Inkling: The Language of Splatoon

[Erin [SF*]]

Maybe they just have different alphabets, like in actual Japanese?
Or these are used by the shrimps, or something else...

 

[pumpCurry]

Maybe they just have different alphabets, like in actual Japanese?
Or these are used by the shrimps, or something else...

yep,It selling in japan and may japanese edition. I have this CD too :)

-> see www.amazon.co.jp 's site

 

[R2D221]

Hi! I'm new to this community, and to Splatoon in general (I just bought the game last week), but I'm really fascinated about its worldbuilding, specially the written language.

First, I want to restate some things I grasped from reading the thread (please note that I have no experience in linguistics, just as a hobby). If there's something wrong, please correct me.

1. There's absolutely no conlang featured in Splatoon (boo! )
2. The spoken language is actual gibberish. I mean, pretty much every Nintendo game is like this. They use sounds vaguely reminiscent of a voice, but with no actual discernible pronunciation.
3. The written script (well, scripts, there are tons of them) has some regularity, with the characters themselves based on Latin, Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji, and the actual words based on English and Japanese (properly obfuscated).
4. The actual encoding techniques for the scripts are so varied and dependent on the situation (and sometimes just even copy-pasted, like the Warning text and Credits being similar) that an effort to decode all of them becomes pointless.
5. Due to all of this, some people decided to start an actual conlang based on the most common script found in the game.

So, with all that, there's no point in finding a language in the game, but there's something that I'm still curious about: the scripts themselves.

These are the scripts I've noticed that exist:

• The main Inkling script, found in places such as the Amiibo case, the Squid Sisters song subtitles, the Splatfest T-Shirts, etc. Yo know, the one with the heavy font. This one is based on the Latin script, and in cases such as Splatfest, can directly be transliterated to English.
• A signage script, used in the Exit and Warning titles, and in the nametags. This one is inspired by Japanese scripts (Hiragana? Katakana? I never know which is which), but apparently also transliterated from English (“Exit” and “Hello”).
• Some sort of Kanji, most prominently shown in the Kelp Dome.
• A squarish script, which I'm not sure if it's just a different font for the main script, or a different one altogether. This one is shown in the Sunken Scrolls in some newspaper article, besides other places.
• And the logos, but the logos are logos, which are heavily stylized.

And that's all I got.

Has any of you guys analyzed this aspect of the scripts? I've seen you gathered all the main script characters, but what about the other ones? Is there any list of the characters? Does anyone have any progress, or should I start gathering them from scratch?

 

[Zombie Aladdin]

Actually, I have since found no consistency in the Splatfest shirts or other instances of that font being used. Initial attempts at frequency analysis found some characters are used more often than others, but any sort of combination I tried it on, where I knew the messages were based on English, resulted in impossible consonant-vowel combinations.

After much effort, I have to conclude that either the written language is gibberish too, or there is no staff-wide key and everyone has his or her own key. Some people may have multiple keys too. It seems to simply be a character set created by the artists that is then used by other production staff members in any way they please, and unlike with Zelda or Final Fantasy, it was made with no intent to be cracked.

 

[R2D221]

Actually, I have since found no consistency in the Splatfest shirts or other instances of that font being used

But I found a pattern, which is basically the Rule of Cool (TV Tropes link). So, they're basically grabbing the glyphs that look the most similar to Latin letters, with no regards to consistent transliteration.

For example:

Here the symbols look like “CAT” and “DOG”.

And here the symbols look like “PIRATE” and “NINJA” (even when both Ns don't match)

And even in the most recent Squid Sisters concert:

There it clearly says “LIVE”, even if they are using the same glyph for the L as the glyph for the T in PIRATES.

It seems to simply be a character set created by the artists that is then used by other production staff members in any way they please, and unlike with Zelda or Final Fantasy, it was made with no intent to be cracked.

Of course, I don't want to crack it, since it's been proven that it's not its purpose. What I'm interested is in the symbols themselves. Like, create a list of all symbols that are used in the game (even if they have no meaning at all), and categorize them by script. Has this been done before?

 

[Zombie Aladdin]

Not every character set has been collected, but the main one, the thick-looking one you're using for your examples, has. To my knowledge, the ones imitating kanji has not (probably because it's incomplete), nor the Octarian character set (probably because a lot of people, having not played the single-player mode in a while, have forgotten about it). I also personally gathered every numeral in the font used for business and industrial purposes, as seen in places like Walleye Warehouse and Piranha Pit.

As you can see though, I approached this not as a different language, but as a code. I'm no good at linguistics, but I've done cryptanalysis in the past. Turns out there is no key, or so many keys as to be meaningless, and I was on a wild goose chase.

 

[R2D221]

Not every character set has been collected, but the main one, the thick-looking one you're using for your examples, has.

OK, cool, so I will start to collect the rest of them, and publish my progress here.

 

[pumpCurry]

OK, cool, so I will start to collect the rest of them, and publish my progress here.

hello,nice to meet you.
my friend collects squid letters, I want you to come to watch it :)
http://ikasekai.com/

can seek squid-letters(as イカ文字) http://ikasekai.com/trimeds_search/

 

[R2D221]

hello,nice to meet you.
my friend collects squid letters, I want you to come to watch it :)
http://ikasekai.com/

can seek squid-letters(as イカ文字) http://ikasekai.com/trimeds_search/

Thank you very much, this will be easier!

 

[Zombie Aladdin]

OK, cool, so I will start to collect the rest of them, and publish my progress here.

In that case, I look forward to any discoveries you've made. I've gotten as far as I could with what I know.

 

[R2D221]

I've decided to set up a Tumblr blog where I will post all my findings, since this thread is a mess. I included a couple introductory posts, where I give credit to all the work you guys have done.

http://splatoon-scripts.tumblr.com/

The relevant post right now would be this: http://splatoon-scripts.tumblr.com/post/141824764338/round-script . I've started collecting the script for the ON AIR sign. I hope to have a working font in the next days.

 

[R2D221]

I finished the round script, and I got a font already!

http://splatoon-scripts.tumblr.com/post/142209485103/version-01-of-the-round-script-from-splatoon-is

 

[R2D221]

I continue with the square script: http://splatoon-scripts.tumblr.com/post/142504434633/square-script

This one will be easy to convert to a font, it's just straight lines! :P

 

[FakeTanni]

hey guys, coming in from a different web forum where we were discussing the same topic matter, and so far we've attempted to translate the characters as best as we can off the squid jump minigame and the repeated characters in the plaza, heres where we're at so far:

hope you all find a use for this sad attempt at a translation, happy hunting!

Could you perhaps link the other forum? :0

 

[CapBoyAce]

Guys, I'm just wondering... I've only seen page 2, but what if this isn't really translatable? I mean, the R's are different, and it just doesn't add up. By now, we should be able to translate, we've looked into this so long. Go ahead, strip me of my Inkling status, but this just looks near impossible.

 

[OctoBro]

Well this what I get

Доньт гет цоокед, Don't Get Cooked
Стаы офф тхе хоок Stay Off The Hook!

 

[RobotRad]

Hi, everyone! this is my first time posting on Squidboards!

A few days ago, I was able to decipher one of the alphabets used in Splatoon and I wanted to share it with everyone!
It's the "round script" that user @R2D221 was talking about and also made a font from, but I was able to more accurately match each of the letters to the right English equivalent, updated for changes in usage Splatoon 2.

I made it into a font! You can download it here. (Please credit me if you use it! You can type all letters/symbols found on a normal American keyboard. I replaced the dollar sign with the Cash symbol from Splatoon.)

Here's the comparison chart: (This image uses the font I made, so the letters are slightly modified for shape/readability. The resemblance to their English counterparts is pretty obvious now, right?)

I don't want to put huge walls of text here, so you can view my process for decoding the alphabet here!

 

[Emperor]

I honestly hope it becomes a hidden language we can all type to people. Reminds me of that time Starfox Adventure created Dino Language and the instruction manual taught us how.

 

[GabrielGames991]

I Translated Some Words

 

[NightShine706]

I really need some help with using it. Do you know how to type it down? I dunno if I have a browser that will help