sammsammulisi

Sammsammulisi is a term that appears in discussions of procedural description and instructional design to denote a recursive series of steps in which the same action is described and applied at multiple levels of detail. The device emphasizes iteration and refinement by presenting a macro step and then returning to it in progressively finer granularity.

The term seems to be a neologism rather than a widely established concept, likely inspired by languages and linguistic ideas that employ reduplication or compound phrasing. It has appeared in a range of niche publications and online discussions since the early 2020s, but there is no single authoritative etymology or formal definition accepted across disciplines. As such, its usage tends to be contextual and somewhat informal.

In practice, sammsammulisi can be used to structure explanations, tutorials, or procedures. Examples include presenting Step A, followed by A.1, A.1.1, and so on, where each substep reiterates the core action with additional parameters or conditions. It can also appear in documentation or pedagogy to reinforce learning through repetition at increasing levels of detail, or in narrative design to mirror a procedure within a story world.

Reception and status are varied: sammsammulisi remains relatively obscure and is not widely adopted as a standard concept in mainstream theory. It is sometimes described as a rhetorical or organizational device rather than a formal framework, used to convey iterative refinement or multi-layered guidance. See also iterative design, recursive procedures, and reduplication in language.