)][devanagari]
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[arabic]:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh9Wypm6pXs
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[devanagari]:https://web.archive.org/web/20060727115116/http://www.deadlybrain.org/projects/tokipona/deva_guja.php
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The language also only has 92 possible syllables (47 if "-n" is treated as a
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separate syllable). This means it can also be adapted for many syllabic writing
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systems as well.
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For example, here are some suggestions for a way to write toki pona using
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Hangul, the writing system of Korean. (While in features symbols representing
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individual sounds much like an alphabet, they're arranged in syllabic blocks.)
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* ["Writing Toki Pona with Korean Hangul" (archived)][hangularch]
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* ["Hangul for Toki Pona" on Reddit][hangulred]
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[hangularch]:https://web.archive.org/web/20070313181500/http://www.tokipona.bravehost.com/korean.html
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[hangulred]:https://www.reddit.com/r/tokipona/comments/8mx951/hangul_for_toki_pona/
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With some relatively small changes in sounds, it can also be written with the
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Japanese Hiragana system, as proposed here:
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* ["Hiragana for Toki Pona"][hiragana1]
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* ["sitelen Hiragana (ひらがな)" on Reddit][hiragana_red]
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[hiragana1]:https://www.deviantart.com/derroflcopter/journal/Hiragana-for-Toki-Pona-339541633
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[hiragana_red]:https://www.reddit.com/r/tokipona/comments/e7g91u/sitelen_hiragana_%E3%81%B2%E3%82%89%E3%81%8C%E3%81%AA/
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## sitelen pona
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The most common writing system created for toki pona is the logographic *sitelen
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pona* ("simple writing"), created by Sonja Lang herself and published in the
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official book.
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Much like the Latin alphabet, it's written left-to-right and top-to-bottom, but
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each character represents an entire word instead of just one sound (or even more
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if "composite characters" are used). Unofficial words are written inside
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cartouches (long shapes that surround a bunch of characters), with characters
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for each letter added inside.
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* **[Full description, fonts and examples](sitelen_pona.html)**
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## sitelen sitelen
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Jonathan Gabel's ["sitelen sitelen"](https://jonathangabel.com/toki-pona/)
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writing system was designed as a more aesthetically pleasant method to write texts in
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toki pona. It's a non-linear system visually inspired by the Mayan script.
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Compared to writing toki pona in Latin alphabet or sitelen pona, sitelen sitelen
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is significantly more difficult to understand, and therefore is only used rarely
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by the community. However, the impressive visual style of texts written in it --
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such as [this
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contract](https://www.jonathangabel.com/archive/2012/artworks_lipu-lawa-pi-esun-kama.html)
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or the toki pona
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[proverbs](https://jonathangabel.com/toki-pona/dictionaries/gallery/) -- many of
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which are also used in the official book -- cannot be denied.
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## sitelen telo
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The ["sitelen
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telo"](https://twitter.com/aarontoponce/status/1316350094598459392?lang=en)
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system is another community-created writing system for toki pona. It's styled
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after the kana and kanji writing systems used for Japanese, with characters
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written using straight strokes and smooth curving shapes. It consists of "linja
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telo", a logographic script where all official words (and some popular
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community-created ones) have a character, and of "linja sin", a Hangul-like
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syllabary for unofficial words.
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[Top page](index.html)
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