jan Ante: intenasijonale

Aug 2, 2012

artwork by jan Ante, from his translation of L’Internationale

Intenasijonale pi jan Ante

This is jan Ante’s sitelen sitelen using his own translation of L’Internationale. I always found this to be an interesting take on how to organize sitelen glyphs.

jan Ante isn’t much of a fan of my using a simple container for li, I think he finds it too plain, and so he looked for alternative ways of splitting the subject from the object. In this piece he used the vertical red band as the li, and has placed the subject of each sentence on the left and the verbs and direct objects on the right.

One interesting thing this sets up is the implicit li in all sentences. All of the sentences with mi as a subject locate the mi on the left of the red bar, and the rest of the sentence on the right. Also notice how the imperative o is place on the left. Methods like these for creating meaning through relational positions are what made me interested in developing sitelen sitelen in the first place.

Originally he made it as a downloadable powerpoint with separate pages, but I’ve stitched them together here into one long vertical scroll.

jan Ante also put this together based on a slightly earlier version of his translation, here is a copy of the version above with the newer lines added to the right in parenthesis:

o kama jan pali o kama o kama tawa utala (o utala lon nasin sin!) mi pilin sama nena seli tan ni: jan mani li lon ma (tan ni: jan mani li lon kin.) mi o utala e nasin mani, o sin e jan, o sin e ma jan pali kin li kama suli ona li jo e pan e ma

ni li utala pini tan ni la jan li lon ma Intenasijonale jan pona sin li lon

o awen ala pona sewi (o awen ala tawa pona) o awen ala pona jan (tan sewi anu lawa jan) o kepeken e wawa sona e sona pi kulupu jan mi o pakala e lawa ike o kama jo e ijo mi mi kepeken e wawa seli tawa jan lawa ike kin

ni li utala pini tan ni la jan li lon ma Intenasijonale jan pona sin li lon

jan pali taso li ken pana e ijo pona tawa ma jan mani li ken moku taso e ijo pona pi jan ma tenpo suno wan la nasin mani li pini pakala e ma tan ni la suno li ken pana e seli pona tawa jan

ni li utala pini tan ni la jan li lon ma Intenasijonale jan pona sin li lon

L’Internationale

For a little background, The Internationale was originally written in French in 1871 by the French poet and socialist Eugène Pottier. It has been translated into dozens of languages and used as a rallying song an official anthem of many socialist movements and parties. Check this site out for audio recordings of The Internationale. Last I counted he had versions of the song in 50 languages! Anyone want to make a toki pona recording, and bring it up to 51?