The Fan Language of Splatoon

[RadioactiveMoth]

Originally, there was a thread trying to decipher the in-game language of Splatoon. However, it digressed into a fan language as most agreed that the in-game language was nonsense. So, to avoid confusion, we're starting a new thread about making the FAN language.

Here are the important links to the original thread. Big thanks to PiyozR for all the work he did on this.

PiyozR: http://squidboards.com/members/piyozr.4297/

Original thread: http://squidboards.com/threads/inkling-the-language-of-splatoon.195

PiyozR's Post with all the current information: http://www.raregamer.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?tid=204

PiyozR's Official Guide to the Unofficial Inkling Language: http://squidboards.com/threads/the-fan-language-of-splatoon.2914/page-2#post-61605

If you think something should be added to this, or if I missed something, just tell me, and I'll add it.

 

[VOX]

Thanks so much! The old thread was getting pretty confusing...

 

[Joseph Staleknight]

You missed one: http://squidboards.com/threads/inkling-the-language-of-splatoon.195/page-7#post-47239. Also, there's a duplicate set of links for the parts of speech.

Otherwise, this is looking awesome so far! Can't wait to see what else we can come up with!

 

[RadioactiveMoth]

You missed one: http://squidboards.com/threads/inkling-the-language-of-splatoon.195/page-7#post-47239. Also, there's a duplicate set of links for the parts of speech.

Otherwise, this is looking awesome so far! Can't wait to see what else we can come up with!

Thanks for the notice. Duplicate links are a problem with me, I don't know why.

 

[Rizz]

Perhaps we don't need so many links? It's fine to keep the ones we have, but PiyozR gave a link with all of this information in one page.
http://www.raregamer.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?tid=204

 

[RadioactiveMoth]

Perhaps we don't need so many links? It's fine to keep the ones we have, but PiyozR gave a link with all of this information in one page.
http://www.raregamer.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?tid=204

Forgot about that page. If he keeps updating it with all the information we get, I'll just put that instead.

 

[eli]

Posting here so I can get notifications. :)

 

[OctagonalKahn]

Posting for notifications, and we won't get people thinking that we have actually decoded the language :)

 

[MissingNumbers]

Well, at least we can try to make things organized for once. By which I mean the thread, of course.

 

[PiyozR]

That Rare Gamer post has everything on it. That's probably going to be a better resource than here. If anyone does want me to upload the original scans of all the stuff here, I can do that. The next step is to make an edumacational PDF of our work using eli's Inkling font. Then some YouTube videos for exposure. Anyone wanting to make a website or internet learning resources is welcome to suggest ideas.

In the meantime, my four-page comic is coming along well. Splendid, actually.

 

[Rizz]

That Rare Gamer post has everything on it. That's probably going to be a better resource than here. If anyone does want me to upload the original scans of all the stuff here, I can do that. The next step is to make an edumacational PDF of our work using eli's Inkling font. Then some YouTube videos for exposure. Anyone wanting to make a website or internet learning resources is welcome to suggest ideas.

In the meantime, my four-page comic is coming along well. Splendid, actually.

Ah, sweet! Good luck with the rest of your comic, dude.

Meanwhile, I'm thinking about how to teach others Inkling... There was this one website called TextFugu that taught me a bit of Japanese. I really liked their teaching style, especially the way they used mnemonics to help you remember the Japanese characters. I believe that's something that will really help a lot of people learn Inkling. They taught in a fun way, too.
Honestly, I'd like to create a learning guide sort of like that.

 

[RadioactiveMoth]

Glad to see Piyoz is here. I wanted to get started on this since I had been looking through some stuff on his master post. I had noticed that there was an inconsistency with his term for "Squid Sisters". It doesn't have his word for squid in it. I thought it would be good to have a single word for most things, and avoid unnecessary synonyms (at least for now) so that it is a more clear and simple language. Someone should probably make a list of common words we should have in Inkling.

EDIT: Looking at it now, he also doesn't have the word "ink" in "inkopolis".

Also thought of a few questions.

Should this language have upper and lower case letters?

Should this language use characters to write out proper English nouns (names, real life cities, etc.) like how Japanese uses katakana, or should it come up with new names?

 

[Poltersquid]

That Rare Gamer post has everything on it. That's probably going to be a better resource than here. If anyone does want me to upload the original scans of all the stuff here, I can do that. The next step is to make an edumacational PDF of our work using eli's Inkling font. Then some YouTube videos for exposure. Anyone wanting to make a website or internet learning resources is welcome to suggest ideas.

In the meantime, my four-page comic is coming along well. Splendid, actually.

Once we have the font, I know a conlang wiki we can put the info on, and ofc we can set up a google site to put all the info in a convenient location

 

[PiyozR]

Meanwhile, I'm thinking about how to teach others Inkling... There was this one website called TextFugu that taught me a bit of Japanese. I really liked their teaching style, especially the way they used mnemonics to help you remember the Japanese characters. I believe that's something that will really help a lot of people learn Inkling. They taught in a fun way, too.
Honestly, I'd like to create a learning guide sort of like that.

Someone in the other thread suggested a site called Memrise. It sounds pretty neat, and it's free. Hopefully the user who set that up can help us make Inkling lessons.

Glad to see Piyoz is here. I wanted to get started on this since I had been looking through some stuff on his master post. I had noticed that there was an inconsistency with his term for "Squid Sisters". It doesn't have his word for squid in it. I thought it would be good to have a single word for most things, and avoid unnecessary synonyms (at least for now) so that it is a more clear and simple language. Someone should probably make a list of common words we should have in Inkling.

EDIT: Looking at it now, he also doesn't have the word "ink" in "inkopolis".

Also thought of a few questions.

Should this language have upper and lower case letters?

Should this language use characters to write out proper English nouns (names, real life cities, etc.) like how Japanese uses katakana, or should it come up with new names?

The Inkling name for the Squid Sisters simply doesn't have the word for "squid" in it. I just used the letters on the Squid Sisters logo. As for "Inkopolis", I used one of the words on the Inkopolis Tower for that. They still read and sound pretty natural imo.

Inkling does not have upper and lower case. All it has are more proper serif glyphs and less formal non-serif glyphs.

I imagine that Inkling would typically come up with its own words when appropriating from other languages. If not, they simply write out the nearest approximation that they can. For example, part of my comic happens in Arowana Mall. Before the word for "mall" is /aje ɹo wa na/ because what else would it be? It's okay to play loose with these sorts of things. Languages are adaptable like that.

Once we have the font, I know a conlang wiki we can put the info on, and ofc we can set up a google site to put all the info in a convenient location

I imagine putting this on the Splatoon wiki might be a good place for Splatoon fans to check it out. Anyone willing to set up and maintain a goole site is also welcome to get that going.

 

[RadioactiveMoth]

The Inkling name for the Squid Sisters simply doesn't have the word for "squid" in it. I just used the letters on the Squid Sisters logo. As for "Inkopolis", I used one of the words on the Inkopolis Tower for that. They still read and sound pretty natural imo.

Hmm... Although I do want to take as many words as possible, I'm not sure if we should use them if they're compound words that don't contain the words being used in them. It's a preference of making the language easier to understand, or making it more accurate to the game.

 

[eli]

The next step is to make an edumacational PDF of our work using eli's Inkling font.

Not sure if my font will be entirely helpful – rather than using the vectors provided in the old thread, I vectorized the most prevalent inkling font in the game: the sort of rounded one seen in the Squid Sisters music video with Inkling subtitles, on the Splatfest Tees and some of the other gear, and in the Sunken Scrolls. I decided that was the "main" language and, as that writing system was the most predominant, I went with that one. Looked the coolest too, imo.


As an example, the font I'm working on is of the glyphset on the left. I will likely make one using the the right characters (more similar to what I think you guys are using) after/at some point soon. :)

 

[PiyozR]

Hmm... Although I do want to take as many words as possible, I'm not sure if we should use them if they're compound words that don't contain the words being used in them. It's a preference of making the language easier to understand, or making it more accurate to the game.

Very few words and phrases in-game seem to be tied to an in-game entity (e.g. rice, bread, dog, cat, Squid Sisters). For those few, I just copied the letters onto my notes and went from there. Accuracy isn't really important for a fan project. My thinking here is that it's not helpful to create words for Squid Sisters or Inkopolis based on the English names in the North American localization (or the original Japanese for that matter). We should be creating these not with the mindset of the English translations, but by what we imagine the Inklings would call these things.

From this point on, if we want to create more nouns, adjectives, or verbs, we should do it from scratch. I couldn't find any more Inkling nonsense, non-semantic letters in Splatoon that seemed associated with any one thing.

Not sure if my font will be entirely helpful – rather than using the vectors provided in the old thread, I vectorized the most prevalent inkling font in the game: the sort of rounded one seen in the Squid Sisters music video with Inkling subtitles, on the Splatfest Tees and some of the other gear, and in the Sunken Scrolls. I decided that was the "main" language and, as that writing system was the most predominant, I went with that one. Looked the coolest too, imo.

As an example, the font I'm working on is of the glyphset on the left. I will likely make one using the the right characters (more similar to what I think you guys are using) after/at some point soon. :)

My original thought was that the Inkling on the right (the squared and more detailed glyphs) were the more formal and the Inkling on the left (rounded and simpler) were the more informal. But meh. It's all the same language at the end of the day. In any case, I can't wait to see the font when it's done!

As for an edumacational PDF, how does one make those? Do we need your font, or those vectors in the old thread? What the heck are vectors, anyway?

In further news, I am now adding ink to my comics. Well I mean there's ink all over it, but I'm going to add the ink now. Uh...I mean the characters are shooting fictional ink all over the ground, but now I am using a pen to darken the pencil lines so that they scan well. Yeah, that's what I mean.

 

[Joseph Staleknight]

Looking forward to that finished comic, man!

Also, I know this is super-late but I decided to make a PDF of the glyphs arranged phonetically based on your values (rather than by numbers as in the old PDF). I split them across three pages, each dealing with a particular set of glyph systems (regular CV glyphs, VjV glyphs, and special VCV glyphs). Furthermore, I placed the variants below their relevant glyphs at quarter-size so that people can tell what certain other glyphs mean at a glance. Once we start making that language course it'll be helpful to show something compact and useful for quick reference.

 

[Rizz]

Someone in the other thread suggested a site called Memrise. It sounds pretty neat, and it's free. Hopefully the user who set that up can help us make Inkling lessons.

That was me, actually. I set up the Memrise page, but unfortunately, I don't think we can draw in the Inkling characters. I can try to figure it out, but realistically, I think making a google site or some other page with our own lesson plan would work out better.

 

[Topaz☆]

Hello! I've recently stumbled upon this thread, and I'd love to contribute in any way possible. I have experience with Photoshop, and I can help make vectors (resizable shapes) of all the characters. I can also help design lessons for the language, maybe like Rosetta Stone? Anyway, I look forward to developing this fan language!