The Fan Language of Splatoon

[MissingNumbers]

This is looking very nice so far.

Though there IS a bit of an oversight...

 

[PiyozR]

This is looking very nice so far.

Though there IS a bit of an oversight...

Now you see...this...THIS is why I have the community look over this stuff before we declare anything finished. Because we've had this alphabet for over a month now and we're still finding idiotic mistakes like this. Keen eye, MissingNumbers.

Alright alright alright so...[d͡ʒe] and [ho] are the same. I am going to fix this right now. From now on, [d͡ʒe] will continue being the downward squiggle that it is now, and the letter [ho] will be transformed into basically a horizontally flipped [ɹi] (like an L but flipped left to right). That's a simply solution and I will change it on the original PDF because I have nothing better to do at 4AM. Still best if everyone watching this thread looks it over for more proofreading.

I also flipped the letter [ɹie] horizontally to better distinguish it from [d͡ʒa].

 

[Doringo]

Very detailed! I do have a big question though, is there an extent to how much of this is based off of the actual ingame speech? It would be cool if it overlapped in a specific way so it's like adding definitions to specific lines that the ingame inklings say.

 

[EclipseMT]

PDF is very nice.

EDIT: Some more proposed words. The first three were all constructed, as well as the latter two.

/ojezi/ = Soon (I did this by taking one fragment from the words "before" and "now").
/zini/ = Last (in the sense of "previous"). This could be a noun prefix, e.g. /zinipogai/ = "yesterday" (lit. the last day)
/t͡suni/ = Next (Used like /zini/, e.g. /t͡sunipogai/ = "tomorrow")
/kait͡ʃit͡suni/ = After the next... (e.g. /kait͡ʃit͡sunipogai/ = "the day after tomorrow")
/po'ojezini/ = Before the last... (e.g. /poojezinipogai/ = "the day before yesterday")
/uzai/ = First (incorporates "one")
/zizai/ = Final.

EDIT: "Last" should be /zeni/ instead of /zini/.

 

[EclipseMT]

Very detailed! I do have a big question though, is there an extent to how much of this is based off of the actual ingame speech? It would be cool if it overlapped in a specific way so it's like adding definitions to specific lines that the ingame inklings say.

With that in mind, perhaps "yes" can be a loanword in the language, as in plaza, if you view an inkling boy's stats, you can make out "Hm, yes!" within dialogue. It's pronounced more or less like 「ん、イエッス」, and "iessu" is a loaned phrase in Japanese, from the English "yes."

"N" is akin to "huh," "hm," and the like.

EDIT: Perhaps "no" can be loanworded as "no" as an interjection?

 

[MissingNumbers]

This isn't really related to anything, but I scribbled up a pixelated version of the glyphs for all those squiddy game enthusiasts.
The glyphs are all 8x8, and I have a version with grid lines as well. The very last glyph is a copyright symbol.

EDIT: Also. I'm still confused as to whether this language uses spaces or not. I'm getting conflicting feelings here.

 

[PiyozR]

Some more proposed words. The first three were all constructed, as well as the latter two.

Words added to the PDF. Uploading it to the post now.

EDIT: Also. I'm still confused as to whether this language uses spaces or not. I'm getting conflicting feelings here.

Yes, it does. It's really tough to see in the PDF, though.

Upcoming task: Educational Youtube videos for our Inkling conlang

My idea: Using those ten lesson plans found in a previous post, make ten YouTube videos teaching Inkling as we know it. Spruce up an actual script to recite. Record my voice over (explanation of vocab and grammar and all the Inkling speech). Put together the words that I'll be teaching (characters, IPA, and translation as they appear in the PDF). Meet up with my friend to edit all these together in a way that looks nice (assuming she actually has the time). Create a YouTube channel titled "_________". Upload the videos and tag them with Splatoon. Share on all social media venues possible.

My setbacks: As for style, I'm not sure how to go about it. I mean, I've seen internet language videos, and they always involve an awkward teacher sitting in front of an awkward greenscreen presenting very little useful visual information. I don't want to sit in front of a camera and talk because 1) I don't have a decent camera and 2) I'm not photogenic or incredibly attractive. Besides our Inkling words on screen, what else do we actually show? How do we make this information easily consumed in an internet video? I've never been a part of video production before, so this is all new territory for me. Anyone have any suggestions?

 

[Joseph Staleknight]

Upcoming task: Educational Youtube videos for our Inkling conlang

My idea: Using those ten lesson plans found in a previous post, make ten YouTube videos teaching Inkling as we know it. Spruce up an actual script to recite. Record my voice over (explanation of vocab and grammar and all the Inkling speech). Put together the words that I'll be teaching (characters, IPA, and translation as they appear in the PDF). Meet up with my friend to edit all these together in a way that looks nice (assuming she actually has the time). Create a YouTube channel titled "_________". Upload the videos and tag them with Splatoon. Share on all social media venues possible.

My setbacks: As for style, I'm not sure how to go about it. I mean, I've seen internet language videos, and they always involve an awkward teacher sitting in front of an awkward greenscreen presenting very little useful visual information. I don't want to sit in front of a camera and talk because 1) I don't have a decent camera and 2) I'm not photogenic or incredibly attractive. Besides our Inkling words on screen, what else do we actually show? How do we make this information easily consumed in an internet video? I've never been a part of video production before, so this is all new territory for me. Anyone have any suggestions?

Actually, for the videos I'm wondering if anyone has any experience doing animation? I had this idea that we could do some cartoon skits on the language, what with the comic you did that featured the language. We'll start off with the basics, showing the dialogue in both Inkling and Latin characters but highlighting the words the lesson focuses on so they stand out. For example, the skit on prepositions can have a couple of Inklings getting mixed up with where an enemy is and then resolving it just before said enemy splats them. We can then focus on the prepositions as they try to sort out where he is in relation to certain landmarks. Eventually, if we end up going this route we can also do advanced videos with only the Inkling writing. That won't come until we get the basics down first, though.

Of course, we can also do an animated version of those language lessons you mentioned so that we can deliver it straightforwardly but without the problem of needing a camera/greenscreen. I'm sure that the Inklings can capture the audience's attention and demonstrate the ins and outs of the language better than a live-action human; after all, it's their native tongue!

 

[EclipseMT]

Some notes, and some words.

/uzai/ was a word I constructed with the intention to be used as a counter, so for example, /ijozai/ is 2nd, /t͡ʃazai/ is 3rd, etc.

I have the same thing for /kai/, which is the proposed word I have for <n> times (/ukai/, /ijokai/, /t͡ʃakai/, etc.).

Thank goodness there are no specific counters for specific types of objects (another Japanese feature). That is a pain to learn.

Anyway, more words (mostly slang, but some practical)

/eda/ = line, so /hunepoeda/ = brushstroke
/upa/, /ijopa/ = Number 1, 2, etc.
/med͡ʒi/ = bright
/d͡ʒome/ = dark

The following are slang terms loaned from other languages.

/baka/ Very rude and informal. Used to refer to someone stupid.
/karasu/ = Very informal slang for something pitch-black (yeah, for all you Japanese types, this is the word for "crow").
/haku/ Very informal slang for something crystal white.
/yesu/ Very informal "yes." Used mostly as an interjection.
/no/ The same. Used for the Big No in media.

Also, the proposed words I had for railroad terms I believe should be incorporated.

 

[MissingNumbers]

Yes, it does. It's really tough to see in the PDF, though.

So it'd be more akin to this, then?

And yeah, I do like Joseph's ideas, but I'm not sure how doable they are without grabbing an outside person or team more versed in that sort of thing.

 

[EclipseMT]

Actually, for the videos I'm wondering if anyone has any experience doing animation? I had this idea that we could do some cartoon skits on the language, what with the comic you did that featured the language. We'll start off with the basics, showing the dialogue in both Inkling and Latin characters but highlighting the words the lesson focuses on so they stand out. For example, the skit on prepositions can have a couple of Inklings getting mixed up with where an enemy is and then resolving it just before said enemy splats them. We can then focus on the prepositions as they try to sort out where he is in relation to certain landmarks. Eventually, if we end up going this route we can also do advanced videos with only the Inkling writing. That won't come until we get the basics down first, though.

Of course, we can also do an animated version of those language lessons you mentioned so that we can deliver it straightforwardly but without the problem of needing a camera/greenscreen. I'm sure that the Inklings can capture the audience's attention and demonstrate the ins and outs of the language better than a live-action human; after all, it's their native tongue!

I have an interest in voice acting, to the point where I am interested in doing it, but that's about it.

 

[PiyozR]

So it'd be more akin to this, then?
View attachment 1036

Something like that, yeah.

I updated the PDF with the numbers and EclipseMT's vocabulary. It's looking even sexier now!

As for the videos, I'm meeting up with my friend tonight to discuss specifics and explain the whole conlang thing to her (she doesn't own Splatoon so I kinda have to explain the whole world and language from the ground up). She knows more about video editing than I do, which is to say that she knows about video editing. She's bound to have good ideas about style and presentation. Expect another post tonight.

In the meantime, anyone with pointers on how to make cool YouTube videos is welcome to throw in ideas.

 

[EclipseMT]

For those willing to romanize Inkling, here's my proposal.

Vowels are as they are in Japanese.
Consonants are represented in this matter:
"Y" represents the /j/ sound, and "J" represents /d͡ʒ/.
All else is represented by their English equivalent.

EDIT: To bring back the topic of the other scripts Splatoon, I believe they might be used in a manner similar to katakana in Japanese.
In its native setting, katakana is used to render mostly loanwords and foreign place names. There are other settings that katakana may be used in, but those are mostly specialized (In media, sentences that use katakana in place of hiragana indicates a weird speech pattern, and many scientific terms, i.e. animal names are in katakana as well).

Oh, and /tokai/ is "special rapid" as in the type of train. I believe we should construct an original word for "special" as in "extraordinary" - I will leave it to you guys as I don't want to construct too many words in a given timeframe (I do 7 or 9 per post).

And for humor, "dekai" is an informal term in Japanese for "huge."

YET ANOTHER EDIT: Before any video sets these terms in stone, I want to amend "train" into /deiʃa/. I noticed at the last second that Inkling had no [n] glyph like Japanese had. Also, my other amendments I want to make before they are set in stone are: "to depart" = /paid͡ʒa/, "to arrive" = /paiki/, and "outbound (train)" = /kudari/, not /kubari/. Most of my constructions were made under the influence of the character designs - a constraint I had when thinking a word for "line" was that it had to have [e] somewhere in it.

Also, "before the previous" still has [zi] where [ze] should be. I changed it to [ze] at the last second when I found out /zini/ was already used for "new."

On a side note, what about passive tense - the equivalent to English's "to have been" and Japanese's "sareru?" For example, how would you say "You have been killed by <killer>" in Inkling?

 

[nowaitstop]

Is there any way we can have the updated Inkling Language Guide PDF posted here too? Signing up for the RareGamer boards seems kinda sketchy...

 

[MissingNumbers]

Is there any way we can have the updated Inkling Language Guide PDF posted here too? Signing up for the RareGamer boards seems kinda sketchy...

Except it is updated over here. Actually, from my understanding, the one on RareGamer is out of date. Check back on the post where he first attached it.

 

[nowaitstop]

Except it is updated over here. Actually, from my understanding, the one on RareGamer is out of date. Check back on the post where he first attached it.

Oh okay I see what I did now. I downloaded the version with the numbers attached.
Since it was uploaded by another person, it didn't have the edits. Thanks for helping!

 

[PiyozR]

For those willing to romanize Inkling, here's my proposal.

I personally see no need in romanizing Inkling. I purposefully kept the IPA so simple that we wouldn't need to.

EDIT: To bring back the topic of the other scripts Splatoon, I believe they might be used in a manner similar to katakana in Japanese.

Not sure if I've mentioned this in this thread. Maybe I only talked about it in the old thread. Inkling has serif and non-serif glyphs. Everything on the PDf is serif (the more formal set of letters) while much of what you see in the Sunken Scrolls and on Booyah Base signs is the non-serif glyphs (less formal and more for casual dialogue). Those weren't included in the PDF so as not to confuse people. In my Callie's War comic, people will switch from serif to non-serif mid-sentence to illustrate the transition from more normal speech to crude speech. Check out how Moe talks in Annie's hair. These different glyphs are pronounced the same way between serif and non-serif. When we see a letter in Splatoon that doesn't exactly match our official syllbary, we can just assume that it's a swanky non-serif glyph used for fun graphic design.

Oh, and /tokai/ is "special rapid" as in the type of train. I believe we should construct an original word for "special" as in "extraordinary" - I will leave it to you guys as I don't want to construct too many words in a given timeframe (I do 7 or 9 per post).

I included /tokai/ as "special" or "extraordinary" or "unique" in the PDF. Here it can apply to train types or pretty much anything. And as for your other modifications to your suggested words, I already made some changes to help them fit comfortably into Inkling phonetics. I tried to keep it simple and not be too obviously ripped from Japanese. That includes the /zeni/ for "previous".

On a side note, what about passive tense - the equivalent to English's "to have been" and Japanese's "sareru?" For example, how would you say "You have been killed by <killer>" in Inkling?

Now THAT's a good question. As of now, we have no passive tense. I'm focusing on the video content more right now, so anyone with suggestions on employing passive tense in Inkling is welcome to toss us some ideas.

Is there any way we can have the updated Inkling Language Guide PDF posted here too? Signing up for the RareGamer boards seems kinda sketchy...

Don't worry. It's not sketchy at all. It's just a small board run by a small group of friends. There's only like seven active members so the lack of activity makes it an actually good place for posting my conlang Inkling notes. But yeah, the PDF is on the second page of this thread but can be found in the OP.

Update on video content:

I talked to my friend tonight and basically laid out this conlang from top to bottom for her. She's agreed to help produce ten YouTube videos not dissimilar in style from Extra Credits videos. One introduction to our conlang and the theory of its conception. Then nine lesson videos explaining all our language's words and nuances in ways that anyone who knows English can understand. Here are some groundwork rules that she and I set:

-Videos must be engaging. I can't tell you all the in-classroom language lessons and online language videos I've sat through that totally bored me to tears. We need to make these videos enjoyable to watch. They need to teach as well as engage. They need to be infotainment. Some small jokes here and there. Some dank memes once or twice. Cute, funny references to Nintendo games that viewers will certainly enjoy.

-Videos must be easy to grasp. From the very start, I knew I wanted to make Inkling a language as simple as one can possibly be. I never wanted to throw a lot of high-tier linguistics terminology at people. That will only scare away potential followers. I don't want people to have to search through Wikipedia phonetics articles just to pronounce these words. I want this to be fun, not work. That means explaining these simple grammatical concepts in English and then telling them how it works in Inkling.

-Videos must be relatively short. A ten minute grammar lesson on YouTube will bore the pants of anyone. Even me. Nobody wants to spend their personal time having to sit in class. Five minutes is our maximum.

-Videos must show some progression. The biggest frustration in learning a language is not feeling as though your hard work is paying off. Bad teachers will continue to throw new stuff at you without touching back on old material to let you prove (to yourself) that you already learned something. Therefore, we must review (very briefly) the previously studied material at the beginning of each video to reinforce the sense of learning progression.

-Videos must have visual reference. See those Extra Credits videos to see what I mean. I hate hate hate hate when teachers just stand there and teach words and give examples. Humans are visual animals. We need a constant (but not inundating) series of visuals to reinforce our lessons. For example, to teach prepositions, we can show a little Inkling boy on top of a block, in front of a block, inside a block, etc. to teach those words. For verbs, we should show an Inkling girl singing, running, crying, shooting, etc. to give visual reference to those words. Same for all the nouns and descriptors. How we will do this is still up in the air. Likely we'll need dozens of tiny drawings to appear on screen for like three seconds. Not sure how that's going to get made.

-Videos must look pretty darn professional. We put too much time and effort into this project for these videos to look cheap and easy. These things had better look sexy like Tharja's booty.

-Videos must not be too fast. Goes in line with being easy to grasp. A lot of video makers go as fast as possible to fit as much content as they can into five and half minutes. No, I will speak as clearly as I can, especially when I speak Inkling.

-Videos must give credit to Nintendo. I'm not worried about copyright claims or getting in trouble legally. It's not about copyright for me. As a derivative work, I'm pretty sure we're safe anyway. (My friend knows more about it and she'll probably explain it better.) It's just that Nintendo made this super-awesome, fantastic, inkredible game which serves as my personal motivation for starting this project. I wouldn't be working on Inkling with you guys and gals if it weren't for the excellence of Splatoon.

-Videos must have exposure. YouTube is liek the best place for this sort of thing. I have somewhere in this thread a list of websites that I'm going to send our work to when we have at least one video up. Besides that, I'm thinking of some definitive repository for our work to show to the world. Aside from my personal notes on Rare Gamer and this board, my friend suggested Tumblr because 1) it's connected to the official US Splatoon Tumblr page and 2) the social media fan presence on Tumblr is staggering. I'm probably going to get that set up soon. Any tips on avoiding SJW's and cartoon porn are welcome.

There's more that we plan on discussing this week. I'll just leave it there for now. Anyone who wants to contribute to educational YouTube videos of our language is welcome to do the following:

1) Check my previous post with my lesson plans. What can we do better? Can we be more clear? What are better examples?

2) Fill me in on some YouTube copyright specifics. What images would we be allowed to use? What music? Is it proper to monetize our videos? Under what conditions (if any) could Nintendo file a claim against us? Am I worrying too much?

3) We need an Inkling font. Real bad.

4) Anyone who could produce simple, tablet-based drawings of Inkling and Octarians with simple, white backgrounds (no need for reference points or perspective) should let me know if they'd be willing to contribute visuals for this series. It would be a good number of drawings, too. Dozens.

 

[EclipseMT]

You cannot monetize videos if Content ID detects any copyrighted music, and that's all I know, so royalty-free is the definite way to go. Youtubers love to use the music of Kevin MacLeod (still requires credit for use), especially Minecrafters.

Link.

As for takedown notices, Nintendo are notorious for shutting down works based on their recent titles.

EDIT: On the link's FAQ page, at the very last question, there's links to other RF music producers.

 

[EclipseMT]

Okay, my suggestion for passive tense.

Passive tense can be represented by the particle [gai] before the verb, for example, "Pa gaitsukoirutu piesuzoi" translates to "You have been killed by (an) Octarian" in English, and 「<whatever the word for Octarian is in Japanese>にキルされた」 in Japanese.

Originally, I was gonna incorporate the word for "to be" in it, but I scrapped this idea.

But what about articles?

 

[Chargerz_]

We're basically breaking down Splatoon text into different languages and forms.