mi sitelen luka kepeken sitelen pona la, ona li sama lukin e
ni:
"o" and "a" are written in pu (the official toki pona book)
like exclamation points, where the dot is replaced by a latin
letter "o" or "a" respectively.
our "o" is like pu, but there's no space between the
line and the o, so it can be written in one stroke.
our "a" is like our "o", but at the very top a little
tail hangs down to the right. our "a" looks a little bit
like a music note.
"seme" is written in pu as a question mark. our "seme" is
the sitelen pona for "wile" above a small letter o. we made this
change so the word "seme" and a literal question mark would not
be mistaken for each other. "wile", in both pu and our sitelen
pona, looks like a lowercase letter omega or a curly w.
"olin" is written in pu as the symbol for "pilin" twice, one
on top of the other. our "olin" is a ligature of a pilin and an
upside-down pilin, so it can be written in one stroke. the
symbol for "pilin", in both pu and our sitelen pona, is a simple
heart shape.
"moli" is written in pu as a circular face with two x's for
eyes. our "moli" has one big, flat x for its eyes. this reduces
the number of needed strokes.
"kiwen" is written in pu as a five-sided gemstone shape.
our "kiwen" is a four-sided diamond. this is easier to write.
"ko" is written in pu as a blob. our "ko" is an enclosed
shape with a scalloped edge, which looks a bit like a piece of
fluff. this is faster to write.
"tomo" is written in pu as a pentagon made to look like a
house. our "tomo" has an upward-pointing roof shape, with two
lines extending downward for the side walls. we don't draw a
line for the floor, which makes it faster.
"noka" is written in pu as a simple outline of a foot
viewed from the side. our "noka" draws the front outline of the
leg, and the full outline of the foot, but not the back of the
leg. our "noka" looks a little like an upside-down question
mark, and is faster to draw.
"lili" and "suli" are both written in pu as downward-pointing
chevrons, where "suli" is larger than "lili". our "lili" is like
pu, but is underlined. our "suli" is like pu, but is enclosed at
the top so it's a triangle. this reduces the possibility of
"lili" and "suli" being confused for each other.
"lupa" is written in pu like a capital letter U. "nena" is
written in pu like an upside-down "lupa". our "lupa" and "nena"
are like pu, but have a bit of a lip added to their openings.
this reduces the possibility that they will be confused for
"pona" and "ike", respectively.
"ante" is written in pu as a downward-pointing chevron on
top of an upward-pointing chevron. it looks like an X with a gap
in the middle. our "ante" is written like a V shape pointing to
the bottom left on top of an upside-down V shape pointing to the
upper right. this makes it distinct from the x-shaped sitelen
pona for "ala" and "weka", and also makes more sense to us as a
symbol for "ante".
"uta" is written in pu as a semicircle that looks like an
open smiling mouth, then a dot underneath. our "uta" is like pu
but does not have the dot underneath. this makes the character
simpler without losing any meaning.
"wawa" is written in pu as a circle with two diagonal lines
coming off the sides, which kind of looks like a head with
antennae. our "wawa" moves the diagonal lines down, so they
start on the same imaginary horizontal line as the bottom of the
circle. this makes it look more like a person with raised arms,
which makes sense to us as a symbol for "wawa", and also
reduces the possibility of it being confused for "mani" when
written quickly.
"sewi" is written in pu as a scalloped line that bounces
upward, followed by a vertical line parallel to the right side.
our "sewi" is like pu but does not have the vertical line at the
end. this makes the character simpler without losing any
necessary information.
sitelen ante ale li sama lukin e sitelen pona pu. (all the
other characters look the same as in pu.)
most of our changes were inspired by, or directly taken from, sitelen
pona pona. some were inspired by sitelen pona pona
luka. and finally, we took a bit of aesthetic inspiration from handwritten
madoka runes (a script for the latin alphabet as used in german, unrelated to toki
pona).
tenpo kama la sitelen pona mi li ken kama jo e sitelen pi lipu ni:
our sitelen pona might encoporate ideas from these pages in the future:
