The Fan Language of Splatoon

[PiyozR]

Yeah, considering how important ink combat is in Inkling culture, I bet they'd count years in relation to different major conflicts. May as well add those words to the guide. I'm also going to add vocab for other secondary and special weapons. One of these days.

New comic in Inkling is coming along very well. Took me a while to write all the Inkling and Octoling. Sketching begins tonight.

Just talked to my friend. The audio for all ten YouTube videos is all edited together. The soundtrack is all being sorted out, too. Up next is the visuals and placing all the jpegs and pngs in line with my spoken lessons. That's going to be the more consuming part of the whole production. I'll give you updates when they come in.

 

[EclipseMT]

Question: When, if ever, are subjects implied? English (and the other Germanic languages) does it in commands, like "give me this," where the implied subject is "you."

Japanese can drop the subject clause entirely, if it is clearly implied the speaker or the listener is the subject.

 

[EclipseMT]

{fíati} - Mollusc (shortened from 'dead snail')

"Mollusk" is spelled with a K, unless it's some weird British spelling.

At least "disk" and "disc" are two different things.

 

[PiyozR]

Question: When, if ever, are subjects implied? English (and the other Germanic languages) does it in commands, like "give me this," where the implied subject is "you."

Japanese can drop the subject clause entirely, if it is clearly implied the speaker or the listener is the subject.

I've thought on this in dialogue and narration writing. Commands in Inkling omit the "you". It felt natural to me to omit the third person singular pronoun when speaking about an understood person or thing. In "Callie's War", when Crusty Sean asks about Callie's shopping habits, Marie replies without the normal {zoi} and goes straight to the verb. I think in textbook Inkling, the only true time you can omit a subject is during a command. Inkopolitan vernacular invented some subject + verb abbreviations to streamline fast, urban speech.

My main concern now is how to tell stories in past tense. My comic now is narrated by the protagonist telling the story of his life. At first, I wrote dozens of {rutu} particles, resulting in bulky, ugly sentences that filled up too much of my panels. I removed a bunch and now only use {rutu} after critical verbs in the narrative and just assume that the whole thing is in past tense. I think in Inkling literature, all stories will be written (grammatically) in present tense even if it's understood that the events happened in the past.

 

[<π.]

This project is so cool to me!
Keep it up guys!

 

[EclipseMT]

JFF, what about real-world place names?

 

[piboy430]

Now I only use {rutu} after critical verbs in the narrative and just assume that the whole thing is in past tense. I think in Inkling literature, all stories will be written (grammatically) in present tense even if it's understood that the events happened in the past.

I hadn't thought about how constant use of past tense in books would work until now. Nice workaround.

You know, I thought that all of the errors in the PDF were ironed out by now... I was wrong. Here's the one I didn't spot:

Page 30: {kíyu} - Sudden. SHOULD BE {kíyo}. Either change {kíyu} to {kíyo} or change the word {kiyokáno} to {kiyukáno} (on both Page 15 and Page 36).

Here's a few more vocab words, just for the hell of it:

Nouns

{čitaró} - Event
{réyadupai} - Museum

Other

{gúža} - Always (how do we not have this one yet?)
{tonú} - Beside
{go} - At (as in 'I am at the event' 'I si go čitaró'. If the language already has a way to say this, then disregard this one.)

Verbs

{hiró} - To Receive
{čitá} - To Happen

Maps

{dagá oyáe réyadupai} - Museum d’Alfonsino (lit. Big Eye Museum (in relation to what an actual Alfonsino looks like))

Idioms

{fíatizoi} - a derogatory way to refer to an old person (kind of like 'geezer' in British English (do you have that word in America?) or 'old fart'). Literally 'Mollusc Person'.

Also, seeing as it's been almost two weeks since the last PDF update, and seeing as a lot has been added and corrected in that time, I've been anticipating another update coming soon. Is there one coming?

 

[EclipseMT]

How are subordinate clauses handled (e.g. because)?

Unless you already have that.

Because and what as in "I do what I want to do," etc.

If this doesn't require a huge rewrite, word order can be SOV in a subordinate clause. Too many grammatical elements here are borrowed from the English language IMO (The particles being a notable exception).

EDIT: I don't know what else is not English-borrowed. AFAIK, word order follows English 1:1.

So "I do what I want to do because I can do it" can be transliterated as "I do what I to do(inf.) want because I it do(inf.) can"

Japanese does it as "I (top. part.) do-want what do, (comma is required) I (top.) do(inf.) thing (sub.) can because."

"What" the interrogative and "what" the subordinate clause are also two different words in Japanese.

Ditto for the topic and subject particles.

 

[PiyozR]

Yeah for those grammar bits (connecting clauses, question words doubling for conjunctions and nouns, general word order) it's basically 1:1 with English so as to not confuse the hell out of people. That's also why I avoided gender, number, and verb conjugation.

Uploading the newest form of the guide.

 

[EclipseMT]

Yeah for those grammar bits (connecting clauses, question words doubling for conjunctions and nouns, general word order) it's basically 1:1 with English so as to not confuse the hell out of people. That's also why I avoided gender, number, and verb conjugation.

Uploading the newest form of the guide.

Typically, when I conlang, I avert having grammar going 1:1 with a real language. An obscure one, maybe. The amount is inversely related to how many people int the English-speaking world that would know formally the language in question (e.g. I wouldn't borrow most of my grammar from English and Spanish).

Octoling has about 45% (it may be less, FAIK) of its grammatical elements from Japanese(word order, verb endings, conjugations) but the way I do some conjugations over there is not the same as in Japanese.

For example, the passive past of "to do" is "sareta" in both languages.

In Octoling, the infinitive is "su." This changes to "saru" in the passive voice, and in past tense, *u becomes *eta, so "sareta."

In Japanese, the infinitive is "suru." The passive form is "sareru." Since sareru is among a different group of verbs (I personally call them *eru verbs) that conjugates differently compared to other verbs (in this case, for the past, drop ru and add ta at the end), sareru becomes sareta.

Unless you wanted "sarerareta" as it (btw, the regular past conjugation is *u becomes *ita, unless the verb ends in *u, *tsu, or *ru and does not have an *e char before it). Regular passive is *u becomes *aru (Did I mention the Japanese verb suru is an irregular verb?).

.....It's confusing to explain for Japanese.

EDIT: but nevertheless, we all have different philosophies.

 

[PiyozR]

I plastered all over the old thread about how much I wanted to make Inkling as casual and easy to grasp as possible for all Splatoon fans, linguists or not. Simplifying the grammar and phonetics to an unrealistic degree and making it more or less a mirror of English that just sorta sounds Japanese was my philosophy from day one. And it's been fun, truth be told.

As I said before, feel free to go all out on Octoling. You've already made laid the groundwork for it.

 

[EclipseMT]

I don't know if Tolkien made his languages with any regard to whether or not they were accessible so fans can speak them. I'm guessing he didn't, but the few conlangs that I heard were designed as accessible were designed for practical use (e.g. Esperanto), not to represent a fictional culture.

Plus, several artlangers on Conlang Wiki et.al. design their languages under the same principle: purely for fun.

 

[PiyozR]

I don't know if Tolkien made his languages with any regard to whether or not they were accessible so fans can speak them. I'm guessing he didn't, but the few conlangs that I heard were designed as accessible were designed for practical use (e.g. Esperanto), not to represent a fictional culture.

Inkling isn't other conlangs.

 

[piboy430]

Inkling isn't other conlangs.

Well said.

Some new mistakes have come up in the PDF (I'm sorry):
p17: {sonái} - Summer. Should be written 'so' 'nai', like in {sonaipái}, rather than 'so' 'na' 'i'.
p38: What happened to the 'i' character in {wuíbe}? Should be mirrored.
p39: {i funό bíe} - By the way. The {funó} should be written as 'fu' 'uno', rather than 'fu' 'no', so as to correspond with the verb 'funó' - To Want (p20)
p46: In the example sentence 'The cat is not old', the {uya} in {uyarédu} is written using the character {ayu}. Didn't spot this earlier due to me not knowing all of the 'e' looking characters.

BTW, thought I'd put a bit more vocab here (you're probably sick of me doing this every post, but...):

Nouns

{čímu} - Map (game, navigational, etc.), Plan
{nádo} - Pit
{žúbado} - Pool (contraction of 'water pit')
{suyaró} - Relaxation (derived)
{ráyupai} - Hotel
{méyuro} - Sleep (derived)
{méyutu} - Bed (derived)
{méyupai} - Bedroom (derived)

Verbs

{súya} - To Relax
{nadokói} - To Dig (derived)
{ráyu} - To Rest (oneself, i.e. 'Zói ráyu rutú' is 'He rested')
{čímukoi} - To Map Out; To Plan (derived)
{méyu} - To Sleep

Adjectives

{súyašai} - Relaxing (derived)

 

[EclipseMT]

Inkling isn't other conlangs.

Counterargument: So it isn't Esperanto, or Ido? You do seem to follow its design principles.

By that I mean an accessible language with simplistic grammar.

KIM conlanging isn't just limited to glossopoeia (Yes, I am a Tolkien buff), that is, the creation of a constructed language for an artistic purpose.

EDIT: TBH I scoff at that idea of using a constructed language solely for general communication (like Esperanto).

Also, if I can make amends to the Calamari dialect.

 

[PiyozR]

p38: What happened to the 'i' character in {wuíbe}? Should be mirrored.

Those two version of {i} are the same. It can be written either way. The others I am correcting. The "e" and "Q" characters I don't use a whole lot as they're so easy to confuse. When I do, I try to assimilate one of their vowels into another letter.

BTW, thought I'd put a bit more vocab here (you're probably sick of me doing this every post, but...):

lol I'll never get sick of people giving me a hand when they're full. Thanks for all your proofreading and vocab!

Counterargument: So it isn't Esperanto, or Ido? You do seem to follow its design principles.

It's more like conlang for fan art purposes. And fun. This is by far the most fun I've had working on a serious conlang.

The Tolkien-verse is an excellent example. LOTR and the Hobbit have loads and loads of fans all over the world. Tolkien pulled out some pretty ground-breaking stuff using a language as a mode of story telling. But how many of these fans engage in the constructed languages of Middle Earth? A fraction. A sliver. Only those who have some knowledge or training in linguistics. The way I see it, conlanging is cordoned off to language teachers, multi-linguals, or speech path majors. Why does that have to be?

Why can't there be a conlang that's basic enough and simple enough that any Joe Shmoe who at least has some grasp on English grammar can understand? Why can't someone create a system of orthography and grammar that belongs to a fictional world but can be enjoyed by anyone willing to attend the Youtube lessons? When the phonetics jargon, diacritics, and verb modes are stripped away, I think we can create a conlang consumable by just about any Splatoon fan. Seeing as these are gamers who have some knowledge of system mastery (they somehow managed to learn how to kill with chargers, after all), who likely know at least one other language or are at least exposed to Japanese through some of the Asian media that they consume in addition to Nintendo games, and who seem to have passion and interest in everything squiddy, I think a casual, easy Inkling is the best way to bring our love of Splatoon and our love of language together for everyone to enjoy. That's just my philosophy behind it.

Also, if I can make amends to the Calamari dialect.

Yeah, totally. PM me whatever you want to change.

 

[EclipseMT]

I think perhaps "Proto-Inkling" had very complex grammar (at one point similar to Octoling's), until heavy simplification occured. This was region-dependent.

It has happened in real life, with Dutch and Afrikaans.

 

[EclipseMT]

Brands.

Do we have them?

If not, can {Forima} (italicized is stressed) be Forge?

(Calamari does first syllable stress in the same word)

 

[MissingNumbers]

Brands.

Do we have them?

Well, for the ones that clearly had their name written, for sure.

 

[PiyozR]

We do not have brands. Those seem to be randomly chosen letters that would probably sound awkward spoken out with our syllabary. Is it worth it?