Inkling: The Language of Splatoon

[PiyozR]

Wouldn't Stay Fresh be pronounced: oyo oei

No, /gu ujo o e i/ is right. "Gooyo" as "stay" or "remain" or "keep" and "O-ay-ee" as the literal word for "fresh" and the more informal for "cool" or "dope" or "sick". This can be seen on my attached sheet for some more starter Inkling phrases. This time if includes some punctuation.

Second we have a new set of numbers. I should mention that Inkling builds numbers ten through ninety-nine by simply putting the two numbers next to each other. Nineteen is "one nine" and twenty-seven is "two seven".

Third is a bit on the words used to write questions in Inkling. Obvious note: these words can also be used as conjunctions between clauses in any kind of sentence. For example, "Tomorrow is WHEN I am going." "That is the reason WHY I am calling." "This is HOW he makes it."

Fourth are a few more verbs. Because you can never have enough.

Last is my long-awaited introduction to Inkling grammar! Included here is how to create a negation, how to tell time, how to form a question fragment, how to distinguish past tense, future tense, and present progressive. Tenses are similar to English except that you add a word onto the end of a verb to denote tense instead of conjugating it in some special way. I included a few examples to help clarify.

Please please please let me know if any of this is unclear or difficult to read. Some of it may be crammed together. I spent hours writing it out and editing it, yet all these scans always seem to look like crap.

 

[OctagonalKahn]

No, /gu ujo o e i/ is right. "Gooyo" as "stay" or "remain" or "keep" and "O-ay-ee" as the literal word for "fresh" and the more informal for "cool" or "dope" or "sick". This can be seen on my attached sheet for some more starter Inkling phrases. This time if includes some punctuation.

Thanks for correcting me, my bad!

 

[DakotaBonez]

V Dojo Pic V

Spoiler

What program are y'all using to convert the vectors into a font?
Also, what does the orange sign up top say based on what has been discovered so far? Yo, Zapfish?

 

[Poltersquid]

V Dojo Pic V

Spoiler

What program are y'all using to convert the vectors into a font?
Also, what does the orange sign up top say based on what has been discovered so far? Yo, Zapfish?

its been determined that most of the text in game is gibberish

 

[Jason Tremble]

V Dojo Pic V

Spoiler

What program are y'all using to convert the vectors into a font?
Also, what does the orange sign up top say based on what has been discovered so far? Yo, Zapfish?

That sign doesn't really translate into anything coherent, as well as the glyphs that look like a 3 and an upside-down question mark not being in the alphabet/punctuation. Pretty much the only glyphs in there that can be translated into something currently is the third glyph, which can translate to "if" or "he/she/it" and is pronounced as "zoi". The 5th and 8th glyphs also don't have a pronunciation associated with them yet.
Below are the pronunciations for this. (Excluding glyphs 3,4,8, and 9.)

 

[PiyozR]

Tonight's progress:

I have a system for telling the date by year, month, and day. Not sure how useful it is for a game that happens thousands of years in the future, but here you are. You can also talk about people's ages, issue commands to team mates, and express yourself with even more useful Inkling expressions included our very first Inkling swear word! Truly we have reached the pinnacle.

No, seriously, I'm not sure what to do next. I'm going to edit my blog post with all this stuff now that it's done. Where do we go from here? When the font is done, we can start typing and creating banners, sigs, and all manner of Inkling typography. Beyond that, I'm thinking of making our work here available to the rest of the world (read: those who aren't following this thread). What if I made some YouTube videos in which I talk through this alphabet and explain some of the grammar? I will probably start out with some little comic to introduce it or something. I dunno. What do you guys think? How should we let the world know what we're creating?

 

[aggravatedTranscription]

How should we let the world know what we're creating?

First off, I don't think we're quite done yet for some reason. It just feels incomplete at this stage. Just a gut feeling. But to address your concerns of letting the world know, we could make the Inkling version of foreign language textbooks, so that people can follow along and learn.

 

[Commander Fresh]

inb4 Aquaman shows up and proves everybody wrong.

 

[eli]

inb4 Aquaman shows up and proves everybody wrong.

who? what

What program are y'all using to convert the vectors into a font?

I'm using RoboFont, but there are many alternatives. Also, I'm re-doing many of the vectors so far, as the ones in the Squid Sisters song/in some screenshots aren't exactly all in the character list we've established…

 

[Poltersquid]

Tonight's progress:

I have a system for telling the date by year, month, and day. Not sure how useful it is for a game that happens thousands of years in the future, but here you are. You can also talk about people's ages, issue commands to team mates, and express yourself with even more useful Inkling expressions included our very first Inkling swear word! Truly we have reached the pinnacle.

No, seriously, I'm not sure what to do next. I'm going to edit my blog post with all this stuff now that it's done. Where do we go from here? When the font is done, we can start typing and creating banners, sigs, and all manner of Inkling typography. Beyond that, I'm thinking of making our work here available to the rest of the world (read: those who aren't following this thread). What if I made some YouTube videos in which I talk through this alphabet and explain some of the grammar? I will probably start out with some little comic to introduce it or something. I dunno. What do you guys think? How should we let the world know what we're creating?

I feel the youtube videos would help establish publicity, but in terms of having the info easily available, I think a small website would work best, like a google site.

 

[Joseph Staleknight]

Yeah, I agree. YouTube can help the publicity, and we can set up a Google site or something like that for the actual info.

That said, I was wondering if we could also do something like "Teach Yourself Inkling" as a PDF for those on the go. It would certainly help as a reference.

 

[Chocoling]

This thread should be pinned, its full of really amazing stuff and the motivation you guys have to create the language is very cool. Hopefully one day we can all type in Inkling :P

 

[Lily]

Any linguists in the house? I've been wondering about about the language that has been depicted throughout the world of Splatoon. Mostly curious about the orthography since we haven't really heard the language except for maybe a bit in the music.

First of all, is there any structure to the written language? If someone can confirm that it is all made up nonsense then this thread can be abandoned.

Until then, I'd like to know what people think about "Inklanese" and it's inclusion within the overall aesthetic of the game. I myself haven't looked into it much but I really hope that it is interpretable. That would be inkredible attention to detail on the developers' part.

Edit: The official Tumblr calls the language "Inkling" so that is what we'll go with if we discuss any further developments.

This game was made in Japan and translated into English, meaning the Inkling language is most definitely based primarily on the Japanese language. This means that it will be extremely difficult for someone who does not decently speak Japanese to decipher this "language," and that it may take a large group of people to figure it out.

Since Inkling is based on Japanese, there will be no "alphabet" like in the English language, which forces us English-speaking individuals even FARTHER from figuring out the truth behind this made-up language.

I'm afraid there may not be much we can do, but I sure hope somebody figures it out!

 

[Poltersquid]

This game was made in Japan and translated into English, meaning the Inkling language is most definitely based primarily on the Japanese language. This means that it will be extremely difficult for someone who does not decently speak Japanese to decipher this "language," and that it may take a large group of people to figure it out.

Since Inkling is based on Japanese, there will be no "alphabet" like in the English language, which forces us English-speaking individuals even FARTHER from figuring out the truth behind this made-up language.

I'm afraid there may not be much we can do, but I sure hope somebody figures it out!

youre a little late, we have determined the actual language is gibberish and are just making our own

 

[gocrazy432]

You guys are making your own language/transliteration. So things that seem to be transliterations like "dog", "cat", "on air" etc will no longer be transliterations but become gibberish sounding "Unofficial Squidboards Inklish"?

 

[MissingNumbers]

You guys are making your own language/transliteration. So things that seem to be transliterations like "dog", "cat", "on air" etc will no longer be transliterations but become gibberish sounding Unofficial Inklish?

It's not exactly gibberish, it's coherent if you're paying close attention to the lessons.
Which I will admit that I'm having difficulty with, despite my deep interest in using the language.

 

[gocrazy432]

inb4 Aquaman shows up and proves everybody wrong.

who? what

Aquaman is supposed to understand all sea creature's languages. Thus he would be proving us wrong that Inkling in game is not nonesense.

 

[Ao Ika]

(FIRST POST WOOP WOOP. I made this account to reply to this.)
I've noticed in pop the lyrics often include English words thrown in there. It seems that the Inkling language is actually Japanese, (albeit with a rather thick squid accent;) whether gobbledygook or intelligible. Whatever the case, the style of the Squid Sisters' music seems to be similar to Japanese pop idol music.

 

[Poltersquid]

for the tenth time, we've already figured out the real language is gibberish, and are making a fan language

 

[Commander Fresh]

(FIRST POST WOOP WOOP. I made this account to reply to this.)
I've noticed in pop the lyrics often include English words thrown in there. It seems that the Inkling language is actually Japanese, (albeit with a rather thick squid accent;) whether gobbledygook or intelligible. Whatever the case, the style of the Squid Sisters' music seems to be similar to Japanese pop idol music.

Many people seem to think that their language in the Squid Sisters' song sounds Japanese, but being able to speak the language like a true anime character (or a weaboo), the pronunciation and speech patterns sound anything but Japanese for the vast majority of that song. If you ask me, it sounds very, very Korean. Trust me, I've listened to Gangnam Style a lot, and I was bullied by some Korean kids once, so I am an expert in Korean listening-but-not-actually-able-to skills. The credits version of that song also sounds vaguely like Mandarin Chinese at some points too. Seems to me like some sort of alliance conspiracy among the eastern Asian countries to attack the west with marine life (especially squids and Squidward).