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sitelen suwi

Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2009 12:34 am
by jan Josan
I have been working for a while on a hieroglyphic script using toki pona. It's non-linear, and fairly impractical for computer use, so I've started to make a series of html files to try to explain it. I started a series of lessons loosely tied to jan Pije's unofficial lessons for toki pona. There are also some example pages based on translated TV vernacular. The toki pona translations were quickly done and need work, but the example images will give you an idea of what using prepositions, la, etc looks like.

When Sonja puts out the new official lessons, things may change, but for now the system I have worked out seems fairly robust. I keep changing things here and there though, so any comments or feedback would be welcome.

You can see it all here.

Re: sitelen suwi

Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2009 8:44 am
by mije Wi
sona sina li suli a!

Re: sitelen suwi

Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2009 12:57 pm
by janKipo
a! pona! As a longtime fan of Mayan, I find this is a very comfortable and familiar system. Where the glyphs come from I'll not ask, but the combinations are quite pleasant. I look forward to carved stelae with these inscriptions praising the tp equivalent of 7 Jaguar and the like.

Re: sitelen suwi

Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2009 4:50 pm
by jan-ante
interesting. but i have some criticism, if you dont mind.
1. e is a good container, pi is so-so, li is not good, it is not expressive. try to make it more beautiful, as beautiful as e is
2. to me, tan and lon are too similar, especially when they are containers. it is difficult to read, perhaps i need more practice.
3. could you please show o as a container?
4. when you write here mi awen ala awen, why the gliphs are arranged clockwise? isnt it contrary to you rules?
5. why la is not a container?
6. to me, it is quite hard to understand the motivation of american people, but the usage of TV show dialogues as an exapmple is probably not the best idea
---
but despite all this criticism, i have to say this is a good job. i was thinking about a writing system of such type, but my progress is far not that good.

Re: sitelen suwi

Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2009 8:54 pm
by janKipo
sina nimi 'suwi' e nasin ni tan seme?

Re: sitelen suwi

Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2009 10:44 pm
by jan Josan
mije Wi wrote:sona sina li suli a!
pona! mi wile sona e ni: sina wile ala wile sitelen kepeken nasin ni? mi wile lukin e sitelen sina.
janKipo wrote:a! pona! As a longtime fan of Mayan, I find this is a very comfortable and familiar system. Where the glyphs come from I'll not ask, but the combinations are quite pleasant. I look forward to carved stelae with these inscriptions praising the tp equivalent of 7 Jaguar and the like.
Several of the glyphs do come from mayan: kon, mun, pimeja (and by variation, all of the other colors). I'm usually not one to miss higher numbers in toki pona, but names like 7 jaguar and Mayan calendars do make me itch to develop a more complex numerical system. The way numbers are organized is still not very fleshed out in these glyphs.
janKipo wrote:sina nimi 'suwi' e nasin ni tan seme?
ken la mi ante e nimi ni. taso la, sitelen mi li kama lukin suwi kin. mi ken ala pini e suwi! :P
jan-ante wrote:interesting. but i have some criticism, if you dont mind.
1. e is a good container, pi is so-so, li is not good, it is not expressive. try to make it more beautiful, as beautiful as e is
2. to me, tan and lon are too similar, especially when they are containers. it is difficult to read, perhaps i need more practice.
3. could you please show o as a container?
4. when you write here mi awen ala awen, why the gliphs are arranged clockwise? isnt it contrary to you rules?
5. why la is not a container?
6. to me, it is quite hard to understand the motivation of american people, but the usage of TV show dialogues as an exapmple is probably not the best idea
---
but despite all this criticism, i have to say this is a good job. i was thinking about a writing system of such type, but my progress is far not that good.
1. Early on li was much more elaborate, but I kept finding it got in the way of legibility. It's not as decorative, but so far I have liked how it becomes almost transparent, allowing the other glyphs inside and around it to breathe.
2. These were some of the first ones I started working with, and I think I lost track of how similar they are when first viewed. Thanks for the fresh perspective--What do you think of this for tan?
Image
3. I don't know why I didn't think of o as a container, but it really is appropriate. Since it calls attention to itself I would probably give it the same jagged line as kin and ! -- maybe something like ("jan ante o lukin e ni!"):
Image
4. Good eyes! the x-ala-x question structure is the one exception to the block order rule. This is to avoid having the verb glyph repeat on top of or next to itself, which creates a visual imbalance. The four block structure is read as a single block, with the diagonally-doubled glyph creating a visual X. Hence the X inside of ala.
5. la originally was a container, but there is still some question whether it is affecting the front end or the back end of the sentence ( ......... la, ......... --or-- ........., la ..........). It was easier to just treat it as a barrier between the two halves. The top part can easily expand over the beginning of the sentence though, if you like.
6. Yes, they make terrible examples, but they are the only substantial drawings I had on hand. My original motivation working with this text was to see how the drawings would hold up with TV speak and ungrammatical sentences ( I don't have a TV but I found this transcript on-line to work with). I probably should also move these translations into another topic on this forum and get some help with them, but I've been reluctant to ask other people to spend time with such vapid and disposable text. If you have some text you think would work well, I'd be happy to try drawing it out.

Thanks for the careful analysis. I want to tell you, too, that in organizing all the pictures on-line, your two-letter codes really came in handy for naming the files!

{edit 9/6/11: updated image files}

Re: sitelen suwi

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2009 7:31 am
by jan Ote
a! sitelen toki pi jan Maja! tenpo ali la ona li lukin pona tawa mi. pali sina li pona!

Re: sitelen suwi

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2009 4:15 pm
by jan-ante
jan Josan wrote:
1. Early on li was much more elaborate, but I kept finding it got in the way of legibility. It's not as decorative, but so far I have liked how it becomes almost transparent, allowing the other glyphs inside and around it to breathe.
may be. but it does not attract the attention of perfect stranger as myself. did you consider to fill it with some backgroung or texture, e.g. dots, shading hatching etc?
What do you think of this for tan?
Image
to me it seems to be good, but i need to see it in an example to be sure
("jan ante o lukin e ni!"):
Image
that is good, but is it compatible with standard o
Image?
It was easier to just treat it as a barrier between the two halves.
yes i myself imagined la as a brrier (i called it "wall"), i supposed to have li and o as the walls too. i was uncertain about e, the only clear container (frame) in my project was pi (as a regroupper)
If you have some text you think would work well, I'd be happy to try drawing it out.
well, the best text to try your script is definitely Popol Vuh, but it is not translated to tp yet.
ni li toki pi tenpo pi nanpa wan. tenpo ni la sona li ala. tenpo ni la ale li lon lete li jo e kalama ala e tawa ala. ijo ala li lon sewi.
ni li toki pi nanpa wan. tenpo ni la jan li lon ala. soweli li lon ala. waso en kala en akesi en kasi en nena li lon ala kin. taso sewi li lon.
tenpo ni la ma supa li lon ala kin. taso telo suli lete en sewi suli li lon.


but, many thanks to jan Ote, we have another great epic myth in tp - legends of Gilgamesh. your script is not a cuneiform, but may be it is worth to try.
once i was reading a 1st part of Gilgamesh in moscow subway; when the poeple looked to my paper they apperently did not believe their eyes, did not believe that one can read such a language and make some remarks in text. if i'll try to read your script right there, that will be really funny.

7. do i understand correctly that i can rotate any glyph by 90 and 180 degrees, as well as mirror-flip?
8. what software do you use to write you script? do you have (or planning to have) some powerpoint macros?

PS

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2009 5:40 pm
by jan-ante
ni li toki pi tenpo nanpa wan
Image


PPS forum works terribly today

Re: sitelen suwi

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2009 6:03 pm
by janKipo
Hmmm! Cuneiform sounds nice, too. I don't remember seeing one of those for a conlang before (but memory is not a valid means to knowledge for me). It wouldn't necessary be as compact as pseudoMayan, though (nor as cute).