nnw

toki pona translator for The Elemental Trials :3 (he/him) ∮ pfp and banner art drawn by @moth-to-a-moon !

[nnwmjw]

I guess I should introduce myself.

Hi! I'm nnw (pronounced [ˈnaːnaw], NAA-naw (but like, the w is pronounced separately from the a, not as an aw digraph) or [noːn], NAWN), also known as jan Non, but feel free to call me Kayden if you like (not my real name). I'm a huge toki pona and general linguistics nerd. I'm working with @moth-to-a-moon on his series called The Elemental Trials as a toki pona translator :P. I'm also in the process of teaching toki pona to Moth right now! (It's going great). I'm probably not going to be super active (I only made this account to see stuff relating to The Elemental Trials really), but I may post the occasional project I'm working on such as my conlang l'j̋ (pronounced [ɬa.ʔa.ʔi]), toki pona translations of things, my attempts at drawing shit (I'm not good at it), and who knows, maybe even other nerdy shit. Uhh yeah. Idfk what else to say so... Bye

[nnwmjw]

Finding towns that look roughly like their country borders is fun

Świnoujście in Poland

Nižný Slavkov in Slovakia

[nnwmjw]

Let me explain where the name "Iwenu" and it's name glyph came from in @utala-pi-ijo-nasa chapter 7.

In the English translation, the mountain is called "Jagged Tooth", so you'd expect the name to be something like "nena Take Tu" or something, but since "Jagged Tooth" is just an English phrase, they wouldn't have come up with that name in a toki pona only environment. So I had to think of something else.

I asked @moth-to-a-moon why it was called "Jagged Tooth", to which he told me that it was someone else's - @red-leaves-of-autumn's - idea, and that it was because mountains, especially ones with multiple peaks, tend to look like teeth. Because of this, I translated the name as "nena pi kiwen uta" (mountain of teeth). Can you see it? kiwen uta?

That's not the end though. I decided that it was most likely so long ago that this name was created that the modern spoken form of toki pona hadn't evolved yet; so kiwen uta became *xiven *wuča. I don't have a reason exactly for why the sounds became the sounds they did, but that's just how I did it (this was 3 months ago that I did this, so I might just not remember). I then took *xiven *wuča and pretended as if it went through multiple sound changes (no idea which ones lol) to become Iwenu (we will ignore the fact that /x/ became /k/ in modern toki pona but not in this name for some reason).

Now for the name glyph.

Since the name is ancient, I thought to make the name glyph derived from sitelen sitelen, since - in my toki pona head canon - sitelen sitelen is the ancient script that eventually evolved into the sitelen pona we know today. Because of this, I took the sitelen sitelen for pi kiwen uta and simplified it in a somewhat cursive style to get the first itteration of the name glyph:

sitelen sitelen generated via this website.

So this was the original name glyph, but that's not the version seen in the final, is it? The modern name glyph is taken directly from this glyph, but modified to make it seem more "sitelen pona-y":

[revived-crows]

Alright so, I'm not super pleased or happy to say this, but that one time I left for two weeks is going to happen again. This should hopefully be the last time it happens for a while though.

I need you all to be very patient while I'm gone, and please keep a level head if something goes sideways like last time. I'm not going to do anything to hurt myself while I'm gone, I'm certainly not going to try to commit suicide or anything; I just need you all to trust that I'll be back in about 14 or so days.

If anything happens to any accounts I have, I was not involved in it, and you should try to calm down and remember that I don't want to leave forever, and don't want to abandon anyone.

I love all of you and I really hope I'll be back soon.

[nnwmjw]

Understood 🫡 sina o lon pona (lit. "exist well, you"). I guess this means I'll only have 6 toki pona students for a while

[lemoncakedoodles]

This came to me in a vision

Edit: when a silly little meme I thought of in 5 seconds gets more notes than any of my art 😭 Not complaining though. The masses love transfem Jax.

[nnwmjw]

Conscripts are hard

I'm already at over 255 characters ; ;

(If y'all want me to share more about this writing system I'm making, just ask!)

[revived-crows]

[nnwmjw]

Legitimately, the screenshot doesn't even contain 1/8 of all the characters

[nnwmjw]

Conscripts are hard

I'm already at over 255 characters ; ;

(If y'all want me to share more about this writing system I'm making, just ask!)

[ikimaru]

the two old pics I finished up last summer! 🧡💚

[the-elemental-trials]

update

i know the chapter is really late. i got obsessed with a different thing please bare with me it's gonna get a bit slow for a while

[nnwmjw]

I wonder what that thing could've been…

[ikimaru]

my friend said I should post this.....

[nnwmjw]

okay but why is Jax kinda like...

[the-elemental-trials]

Chapter 6.9

NOT CANON!!!

Directed by @jannnw

I know the 'j' in jan is capitalised. I did that because it's funny don't attack me Toki Pona speakers

Rest under cut

i coloured this whole thang in ONE DAY

[nnwmjw]

I feel I should mention that I was never asked about nor told about the fact that "jan nnw" would be capitalised (also I don't use the name "jan nnw" - I use "jan Non" - but I'll give it a pass since it was my Tumblr handle at the time). I do not agree with this choice, and I don't really think it's "funny", more just annoying. Not tryna start drama (I doubt this would even begin drama anyways, but just to be sure), I just felt like I should voice my thoughts somewhere

/nm btw

[watermelonolemretaw]

translating things into toki pona is so serotonin-inducing because you have to ask yourself "how the hell do i translate snake" and your brain just goes "it's a string lizard. obviously"

[revived-crows]

@jannnw

[nnwmjw]

STRING LIZARD

mi olin e akesi linja <3

But this is so real; I love translating into toki pona because it's always so silly all the time, especially things that are supposed to be serious, like smut

o pana e palisa unpa tawa mi ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[nnwmjw]

toki pona self-referential sentence

toki ni li jo e kalama pini mute luka tu e kalama open mute luka tu wan

Translation: This sentence (in toki pona) has 27 consonants and 28 vowels.

I spent way to long on this ; ;

[revived-crows]

Oh my god how do I read tHIS

[nnwmjw]

toki ni (this speech) li jo (has) e kalama pini (consonant sound aka "close sound") mute luka tu (27, aka 20+5+2) e kalama open (vowels aka "open sound") mute luka tu wan (28, aka 20+5+2+1). The duplicated e means there's multiple objects, so it somewhat serves as "and" in this situation

[nnwmjw]

toki pona self-referential sentence

toki ni li jo e kalama pini mute luka tu e kalama open mute luka tu wan

Translation: This sentence (in toki pona) has 27 consonants and 28 vowels.

I spent way to long on this ; ;

[utala-pi-ijo-nasa]

ijo lili nanpa... jaki

[nnwmjw]

y'all have NO IDEA how long it took me to translate Peak's dialogue into isipin epiku for this April Fool's chapter; please read it so my time is validated ; ;

[nnwmjw]

This is just blatantly wrong lmao; I joined on November 27th of last year

[nnwmjw]

I gotta go to Mercury now