Inkling (language)

Inkling, also referred to as squid language, is the language in which Inklings in the Splatoon series and many other species use to communicate. While individual letters, words, and the occasional phrase are often similar to real-life languages, Inkling as a whole has been confirmed to not be very thought through, and thus inconsistent.

Spoken language
The spoken language used in Splatoon is represented through clips of one or more syllables played in random order during dialog. Certain voice lines, intentionally or not, vaguely resemble words in real-life spoken languages.

Song lyrics, regardless of the species they are sung by, consist of gibberish lines. Official lyrics for songs by Off the Hook and the Squid Sisters have been distributed with merchandise, such as albums and piano sheet music. An in-universe interview with Wet Floor also disclosed a couple of lines for the song Inkoming! that incorporate sounds resembling English words. Lyrics for Ebb & Flow (Octo) are also shown to incorporate the word "splatoon", albeit slightly deviated from how it is normally spelt in katakana. In addition, Tentacle to the Metal by Damp Socks feat. Off the Hook has a line sounding like "hey hey, tentacle!" sung by Pearl.

Audio
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Written language
The written form of Inkling is represented through numerous scripts, ranging from unique glyphs to ones resembling human scripts like Japanese, Arabic and Cyrillic.

Scripts
A "script", in the sense used when documenting how the written form of Inkling is represented, is a consistent set of characters that is used in a sufficient number of places throughout the game. Characters that are not used recurrently are not considered a script. As an example, the letters of many company logos appear to be unique to the logo design and do not show up anywhere else.

When characters do appear consistently enough to be considered a script, it has been discovered that many of those are decipherable. Scripts that are decipherable have each fictitious letter correspond to the letters of the Latin alphabet; this is referred to as "deciphered" when talking about occurrences of these scripts in the game.

Another way the scripts are used is "mimicking", where the characters are picked based on how closely they resemble Latin letters, or occasionally, Japanese script, to make a word or phrase.



An example would be the cover artwork of Turquoise October from Splatoon. In this case, the square script at the bottom is used in a way to mimic the band's name, even though this is not the actual meaning of the letters based on the deciphered version of the script. With few exceptions, any situation in which fictitious letters seem to resemble an English word most likely does not reflect the true meaning of the script, and should not be used as a basis for deciphering work.

There are also situations in which scripts are used neither to mimic, nor in its deciphered order, but in a scrambled manner. In these situations, characters are used to display gibberish text, and may be rotated, flipped or slightly altered. In text where characters are rotated, flipped, or altered in ways that should not exist based on the cipher, the text can be considered meaningless.

Glyphs that resemble characters from other human languages, such as Chinese or Arabic, are not known to have a proper decipherable form.

Focusing on the usage of the deciphered versions of the scripts, there are also different languages in which the scripts may be written. While most of the time the developers write in English, there are also frequent occurrences where the scripts are used to write romanized Japanese.

Bold script


This script resembles the typeface primarily used in Splatoon for dialogue. It appears in all three games and is widely used on clothes and weapons. The bold script is most commonly used to mimic words or to write gibberish, which is why it was assumed to be indecipherable for many years. Examples of this script can be seen on the Splatfest Tee, where it is always used to mimic the text for the Splatfest team's name. This script is unique for having both an uppercase and lowercase form.

Square script


Appearing throughout the Splatoon series, this script is widely used for various applications, such as on weapons, clothes, Sunken Scrolls, and buildings, and it is often used for large bodies of text such as in the descriptions of Museum d'Alfonsino and Shellendorf Institute. There are numerous additional symbols associated with the square script that do not appear in its deciphered form. The Sunken Scrolls reveal it is also the text used in Inkling social media, and it is also used in Octarian weapon blueprints. It is also present throughout the Deepsea Metro. Several letters in this alphabet map to the same symbols: L and V, G and W, D and X, F and Y, and H and Z.

Round script


This script appears throughout the Splatoon series. It is mostly used on buildings, signs and posters. This script is distinct in that its deciphered form resembles Latin script. Despite this, it is still sometimes used to mimic words.

Bubble script


Compared to the previously listed scripts, "bubble" is rarely used. It has not yet been used to mimic any words in English or Japanese, and is often used to write complete gibberish and filler text. Several letters in this alphabet map to the same symbols: A and R, S and B, C and T, D and U, E and V, F and W, G and X, H and Y, and K and Z.

Runic script


"Runic" script appears in various places, notably in some Sunken Scrolls. It is sometimes used in longer bodies of gibberish text. Several letters in this alphabet map to the same symbols: C and W, D and U; E, N and V; G and X, I and Y, and O and Z.

Serif script


"Serif" script is nicknamed as such for how it resembles letters with serifs on them. Appears in many places, notably on Splatoon 2 Sunken Scrolls. Several letters in this alphabet map to the same symbols: F and U, G and V, H and W, I and X, J and Y, and E, T and Z share one symbol.

Halfmoon script


"Halfmoon" script is primarily used in place of a headline. Several letters in this alphabet map to the same symbols: A and H, B and S, D and G, E and M, F and U, I and W, J and X, K and Y, and L and Z.

Deepsea stencil script


This script made its debut in the Octo Expansion and is one of the most frequently used scripts there. The symbols used in order were shown for this script in HaikaraWalker. Despite much of the letter's similarity to the Latin alphabet, truly deciphering this script is not as straightforward as it may seem. This script is seldom used for anything other than bold text meant to be read by the player or for complete gibberish. In those cases where the texts are readable, characters are often swapped and rotated for the sake of mimicry. The only reliable way to "decipher" this script is to find strings of written Deepsea stencil text that were not meant to be noticed by the player, and therefore were typed into place by the designer, rather than signage where the letters were likely carefully picked and chosen to mimic words.

So far, there is one nonsensical string of text that has been found written in Deepsea stencil that fits that description: "WEDDING PORTRAITS RESTRATION DIDITAL PRINTING ID PASSPORT VIDEO TRANSFER FAX COPIES". This string of text is only found written in a small font, and crops up wholly or partially across multiple signs and posters in the Deepsea Metro to fill space. Thus, the "deciphered" form of Deepsea stencil script is solely based on letters found in that string of text.

Sign script
This script appears primarily on signs throught the Splatoon world, hence the name. It is often used to mimic words or to write gibberish. While the deciphered form has been discovered, it is very seldom used in a meaningful way. A and O map to the same symbol in this alphabet.

Alterna script
This script appears almost exclusively around Alterna in Splatoon 3. It is implied to be a writing system developed by humans, which could explain its close resemblance to Latin script. Despite that implication of this writing system, it has also appeared on a few locker decorations that were made in the Inkling's world. This is the only script that was not named or deciphered by fans, as the complete font in the correct order was extracted directly from the game's files. The internal filename is "SpAlterna-Regular", with "Sp" likely short for "Splatoon" and "Regular" being the font weight; thus, this script is called "Alterna".

Serif number script


A serif script which consists solely of numbers. However, this might be a part of the "serif" script above.

Undeciphered and mimicry-only character sets
The following examples are of writing systems with consistent symbols that appear in different arrangements, and appear frequently enough to be noteworthy. However, the deciphered form to these character sets is unknown, and may or may not exist.

Deepsea block script


This script made its debut in Octo Expansion, and it appears on posters and advertisements in the Deepsea Metro. The symbols used in order were shown for this script in HaikaraWalker. So far, it seems that this script is solely used to mimic words or to write gibberish.

Warning script
"Warning" script is named for its common use on warning and exit signs, commonly alongside the "Slow Your Roll" Mole. Most Warning script text is reused from other unrelated signs, and it doesn't appear to be decipherable, solely being used to mimic words.

Lobby script
"Lobby" Script is a writing system that first made its appearance in Splatoon 3, named for its frequent usage inside the Lobby. It appears to have an uppercase and lowercase form. Most examples of this script do not mimic any words and appear as gibberish. It is unclear whether or not this script is decipherable.

Spire script
A script found on the paint chips in Side Order's official trailer and promotional images. The characters appear to mimic numbers, English letters, and katakana characters.

Alterna stencil script


This script is exclusively found in Alterna, typically embossed on structures and printed on labels in the clean rooms of Alterna. Much like Alterna script, its lettering resembles Latin script and is often used for mimicry or strings of gibberish. As a result, it's unclear whether or not this script is decipherable.

Other examples of readable texts
The following examples show text that is designed to mimic words and does not fall under any of the above-listed scripts.

Octarian language
The Octarians have a language different to that of the Inklings. Its written form is sometimes represented with square script, but this is not consistent. Its spoken form is represented by Octolings with sounds similar to those uttered by Inklings to represent their language. Octosnipers, Octocommanders and all varieties of Octotrooper instead make groaning sounds that bear some resemblance to the noises Inklings and Octolings make when they take damage or are splatted.

In Japanese Splatoon media, Inkling language is represented through regular Japanese, while Octarian speech is written entirely in katakana. In Japanese media, a character's dialogue being written with katakana can imply a foreign accent or language of some sort. When Callie is brainwashed, her speech is entirely in katakana, showing that she may be speaking Octarian. Marina occasionally slips into speaking Octarian; detailed in The Art of Splatoon 2. Off the Hook's songs are bilingual, with both Pearl and Marina singing portions in Octarian. They mostly sing in their respective languages, but there are times when Pearl sings with Marina in Octarian, even if her lyrics are still written in hiragana. An Inkling's experience listening to them has been compared to Japanese people listening to English-language songs without an understanding of the language, but an appreciation of the melody.

When using the Octoling amiibo in Splatoon 2, their dialogue is written in broken English, implying that they do not speak the Inkling language natively. However, in Splatoon 3, this is no longer the case, as they now speak perfect English.

Trivia

 * While an official website for referred to the language as Inkling, a later Tweet referring to the languages as Inkling and Octoling got taken down before being reposted to remove the explicit mentions.