Most of these are in nasin luka.
jan jan
Probably my most famous deviation, since I keep getting pinged on discord about it, usually captioned with "Tonpite".I draw jan with eyes and curved shoulders.
The curved shoulders are just a simplification, since i can get them looking better more consistently than straight lines. It resembles the shoulders of typical default profile pictures on social media.
The eyes are philosophical: to me, they represent being alive. All sorts of other living glyphs get eyes, but for some reason, not jan. This isn't the same reasoning as kala without eyes. With blind kala, it's more that fish aren't seen as "alive" but more as food, prizes, resources. Even if they are still living creatures.
However, the reasoning for blind jan, I believe, is more about "separation" from "other animals": There is something about being a person, a human, that is so different from being an animal (mammal, reptile, bug, even fish), that it has to deviate from the rest to show this distinction. "We are not animals." I don't believe in that. I think humans are on the same level as other animals. They have the same eyes as everything else that lives in this world.
kala kala
I use the typical alt of kala with eyes. I think fish are just as living (and not resources) as other animals.Additionally, I use a simplification of the fin to make it easier to write consistently. I draw the body first as an oval, then the fin as a triangle.
living mani
A semantic alt for consistency.In certain cases, mani can mean "large domesticated animal" or "bovine", without implying that it is currency. This is a rare meaning, but one that crops up from time to time (such as in "soweli mani" when referring to cows)
When mani does mean this, then I would draw mani with eyes, similar to every other living word. Other times, when it simply means "money", then I would draw mani without the eyes.
nasa nasa
Sometimes i just write it upside down. Bit nasa, isn't it?
tomo tomo
For recognisability and easier to draw without becoming a lump of lines to me.I draw tomo with a distinct roof, that pokes out and has a roofline. This gives it a striking shape and helps me distinguish it from other boxish or kiki shapes like kiwen, lipu, poki, kule, pimeja, walo...
seme seme
To distinguish seme from the question mark, I draw it with a donut rather than a full circle.Influence came from sitelen pona pona, alongside other similar attempts to distinguish seme from ? and also because of wanting to clarify sentences that use "anu" without actually questioning.
ilo+sona kama+jo jan+sin pana+sona anu+seme telo+nasa Compounding
When i compound, i try to combine the glyphs into a pleasant hybrid/chimera form, so they are one. I merge squares with squares, attach kama/tawa/awen legs, place things inside other things freely, replace a component of one glyph with the other glyph, and add hints of one glyph to another, such as the curliness of nasa to the telo of telo+nasa.Yes, sometimes this does make you confused about which part is the head. But i ONLY compound for CALCIFICATIONS. Even if the glyph reads like "musi kalama", you get the gist of it purely by being a compound glyph AND a common calcified noun.
soto teje soto and teje
I draw them with arrows instead of dots, to emphasize their directionality.
api api
I invented this cute alt, and prefer it to the other alts of api. It might look like silapa though. But silapa is an evil force that should be ignored for all intents and purposes. Bees are better than giraffes.
konwe konwe
Following the convention of eyes to mean living, I draw konwe as ijo+eyes. "Something alive". This also connects it to the similar word "ka" from tuki tiki, drawn identically in titi tiki.This also makes its meaning derivable from appearance and avoids arbitrarily being synecdoche'd with Conway's game of life the same way the glider glyph does. In a metaphor: it is kon wile, rather than Conway.
nalanja nalanja
"kule seli" for orange makes more sense to me than "kule kili".Fires and warm things tend to be warm colors, usually orange.
Fruit and offspring in general have wildly varying colors, only some of which are orange, let alone warm colors.
owe owe
I add an audience of towards-eye-facing jan, just like in the Apple commercial.I think it helps indicate the meaning of owe, as forceful obediance and authoritarianism. The people must look at and listen to Big Brother.
nele3 nele2 nele
It feels like I've taken these from elsewhere, but as far as I know, I invented the "len open" and "len ala" alts of nele.I think these make more immediate sense than len upside down.
pika2 pika
This one didn't have an agreed-upon glyph when I wanted to implement it into nasin luka, so I invented this electric plug. I think it looks nice, equally as nice as the thunderbolt pika.Semantically, I think pika implies uncontrolled electricity (thunderbolts, shocks) and pika2 implies controlled and harnessed electricity (power, batteries, cables)
This somehow got into Fairfax and SSK. Looks like I'm moving up in the world.
kulijo2 kulijo
A legacy alt. This one didn't have an agreed-upon glyph when I wanted to implement it into nasin luka, so I invented this thumbs-up.I don't quite like it (it's kinda hard to write and hard to recognize) and prefer the kulijo+emitters glyph even though it's such an english calque
This somehow got into Fairfax and SSK. Looks like I'm moving up in the world.
tokana2 tokana
A legacy alt. This one didn't have an agreed-upon glyph when I wanted to implement it into nasin luka, so I invented this crosshair.Historically, it used to also have diagonal lines attached, but those were removed for simplification and making it easier to see as a crosshair.
Although it's very literal, I think the newer magnifying glass glyph is much nicer and clearer and easier to write, and also gives other meanings to the meaning "focus", like zooming in/out, or importance. This somehow got into Fairfax and SSK. Looks like I'm moving up in the world.
lanpan4 lanpan
Trying to steal the linja suwi "kasi lanpan", I accidentally invented this lanpan alt instead. To me, it kinda looks like a rotated version of someone holding something in their shoulder.
That's kinda nice. But I still prefer flipped-pana lanpan.
wi wi
Legacy alt. This wi makes no sense, because it's mi+sina, while wi EXCLUDES sina. Just use the doubled and backwards mi glyph.
we we (particle)
To distinguish it from an ellipsis, I add an arrow to the last dot. I think that is nice, because it ties into the ni+colon method of attaching sentences to eachother.
Pingo Pingo
Cute drawing of a car, rather than the boring and unclear letter P.
tona tona
Drawing of an ink quill, rather than kule+emitters.This links it to ink and writing in general, rather than just being a silly spoonerism word (poki tona). (Which it IS, but I like putting EFFORT into my nimi sin shitposts.)