ع - Arabic script for Toki Pona poetry

[jan Seloki]

errh. Since Arabic has final ns, why not use them? And why are the final ns left off in the consonant-only spelling (which gives rise to the 'luka'/'lukin' confusion)? I don't know enough (anything) about Arabic writing to know of reasons for this omission.

You could do what Arabic does & add a "ا" (ayin) to the end. In Arabic ً and ٍ are always written as اً or اٍ .'lukin' would be 'لكا/لُكاٍ' while 'luka' would be 'لك/لُكَ'. words like 'len' & 'lon' should be written using the final 'n' because 'la' forms its own character 'لا' so you couldn't form the 'ا' that they attach to. 'pan' would be 'پا/پاً', 'ken' would be 'کا/کاً'. Ultimately though, it makes more sense to me to just use the final 'n', resulting in لُكَ/لك & لُکِن/لکن ( (lukin & luka). اً/اٍ are only grammatical elements see Wikipedia - tanwin anyway, & aren't used to write words by themselves anyway. I don't have a problem omitting the vowels (harakāt), but I don't see any reason not to use the final 'n'.

[jan Seloki]

English to Arabic transliteration
the main site, which this page links to at the top gives transliteration possibilities to (& from) other languages too like Japanese, Russian, Hebrew, & Greek.

waso li tawa
li lukin e moku sin
pipi lili a!

would be:

وسو لی توا
لی لوکن إ مکو سن
!پپی للی أ

with vowel marks:

وَسو لی تَوا
لی لوکِن إ مُکو سِن
!پپی لِلی أ

Some characters can represent both consonants & vowels like 'و' (w|o/u) as in وسو (waso) & لوکن (lukin) سولی (suli).
The 'u' is represented by 'و' even in the middle of a word as in lukin/suli above.
Words ending in vowels use a long vowel: سلو (selo) سلی (seli).
Final 'a' is written as 'ا'. Final 'e' is written as 'ی'. kule=کولی kute=کوتی. 'u' is always written as 'و'.
The only real ambiguity seems to be the words 'a' & 'o' which are both written as ' أ ' with a 'ء' (hamza) above. The word 'e' is written as ' إ ' with 'ء' below. (pona a/pona o !=پونا أ, pona e=پونا إ).
إ/أ/ا are all variations of a schwa, like the sound represented by the '-' in uh-oh.

words starting with vowels use either أ or إ:
a/o/u-=أ
anpa=أنپا
ona=أنا
uta=أتا
e/i-=إ
esun=إسن
ijo (iyo)=إیۆ

anpa would be أنبا, toki pona would be تکی بنا, sitelen Alapi would be ستلن أَلَبیِ. you could also type 'Alapi' as 'آَلَبیِ'.
' آ ' is another way of writing 'ا', usually as an 'a', at the beginning of a word to distinguish it from 'ا' at the end of the word.

EDIT:
Apparently Arabic doesn't have a 'p' so you could use 'b' (ب) instead, although Arabic would probably use the 'f' (ف) because p & f are grouped together in semitic languages instead of p & b. if you really wanted to be ambiguous as is so popular with some speakers, I guess you could even alternate them. ستلن أَلَبیِ لی فنا توا می
(سِتَلَن أَلَپیِ لیِ پُناَ تَواَ میِ sitelen Alapi li pona tawa mi).
pona could then be فنا/بنا/پنا. I'm not suggesting to use the sound, just to use that letter since 'p' doesn't exist in Arabic. I wouldn't use ف for 'w' though. It's too different. If you're familiar with how Arabic & Semitic languages in general group sounds (in Hebrew, p&f both use פ, except p (פּ) has a dot, called a dagesh in the middle but like vowels it's usually omitted.) either ب (for similar look) or ف (for phonetic similarity) could be used for 'p'. OTOH, Kurdish does use 'پ'.

If you wanted to show stress I guess you could do so by using long vowels in the first syllable:
Arabic long vowels
a اَ - باَناَ
e یَ کیَبَکَن
i یِ کیِن
o وُ کوُن
u وُ کوُلی
Long vowel examples
kute | kon | kipisi | ken | kalama
کالما | کین | کیبسی | کون | کوتی - long vowels
کاَلَماَ | کیَن | کیِبِسیِ | کوُن | کوُتیَ - with all vowels
Short vowels examples (the same words)
کلما | کن | کبسی | کن | کوتی - short vowels
کَلَماَ | کَن | کِبِسیِ | کُن | کوُتیَ - with all vowels

This would cause more conflicts. For example kon & kun would be written the same (کون) with or without diacritics. With diacritics they would be کوُن. ken & kin (کیِن/کیَن) would be different only with diacritics.
suli/seli/soweli - سوولی/سیلی/سولی
pana/pona & sina/sona would be easier to differentiate even without diacritics (سونا/سینا & بونا/بانا).