toki a

This is my nasin for writing toki-pona. My nasin includes things meant for better typesetting, improved readability of text, and preserving the generally artistic nature of toki-pona whether that is in sitelen-pona or sitilen Lasina.

ala la

Most of the readability that I talk about boils down to “put stuff that’s similar together”. When dealing with multiple subjects, several headnouns or verbs, your text might get cluttered and you might end up with a huge paragraph of text. This can be readable, but it doesn’t have to be this way. Specially in sitelen-pona where horizontal and vertical spaces and symmetry are significant to the piece of text you are writing about.

wan la

Let’s see an example of using la.

ma ali la
    jan li lon.

When using la, I have found text to be a lot more readable when the next piece of text is on the next line and indented to the right.

You should also do this when using ni.

mi kama sona e ni:
    ma ali la
        jan li lon.

Here I inserted a colon : after the ni. I don’t find this necessary for readability but it makes the text look more formal in my opinion. Use it as you deem necessary.

NOTE: When writing ni in sitelen-pona you should use the directional ni.

ni should point in the direction to what you are referring to. This becomes specially helpful in sentences where you want to talk about “this” and “that” but can only use ni.

tu la

Let’s see an example using en.

mi kama sona e ni:
    ma ali la
           jan
        en soweli
        en waso
        en kala
        en kasi li lon.

When using en, try aligning each occurrence of en with each other. Another example of this can be,

mi kama sona e ni:
    ma ali la
        jan    en
        soweli en
        waso   en
        kala   en
        kasi   li lon.

This looks way better is sitelen-pona

This lets the reader simply glance over all the headnouns and find the important parts of the sentence easier.

You can do this with anu too:

> ma ali la
>         jan li lon
>     anu soweli li lon
>     anu waso li lon
>     anu kala li lon
>     anu kasi li lon

This sentence, has a different meaning, and also feels a lot different.

tu wan la

When using ni,

lipu ni: mi sitelen nasin lon toki pona.

n la
    o lukin e ni:
           mi kepeken linluwi leko
        en mi kama sona e ni:
            ma ali la
                    jan li lon
                anu soweli li lon
                anu waso li lon
                anu kala li lon
                anu kasi li lon.

    ni li nasin mi:
        mi kepeken nimi La la
            mi kepeken weka.
            mi kepeken toki mi.
        mi toki e ni:
            te ma ali la
                jan li lon to.
        mi kepeken nimi En

n la
    sina kepeken nimi En la
        tenpo linja pini la
               sina sitelen weka
            en sina sitelen nimi En
            en sina sitelen nimi wile.

n la
    sina kepeken nimi Pi la
           sina kepeken sitelen "("
        en sina kepeken sitelen ")".