toki pona Unicode syllabary

A long time ago, I made a syllabary for toki pona.

Toki pona is well suited to a syllabary. Every syllable is [C]Vn, and only initial syllables omit the consonent. But if I were to make a font of my syllabary, I might as well use tengwar, which is prettier:

Or just straight up use a font that turns toki pona words into ligatures that are the official glyphs.

I want to write in toki pona and have it display on twitter and my phone and stuff. But have it be a syllabary instead of just using roman letters.

It can be done with unicode! It’s a pain. I don’t recommend it. But I do prefer it to the unicode solutions of using emoji or wingdings to emulate the glyphs or approximate Chinese glyphs.

Here is my solution. Consonant, combined with a diacritic representing the vowel, and a combining-mark underneath for the final nasal. I do not use the same consonants in the official roman orthography in all cases: I use ø when there is no initial consonant, and I have replaced all the consonants with risers or descenders so they don’t get in the way of my diacritical marks.

I also swapped ‘u’ for ‘w’ out of pure “I felt like it.”

Here ya go. Copy and paste these bad boys to write x̊ć o̊n̂ syllabically.

×	a	an	i	in	u	un	e	en	o	on
*	ø̂	ø̂͜	ǿ	ǿ͜	ø̆	ø̆͜	ø̇	ø̇͜	ø̊	ø̊͜
m	m̂	m̂͜	ḿ	ḿ͜	m̆	m̆͜	ṁ	ṁ͜	m̊	m̊͜
n	n̂	n̂͜	ń	ń͜	n̆	n̆͜	ṅ	ṅ͜	n̊	n̊͜
p	ô	ô͜	ó	ó͜	ŏ	ŏ͜	ȯ	ȯ͜	o̊	o̊͜
t	x̂	x̂͜			x̆	x̆͜	ẋ	ẋ͜	x̊	x̊͜
k	ĉ	ĉ͜	ć	ć͜	c̆	c̆͜	ċ	ċ͜	c̊	c̊͜
s	ŝ	ŝ͜	ś	ś͜	s̆	s̆͜	ṡ	ṡ͜	s̊	s̊͜
w	û	û͜	ú	ú͜			u̇	u̇͜
l	r̂	r̂͜	ŕ	ŕ͜	r̆	r̆͜	ṙ	ṙ͜	r̊	r̊͜
j	ı̂	ı̂͜			ı̆	ı̆͜	ı̇	ı̇͜	ı̊	ı̊͜

Yeah, I’m not really sure about this. There’s gotta be a better way.

(Just write the darn language out in the standard romanization!)

A better way that’s not that.

Advertisement

Some Pictures

Every now and again, I get it into my head to study Japanese. Probably going to start up again in the next couple of days.

I was digging through my backups for my handy dandy Japanese vocab flash cards, when I ran into some pictures I decided to show off. These are on the older side, but I’m still kinda sorta proud of ’em.

Here are enemies for an HD Jump the Shark game, animated using Spriter:

• 

• 

Here’s an early version of Lyzzor, intentionally trying to ape the style of Mike Mignola because Therians are super serious.

Here are some other Therian prototypes:

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Here’s the cast of Hi Polly!

How could I not include this, the moment when I finally started to grasp animation:

Once upon a time, I was planning to be a youtuber, but instead of showing my face, I’d have a 3D modeled animated transforming wasp. It’s a play on the fact that I’m Anglo-Saxon and Protestant.

Once upon a different time, I was making a game in XNA about a dragon fighting aliens. Spaz was the initial design for Crossover Arcade’s animal mascot, though that role was eventually usurped by Jump the Shark because Jump is funnier..

I like to rate things on a scale of -1 to 2. -1 means actively bad, 0 means meh, 1 means I like it, 2 means I really like it. Use this rating in five or so categories, and you’ve got a -5 to 10 total rating scale. Of course, on that scale 5 is solid, so it doesn’t scale to what people expect.

• 

• 

• 

• 

Well, that’s about all.

I may need this later.

Previously, I have dived into the intersection of three theories of learning. The intersection is the Grammar Stage of the Trivium: the part where you put data into your head so that you will later learn to connect it (Logic) and deploy it (Rhetoric).

There’s a couple of reasons I’m interested in this. Partly because there are a lot of things I wish to learn, and not much time. Partly because I’m teaching my own offspring, and benefit from doing so efficiently.

Anyway, here’s a link to an article I haven’t read yet on how to effectively use a Spaced Repetition System. If it’s everything it promises to be or more, it will meaningfully alter how I teach myself and others. If not, not.

However, I’ve no time to read it at present. It’s time to dive into Vargenstone again..

Existential Horror in Media

• 

• 

Been trying to sculpt a piqha on this day of rest. Realistic enough to get the idea across, although realism will seldom be anywhere near a concern in official media.

My constant debate — should they have hands or not? has taken on a third possibility: hands that rest folded back, like a bird’s wings.

Not necessarily inspired by the fact that I’ve received a cockatiel for Christmas.

If this looks horrifying, it should. Piqha are the result of terrible deeds done with dark sciences.

But it’s hardly their fault, and they are super cute.

Goofing around

• 

• 

• 

Today is Sunday. Sunday I goof around. The other post I did today is work, but I didn’t do the work today, I did it yesterday.

My work on Alpha Test/ Retro Reboot still calls to me in other ways. Why not make a comic strip, even if it’s not pixel art? Why not just draw it? Why not prototype stuff in this manner? So today I tested a process for hand drawing a strip in this fashion and… I don’t really like what came out.

But I didn’t put a lot of effort into it either. I wonder what it would look like if I tried to make a book or two worth of stuff in this way.

Well, maybe I’ll find out some other day.

IP

I like to post pictures as I make a painting on the Twitter and then look at how things have changed over the course of a piece, but I’m not doing Twitter this month.

So, here. I got a late start.

Studying this picture by some guy with more skillz than me:

And, here’s the sketch, only I’ve already started turning it into a painting.

And later…

I think I’m gonna take a break, get everyone brunch, and come back to it with fresh eyes.

Update

Think I’ll call this good for now, maybe revisit it next week.

Saw this floating about in the wild.

Pixar’s rules of storytelling? I like Pixar. They are good at what they do. And they do is a heartwarming repetition of the Hollywood 3-Act that is fun on the surface, but turns into existential horror if you think about it too long.

All razzing on craftsman who have actually built something aside, I think there’s some actual value here.

Piqha Card

A bit of a write up on the Piqha from the List of Projects.

It all started with the first video game I made. It was called Win Dozer. You had a bulldozer-shaped space ship, and you shot down the windows logo. Very edgy. Anti Microsoft. Wasn’t I the 1337 h4x0r.

Made in Microsoft Visual Basic for Microsoft Windows 95. Self awareness fail.

Here’s a panel from the story screens, with a modern remake underneath because I’m just as bad as Hollywood.

I called the creatures “scuzzies” at the time. Later I would rename them piqha. I’m not sure why. I like the name. It fits. And I like the letter Q.

A Brief(?) Write-Up of Re-Tail

Scott Adams posits six dimensions of humor. People find something humorous if it is:

• Clever (e.g. a pun or wordplay)
• Cute
• Bizarre
• Familiar
• Naughty
• Cruel

Not everyone finds all six dimensions funny. In fact, most people are only amused by one or two of the dimensions, and some people have no sense of humor at all, relying instead on social cues to know when to laugh (which is why laugh tracks on sitcoms are a thing).

A professional joke tries to hit at least two dimensions. To be cute and bizarre, or naughty and clever, or familiar and cruel. The more the better. A superb example:

Clever (a pun), Bizarre, and Naughty. Arguably, it is also Cruel.

A professional humorist tries to hit all six over the course of several jokes, and accepts that most of his jokes won’t hit with most of his audience, but everyone in the audience will remember one or two that cater to his tastes.

Naturally, a comic strip is well advised to bake in as many of these factors as possible.

I’m going to show you how the pros do it, and then you’ll be set to understand the concept of Re-Tail.

This week in making Kids’ books:

Having converted to the deck box method of making books, this week’s goal is to continue to seed my box. At least a couple of cards each day.

On the theory that Awesome Moments is the cluster most likely to be harvested next, and having done some “3D sketches” to get my knack back:

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Each day, after seeding my deck, I intend to complete or retopo a sculpt to build up a library of pieces to use in future books. And I think I’ve worked out a guiding principle. I decided to post a challenge to teh twitterz (sic):