Names and Punctuation

Names

When you need to write a proper name or any other word outside of toki pona's list of official words, you can use the phonetic script (sitelen kalama) alongside the regular script.

Sitelen kalama follows the same structure as the rest of sitelen Kuwi, where the blocks are split into two halves. This time, however, the top half usually takes a consonant while the bottom usually takes a vowel. This is what "ma Kanata" would look like:

ma-KANATA

For syllables that end in -n, the vowel takes a special nasalised form. "jan Kan" thus looks like:

jan-KAN-

If the first syllable of a word is a vowel with no consonant, the vowel will occupy the top half of the glyph and - will occupy the bottom half. For example, the "A" in "ma Asija" has its own block here:

ma-A-SIJA

If the initial syllable starts with a vowel and ends with an /n/, then the syllable can be written either with a nasalised vowel and -, or as a vowel and N glyph. This means "toki Inli" can be written two ways:

toki-IN--LItoki-INLI

Punctuation

Punctuation is pretty straight forward in sitelen Kuwi. There are only four marks which are written at the end of the sentence as expected: ., ?, !, : as well as a set of parentheses ( )

. ? ! : ( )

However, when quoting a person, instead of using :, you can use two . marks on either side of the quoted phrase. Using this mark as quotes this way is completely optional and more of a stylistic choice. This is how the sentence "ona li toki e ni: mi wile ala e ni" would look with these quotes:

ona- litoki- e_ni- ..mi- wileala e_ni-..

If the quoted phrase were to end in a ? or !, the final . at the end of the quote can be replaced with the appropriate mark. Again, this is a stylistic choice and completely optional, but it's how I choose to use the script. Here's an example using "ona li toki e ni: tenpo ni la sina sona a e sitelen Kuwi!"

ona- litoki- e_ni- ..tenponila sinasona a esitelenkuwi.!