Octarian (language)

Octarians have a language different to that of the Inklings. Seen in Octo Canyon and Octo Valley, this language is written in square script mostly yet this is not the case consistently. Spoken Octarian varies in sound by different subspecies: Octotroopers and Octocommanders make groaning noises similar to that of a hurt Inkling or Octoling, whereas Octolings speak in a Inkling-like way with vowel-consonant pairing (e.g veemo). Signs in the single player modes of Splatoon and Splatoon 2 are assumed to be written in the Octarian language as dialogue from Marie states she can’t really read the signs and needs to “brush up on my Octarian”.

Trivia
In Japanese media katakana is used to convey the feeling of a foreign language or an accent. Enemy Octolings speech is rendered in katakana as well as Callie’s when brainwashed by the hypnoshades. This could mean that she is speaking Octarian.

Off the Hook’s songs are bi-lingual. Pearl usually sings in Inkling and Marina Octarian but sometimes Pearl sings in Octarian with Marina.

In Splatoon 2 the Octoling amiibo speak in broken English whereas by Splatoon 3 they speak perfect English. Seeing as 5 years have passed since the second game they have probably learned how to speak Inkling in the period that passed.