Using the sitelen Kuwi Font
Thank you for trying out sitelen Kuwi! I’ve decided to make this quick guide on how to use the file because without it you may find yourself lost, unsure how to access certain glyphs or even feeling some things just won’t type how you’d expect.
Download and First Use
Once you download the font file, which you can find here, install the font. On most systems, this would mean opening the downloaded file and clicking an "install" button. From there, all you need to do is change the font in settings of the software you choose to use it with. Please note that the font file will only be accessible on locally installed software, while online applications such as Google Docs will not support it.
How to Type with sitelen Kuwi
Firstly, each glyph is a ligature. All you need to do to access a glyph is type the latin letters of the desired word:
Typing soweli will yield soweli
Please note that autocorrect may interfere with this, especially if there is auto-capitalisation, as Soweli will instead render as Soweli.
When forming blocks in sitelen Kuwi, do not type a space between the two halves of a word. For example, to make one block with "soweli lili", type sowelilili: sowelilili
Typing soweli lili will instead separate the block: soweli lili
To get the “empty” block -, use a hyphen, e.g. soweli-: soweli-
You may find instances where the output is not what you intended, due to the nature of ligatures. For example, "ma ma li lili" may be parsed as "mama lili li", so instead of seeing this: ma_mali_lili-
you might instead see this: mamalilili-
The font is merging the two "ma" glyphs into "mama" and "li lili" is being reinterpreted as "lili li"
This is not an issue that will come up too often but it is almost guaranteed to come up from time to time. To avoid this, you can use an underscore after any glyph to prevent it from merging into the next. In this case, ma_mali_lili will yield you with the desired results, as it separates the two "ma"s and the first two "li"s.
As mentioned in the guide, function words like "taso", "en", "anu" can be turned onto their side and used as content words. To achieve this, use a hyphen after the function word. For example, soweli-taso renders as: soweli-taso
but sowelitaso- renders as: sowelitaso-
The nimi sin function word "n" is the only function word that isn’t accessible by typing normally. Typing n normally gives us: n
To instead write out the function word, add a hyphen after. Typing n- yields: n-
To avoid all ligatures and type only using the phonetic script use all capital letters. For example, soweli-SOWELI renders as: soweli-SOWELI
To access the nasalised vowel ligatures when typing in the phonetic script, type a hyphen after the n. In other words, TAN renders as: TAN
which is essentially "ta" with "n" on the next syllable block. Meanwhile TAN-, renders as: TAN-
Thank you for reading my guide!
mi pana e pona tawa sina ale tan ni: sina lukin e lipu ni pi nasin kepeken. mipana epona- tawa- sinaale tanni. sinalukin elipuni pinasinkepeken