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The Fan Language of Splatoon

PiyozR

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titanmkiii
I'm back after all this time because I watched one video about conlangs and it reminded me of this. What did I miss?
-The PDF language guide is complete (see attached) yet is likely still riddled with mistakes.
-Video lessons are coming along.
-The final Splatfest is this weekend so I may pitch the project to gaming news sites in case they want clicks.
-Other users are going to be working on their own projects with this conlang.
 

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SyMag

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PKThunda
-The PDF language guide is complete (see attached) yet is likely still riddled with mistakes.
-Video lessons are coming along.
-The final Splatfest is this weekend so I may pitch the project to gaming news sites in case they want clicks.
-Other users are going to be working on their own projects with this conlang.
Perhaps a group of us should look over the guide one last time for any mistakes? Since we're talking about printing physical copies.

That would be awesome if we could have this featured on gaming sites!

I certainly know I'll be translating at least one book into Inkling, though I'm sure there will be words that haven't yet been introduced into the conlang.
 

PiyozR

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Perhaps a group of us should look over the guide one last time for any mistakes? Since we're talking about printing physical copies.
That'd be great! I'm going to spend a night this week perusing for more mistakes. Anyone and everyone is welcome to comb through the PDF, too. I'll upload the newest version in a few minutes.

I already have a few print copies. I don't mind having some small errors here and there. As for the version being released online, let's try to iron that out as best we can before I sign out for good.

EDIT: Just to let everyone know, the newest version of the PDF will be uploaded in a much higher quality that will allow for printing. You know, anyone else out there wants their own print copies.
 
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Jonathx

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Jonathx
@theFIZZYnator I see you advertizing a splatoon font in your sig, so maybe you'd be interested in what I and @Ikaheishi have been doing. We've been trying to make a standard character encoding for Inkling Characters so text written in any inkling font will display properly in any other inkling font and won't come out as mojibake. We've settled on the U+ECxx block in the Private Use Area of the Unicode since it doesn't conflict with any other conlang scripts in the Under-Conscript Unicode Registry, and have generally figured out how to organize the letters for encoding purposes.

Attached's the newest revision of the code chart for Inkling characters, now with the calamari {n} character, and I even made a nice vector graphic to put it in my doc. Since the only way I could get it into word without making a new font was to convert it from its native *.svg to Windows metafile format (*.wmf), my version of Acrobat aliases it differently than it would text when zoomed out. As such, it may look out of place when zoomed out, but once you zoom in it should look clean and crisp like any vector graphic, and in roughly the same size and style as the surrounding Arowana sans bold. I've also noticed the cross-hatching I use for reserved code points aliases from diagonal hatch lines to vertical and horizontal cross-hatches in my version of Acrobat, but zoom in and you should see that it really is diagonal hash lines.

PiyozR said:
For what I can gather from EclipseMT's notes on the character, country Inklings tend to employ {n} at the end of syllables only. That means they probably wouldn't think of {n} as a variation of {ne}, {na}, {no}. {nai}, etc, which all begin with that consonant sound. I don't know anything about encoding or such things so I'm not sure what help I can be.
@PiyozR I put forward two theories for in-universe histories of the character, to make a good reason for putting it in a specific spot in the code. While in reality it just has to be encoded somewhere arbitrarily so it's clear to fontmakers where to put it, having a reason, even a made up one is nice, esp. in the spirit of the rest of the conlang. Since you had generally been leading the discussion, I reached out to you to see if you had an opinion on the in-universe explanations, not the technical details. I figured you'd have no input on the technical details :rolleyes:. Here's what my in-universe ideas were:

One has an archaic equivalent to {nie} falling out of use entirely because it wasn't used any more, but later being added back in to Calamari because they needed SOME letter to represent the syllable-final {n} that had started showing up in the dialect and they might as well use one that already existed. While deliberate language engineering like that is rare in spoken language, it is more common in written language: the only reason why we have the letters K, Y, and Z in the latin alphabet today is because the Romans wanted to be able to transcribe Greek accurately, even though they didn't differentiate K from C or Y from I in actual speech, and Latin had dropped Z in the early monarchy period because they had no words that used it, but added it back in during the late republic because greek words did.

The other has an archaic {ani} that in schoolhouse morphed to be pronounced {ane} and was thrown out because it was redundant with the other {ane}. In Calamari, however, the two never fully merged, so when {ane} morphed to {an}, {ani} should have morphed to {an} as well, but was treated differently and so ended up being the catch-all letter to denote any n-terminated syllable that wasn't regular enough to get its own unique syllable.​

I think I've decided to go with {ani} -> {n} instead of {nie} -> {n} because, as you said, it is always a syllable-final consonant, so it would be weird for it to morph from a beginning-of-the-syllable sound--it could happen naturally if the origin of such syllables was from vowels of the final syllable going silent, but if that were the case there would probably be other consonants that lost their vowels. And anyway, all other Calamari n-terminated syllables already come from the irregular characters, so it has a precedent where {nie} did not. From a visual standpoint, I think it looks more similar to the characters starting with n than to the irregulars, but it's not like it's a perfect match even there, and it acts like an irregular, so putting it with the irregulars makes more sense. That is what I have in this most recent version of the encoding.
 

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PiyozR

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@Jonathx Either of those explanations is fine. Another possible one is that the {n} character is absorbed from the Octoling language. Keep in mind that the Octoling language is written and spoken in Inkopolis. And since Octolings and Inklings can communicate in Splatoon, we just assumed that the two languages were mutually intelligible to some degree. In the fan made Octoling language (that never got very far off the ground), the character for {n} is very similar to the Inkling character {n}. Perhaps Inklings adopted a unique character to create that syllable-ending consonant. I won't argue with your explanations but this explanation fits it best with the Splatoon world.

I'm gonna spend some time tonight checking for errors in the PDF. Anyone willing to do the same is welcome to submit any errors they find by Thursday night U.S. Central time.
 

Jonathx

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Jonathx
@Jonathx Either of those explanations is fine. Another possible one is that the {n} character is absorbed from the Octoling language. Keep in mind that the Octoling language is written and spoken in Inkopolis. And since Octolings and Inklings can communicate in Splatoon, we just assumed that the two languages were mutually intelligible to some degree. In the fan made Octoling language (that never got very far off the ground), the character for {n} is very similar to the Inkling character {n}. Perhaps Inklings adopted a unique character to create that syllable-ending consonant. I won't argue with your explanations but this explanation fits it best with the Splatoon world.
I had considered that, but looking at the most recent (not very recent) Octoling language guide, the Octoling {n} character looks like a backwards S, while a much more similar-looking character represents {þ}, so I had ruled that out. I mean, the Calamari {n} COULD have a common ancestor with the Octoling {n}, but it would have taken some time for the bottom stroke to separate from the rest, and if the Inklings are really so aware of the way Octoling characters are pronounced, you'd expect it to have just been a direct borrowing in recent times and not have had time to evolve so significantly. Furthermore, the awareness of Octoling characters among Inklings, while making it more likely to be borrowed in the first place also makes it LESS likely to drift so far in appearance, esp. since it would be drifting towards looking like an entirely different Octoling character. Also, since Calamari already takes its other n-terminated moži from the existing irregular characters

If you do still think a borrowing from Octoling is the best explanation (I mean, they are neighbors, and actually use alphabetic consonants, so it's still a good explanation, I just don't think it's any more of a bulletproof explanation than either of the others), then the Calamari N should probably be put in the Octoling Block, not encoded in the Inkling Block at all. That would be a little awkward for fontmakers who are only including inkling to see one random character at a much higher codepoint, but doesn't have any technical issues so we could do that if people like the borrowing explanation better.

And who knows--Octoling's in an early enough state of development they might be willing to switch the {m} and {n} with their {þ} and {ð}, which would make the borrowing explanation FAR more plausible. And since @EclipseMT seems to be behind both the Calamari dialect and Octoling guide, he might have a interest in connecting them more explicitly...
 

PiyozR

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Double post because you're not the boss of me.

Addition to the PDF tonight: The Lesson 16B on suffixes is being changed to "affixes". I just added two prefixes to the conlang. One is {re} placed before a verb to indicate that it happens again, e.g. {regewéyu} “rejoin”, {rešušé} “to review”. I already had created this but forgot about adding it to the list. Just for kicks, I created another prefix: {go} which indicates that an action is being performed to completion, e.g. {godefuna} “to search enough”, {gokuíto} “to cook thoroughly”.
 

theFIZZYnator

Inkling
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I've registered an account a ConWorkshop, which has a YouTube channel that translates songs into multiple conlangs every month. Should I be the representative for the Inkling conlang and participate in one of the songs?

PS: @Jonathx I suggest using CZ for Č, SZ for Š, TZ for Ŧ, and ZH for Ž, to preserve the alphabetical order. Also, I think there's a way to pack the letters tighter without much wasted space. Or are you doing it on purpose to propose new characters?

PPS: Also, there should be some glyphs for punctuation, especially the Inkling question mark—and quotation mark if we collectively ultimately decide to use it.
 
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EclipseMT

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Sorry for the long hiatus. Unfortunately, reality kind of got in the way of me completing the project here, but in my cases, at least they have a (basic) structure.

I'll probably be able to complete the Spaceballs scene translation when I can.

What are we all arguing about now?

EDIT: Can we make it "official" that Calamari is the "bad guy dialect" or "uncultured person speech" in regards to media, or did we already?
 
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PiyozR

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I've registered an account a ConWorkshop, which has a YouTube channel that translates songs into multiple conlangs every month. Should I be the representative for the Inkling conlang and participate in one of the songs?
That sounds like a cool project! So yeah, go ahead! If you want to collaborate on how to translate a few lines of lyrics, then drop me a PM. What song will they be doing next?

I'll probably be able to complete the Spaceballs scene translation when I can.
Send it over when it's done. In about early September I'll be dropping out entirely from this project, so before then, please.

EDIT: Can we make it "official" that Calamari is the "bad guy dialect" or "uncultured person speech" in regards to media, or did we already?
It more or less already is. At least for the "uncultured" part. I think the dialect of "bad guys" would probably be the Octoling language.

*ahem*
 

PiyozR

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In that case, you could zip up the original word doc and PM it to me or Fizzy so the guide can continue to be expanded upon.
The PDF guide will stay as it is on my website after I leave the project. After that, a few members are going to start a larger, ongoing, open-to-the-community dictionary for Inkling.

Video lesson #8 is in the works as we speak.
 

theFIZZYnator

Inkling
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I'm transferring some of the language over to ConWorkshop with some difficulty. Also, for Inkoding, can we add the three forms of {rai}? I think we can free up the VCVV syllable spaces (e.g. {uyai}, {ayoi}, etc.) for punctuation, symbols (like the trademark symbol) and alternate forms.

Here are my proposed codepoints

U+EC0A INKLING ELEVATED COMMA
U+EC0B INKLING ELEVATED PERIOD
• ≈ U+00B7 · MIDDLE DOT
U+EC0C INKLING EXCLAMATION POINT
U+EC0D INKLING QUESTION MARK
U+EC0E INKLING OPENING TRANSLATION MARK
U+EC0F INKLING CLOSING TRANSLATION MARK
U+ECED INKLING LETTER RAI TRADITIONAL
• rai can take three forms depending on the type of script
• ≈ U+EC6D INKLING LETTER RAI
U+ECEE INKLING LETTER RAI SIMPLIFIED
• rai can take three forms depending on the type of script
• ≈ U+EC6D INKLING LETTER RAI
U+ECEF INKLING LETTER RAI MINIMAL
• rai can take three forms depending on the type of script
• ≈ U+EC6D INKLING LETTER RAI
U+ECF3 INKLING LETTER ALTERNATE N
• historic form used in moveable type
• ≈ U+ECF2 INKLING LETTER CALAMARI N
U+ECFE INKLING CURRENCY SYMBOL
U+ECFF INKLING COPYRIGHT SYMBOL

I also want to include single translation cues and other punctuation, like the undefined Inkling equivalent of quotation marks. I suggest single guillemets.

EDIT: Here's one of the first Inkling Dictionary pages on Con Workshop, ever! We also need an Inkling national flag.

EDIT 2: I finished transferring the prepositions into ConWorkShop. Could you export the rest of the words that you have in this format?
 
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Ikaheishi

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@theFIZZYnator The gaps in the encoding are because there's little tricks built into the encoding. Certain bits will be true/false (1 or 0) based on whether the character is a pure vowel, has a B sound, ends in a E vowel, etc. Also, the punctuation is omitted as there is an equivalent elsewhere in Unicode. For the most part, encoding duplicates is considered a no-no. (Ex: Han unification) The official Unicode Consortium stance is that it's up to the font to contain the correct glyph for the language it's being used to display.
 

theFIZZYnator

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@theFIZZYnator The gaps in the encoding are because there's little tricks built into the encoding. Certain bits will be true/false (1 or 0) based on whether the character is a pure vowel, has a B sound, ends in a E vowel, etc. Also, the punctuation is omitted as there is an equivalent elsewhere in Unicode. For the most part, encoding duplicates is considered a no-no. (Ex: Han unification) The official Unicode Consortium stance is that it's up to the font to contain the correct glyph for the language it's being used to display.
Yeah, that's all well and good, but there's a lot of wasted space regardless. Some of the unmapped codepoints (e.g. the VyVV letters) can be mapped to special symbols like I said. I suggested adding the three forms to prevent this sort of bullshit from happening. (Bullshit being every country using a different way to distinguish between two or more forms of the same letter.)

Also, @PiyozR can you give me the entire Inkling lexicon so I can import it into ConWorkShop?
 

PiyozR

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EDIT: Here's one of the first Inkling Dictionary pages on Con Workshop, ever! We also need an Inkling national flag.

EDIT 2: I finished transferring the prepositions into ConWorkShop. Could you export the rest of the words that you have in this format?
Do you want any help getting our conlang set up on that site? I'd like to at least assist in getting Inkling out into the conlang community.

Does a language need a flag? What sort of flag? There aren't any flags in the game world that I can recall. Maybe the Splatoon multiplayer emblem? What about the Inkopolis University logo (my avatar)?

EDIT: Sorry, I didn't see your post. The PDF on my website contains every word in the conlang. Feel free to make more. Just be sure that somewhere on the page for Inkling that you mention that this was a community project headed by me. Also please link to the Inkopolis University page on my website.
 
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theFIZZYnator

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Do you want any help getting our conlang set up on that site? I'd like to at least assist in getting Inkling out into the conlang community.

Does a language need a flag? What sort of flag? There aren't any flags in the game world that I can recall. Maybe the Splatoon multiplayer emblem? What about the Inkopolis University logo (my avatar)?
The only help I need so far is a list of all current Inkling words in an Excel spreadsheets, with non-assimilated vowels and parts of speech marked. I might need some more help later.

EDIT: There's this thing where ConWorkShop gives you prompts to translate to your language, and I've made a few words for that:

He had been wrong. There was a light at the end of the tunnel, and it was a flamethrower.

Zoi rutu žoiseeya. Bira rutu zoiyo žožamoa nadomaiči, wa zoi rutu si žekapežu.

right (as in correct): íseeya
wrong (as in incorrect): žoíseeya
at the end of, at the edge of: žožamóa (lit. not in the center of)
tunnel: nadomáiči (lit. pit road)
flamethrower: žékapežu (lit. fire gun)

to do: add past perfect
 
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PiyozR

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He had been wrong. There was a light at the end of the tunnel, and it was a flamethrower.

Zoi rutu žoiseeya. Bira rutu zoiyo žožamoa nadomaiči, wa zoi rutu si žekapežu.
{zoi rutu žoiseeya} isn't quite "he had been wrong." {rutu] always goes after its verb. In a situation like this, an Inkling speaker would use a verb (likely derived) to indicate that he was mistaken instead of an adjective. {zoi žoiseeyakoi rutu} if you want to stick to that {iseeya} as the root there. I suppose you could also say {zoi si rutu žoiseeya} as well.

to do: add past perfect
As soon as I read those words, the word {seto} popped into my head. Wanna use that?
 

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