Inkling: The Language of Splatoon

[missingno]

Well, compare to Hylian, which has multiple different alphabets for both kana and romaji. I think it's likely similar here.

 

[SalsaSavant]

Okay, so I went around Inkopolis and the sunken scrolls and found a TON of characters. Way more than needed for the English alphabet. I'm doing more compiling to find every one off of my notes, but I wanted to share this,

See that poster?

Those symbols in black, under the inkling girl, are not seen anywhere else as far as I know. They remind me of Kanji. If it is like Kanji, and there's characters for words, then the language is based on Japanese. However, since I found so many characters, There could be two languages, one for English, one for Japanese. Any thoughts?

Edit: Compiled all the character I found. There are a total of 97 unique characters. That is way too much for a language. I think that there might be no real language, and that it's just made up.

Not necessarily

There are languages with anywhere between 12 to 247 letters. And while it's not a traditional alphabet, Chinese has over 2000 characters.


But I doubt they'd make a conlang that big. If we are dealing with one, we likely have multiple languages/dialects, with them occasionally making the letters look like real words for fun.

 

[Robosquid]

Callie and Marie's Simlish jabbering sounds pretty Japanese to me. Except for the "STAY FREEEESH" catchphrase, which sounds Engrish.

 

[OrenjiBoy135]

I like to think that combining symbols make words.

 

[Soul Train]

What about that Sunken Scroll of Paradise Lost? Could we use that like a Rosetta Stone, find whatever page of Paradise lost it's referencing, and get a full alphabet translation?

 

[Mansuta8]

I had a feeling like the language was based off of a mix of Japanese and English, and I'm glad I wasn't the only one. Some recurring characters similar to Katakana I saw were ト and ム

I think I saw ム on the weapons shop sign and on the window to the right of spawn.

 

[RadioactiveMoth]

What about that Sunken Scroll of Paradise Lost? Could we use that like a Rosetta Stone, find whatever page of Paradise lost it's referencing, and get a full alphabet translation?

I believe that scroll was about the mural Michelangelo did for the Sistine Chapel. Though the text next to it does have some value. I'll attach a picture of it for reference.

 

[eli]

Those symbols in black, under the inkling girl, are not seen anywhere else as far as I know. They remind me of Kanji.

Probably just Asian-looking characters that don't have meaning and are just for graphical effect. Especially as they don't appear anywhere else.

I had a feeling like the language was based off of a mix of Japanese and English

I've been thinking this too. Note when I say "language" I mean the primary symbols that appear multiple places and actually appear to follow some sort of system.

Also I'm starting to wonder if they just made up some of the symbols and had some based off of English and Japanese.

Unfortunately this is what I'm leaning towards.

that Sunken Scroll of Paradise Lost . . . the text next to it does have some value. I'll attach a picture of it for reference.

I don't think these letters are a part of the "main" alphabet/writing system used elsewhere in the Inkling world.

 

[RadioactiveMoth]

I don't think these letters are a part of the "main" alphabet/writing system used elsewhere in the Inkling world.

Probably not, but I still think it's interesting to look at. Could be the Octarian language.

 

[eli]

Could be the Octarian language.

True, though I'm curious as to how much they'd flush out that one or make it truly accurate.

If we are dealing with one, we likely have multiple languages/dialects, with them occasionally making the letters look like real words for fun.

This pretty much sums up my viewpoint, big emphasis on the if – and also just the fact that not all texts fit into the main script/writing system.

 

[Typhlosion09]

Don't know if it means much, but they have different numbers too. The back of the basketball jersey has 2 symbols that aren't any numbers I know of.

 

[Soul Train]

I believe that scroll was about the mural Michelangelo did for the Sistine Chapel. Though the text next to it does have some value. I'll attach a picture of it for reference.

Just noticed: the Squid is Satan in this picture. So...so does that mean we're the bad guys?

Sweet.

 

[RadioactiveMoth]

Just noticed: the Squid is Satan in this picture. So...so does that mean we're the bad guys?

Sweet.

Well, to the Octarians we are. The scrolls show that the Inklings and Octarians went to war over land.

 

[Octane]

I'm new to this forum, but I found this thread and I wanted to share some things.

Back when Nintendo released the single player trailer last year, I took screencaps of what appeared to be earlier versions of the Sunken Scrolls from the trailer and tried to figure those out. This is an image I found as an example:

The original video has a better quality image, and I'm sure the Sunken Scrolls themselves are usable as well, although I haven't checked them for any differences, so not sure if the text is still the same. After a couple of minutes it was pretty clear to me, there seem to be different writing systems. At least one I counted over 60 characters, that's not a simple ''English-Inkling'' conversion there, but I see you all figured that out already. I assumed the language was just random back then, but after seeing some examples in this thread, there might be more to it.

Of course, I'm still quite skeptic. I mean, how likely is it that the developers created an entire language for this game? Quite unlikely. However, I'm still interested to find out more about this language.

This is just a random thought, but what if the characters could represent either a single letter (like the Latin alphabet), or multiple ''letters'' (like Japanese for example). That would explain the inconsistency in varying word lengths, but it would also make it a pain in the arse to decipher.

Anyway, let me know if you need some help, I'm familiar with the Latin, Greek and Cyrillic alphabets, and I have a basic understanding of the Japanese, Korean and Chinese writing systems. I think I'm going for a stroll through Inkopolis now and see what I can find.

 

[eli]

how likely is it that the developers created an entire language for this game? Quite unlikely.

i mean, they've done it before
http://zelda.wikia.com/wiki/Hylian_Language

this was another fun language-deciphering project i worked on a while back http://wiki.puella-magi.net/Deciphering_the_runes :B

I think I'm going for a stroll through Inkopolis now and see what I can find.

same here once my wii u arrives tomorrow

 

[Octane]

i mean, they've done it before
http://zelda.wikia.com/wiki/Hylian_Language

To be fair, Hylian is just a transliteration, a simple conversion between English/Japanese and the Hylian symbols. If this Inkling language is real, it's more than that.

 

[eli]

Hylian is just a transliteration, a simple conversion between English/Japanese and the Hylian symbols. If this Inkling language is real, it's more than that.

very true. however, there is a consistency in the inkling alphabet that i hope, at least, is not just random…

 

[RadioactiveMoth]

I mean, how likely is it that the developers created an entire language for this game? Quite unlikely.

Multiple games have made languages before. Zelda, Myst, Jade Empire, Ultima, Ar Tonelico, Final Fantasy X, and Skyrim all have their own language. Splatoon doing so as well isn't unlikely.

 

[Octane]

Multiple games have made languages before. Zelda, Myst, Jade Empire, Untima, Ar Tonelico, Final Fantasy X, and Skyrim all have their own language. Splatoon doing so as well isn't unlikely.

I'm not familiar with all of those games, but in the case of Hylian in Zelda and Al Bhed in FFX, there were just simple transliterations, not languages. I should've worded my initial post better, I don't think that ''Inkling'' (is that what we're calling it?) is an actual language: with its own words and grammar. I don't think Nintendo would put that much work into such a little detail, since it plays virtually no role in the main game. It's just there as decoration. Besides, if it was an actual language, we wouldn't be able to decipher the language anyway. At least not without an official dictionairy or something like that.

The question is whether Inkling is a transliteration or just complete nonsense. If it is indeed a transliteration, then it is a very complicated one: with multiple separate sets of characters, and more characters than letters in our alphabet.

 

[RadioactiveMoth]

I'm not familiar with all of those games, but in the case of Hylian in Zelda and Al Bhed in FFX, there were just simple transliterations, not languages. I should've worded my initial post better, I don't think that ''Inkling'' (is that what we're calling it?) is an actual language: with its own words and grammar. I don't think Nintendo would put that much work into such a little detail, since it plays virtually no role in the main game. It's just there as decoration. Besides, if it was an actual language, we wouldn't be able to decipher the language anyway. At least not without an official dictionairy or something like that.

The question is whether Inkling is a transliteration or just complete nonsense. If it is indeed a transliteration, then it is a very complicated one: with multiple separate sets of characters, and more characters than letters in our alphabet.

I mean't that they functioned as a language in game, not necessarily a language in real life.

Anyway, I think that if inkling is a transliteration, then it has characters for both Japanese and English. It's a good explanation for why there are so many characters.