Inkling (language)

Unofficial

Inkling, also referred to as squid language, is the language in which Inklings in the Splatoon series communicate. While individual letters, words, and the occasional phrase are often similar to real-life languages, Inkling as a whole has been confirmed by Splatoon developers to be almost entirely random. However, it has been discovered that there are several scripts which are decipherable.

Inkling is also sometimes referred to by fans as "Inklish", which is a combination of the words "English" and "Inkling".

Appearance
Across the games, numerous fictitious scripts used in the games world can be observed, ranging from unique glyphs to ones resembling human scripts like Japanese, Arabic and Cyrillic. Speech-wise, Inkling speech does not seem to possess any deeper meaning that would correspond to the species' written language, aside from certain voice clips resembling Japanese or English words at times. Ultimately, it is indecipherable high-pitched gurgling.

Scripts
It has been discovered that many of the fictitious scripts used throughout the games are decipherable. Scripts that are decipherable have each fictitious letter correspond to the letters of the Latin alphabet; we refer to this as "deciphered" when talking about occurrences of these scripts in the game. However, this order is not the only way in which the developers apply the scripts to in-world text. Another method used is to forgo the actual meaning of the script and pick characters based on how closely they resemble the latin letters. This method is what we call “mimicking”. An example would be the cover artwork from Turquoise October from the first Splatoon game. 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. The twenty-fourth Sunken Scroll from Splatoon 2 is an example of the same script being used in a way that can be deciphered, which doesn’t resemble what the text would look like in the Latin alphabet. With few exceptions, any situation in which fictitious letters seem to resemble an English word will most likely not reflect the true meaning of the script, and should not be used as a basis for deciphering work. Furthermore, there are also instances where fictitious letters are being used that are not part of a complete script, which is often the case with in-game company logos for example. If the letters used in these situations do not show up anywhere else, it is likely not a real script and was only designed for the logo specifically.

There are also situations in which scripts are used neither to mimic, nor in its deciphered order, but in a scrambled manner, in which characters are rotated and flipped to display gibberish text. In text where characters are rotated and flipped in ways we know should not exist going off of the cipher, this text is to be considered meaningless. Lastly, the glyphs that resemble characters from other human languages, such as Japanese or Arabic, are not known to have a proper decipherable form.

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

=Readable Texts From Known Scripts=

Deepsea Stencil Script
Unlike the previous scripts, Deepsea stencil does not consistently follow its internal order and is almost entirely used to mimic words.

Deepsea Block Script
Like Deepsea Stencil, Deepsea Block does not consistently follow its internal order and is almost entirely used to mimic words.

Mimicked words
=Other Examples of Readable Texts=

The following examples show text that are designed to mimic words and do not fall under any of the above listed scripts.

Gear and Weapon Brands
=Spoken Language= The spoken language used in Splatoon consists of completely indecipherable gurgling. Certain voice lines vaguely resemble words in Japanese or English. Beyond that, there's no deeper meaning to the spoken language.

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 spelled in katakana.

Audio

 * [[Media:Female inkling sounds.oga|Female Inklings' voice clips.]]
 * [[Media:Male inkling sounds.ogg|Male Inklings' voice clips.]]
 * [[Media:Squid sisters sounds.ogg|Squid Sisters' voice clips.]]

=Octarian language= The Octarians in Octo Valley and Octo Canyon are stated to have a language different to that of the Inklings. Its written form is sometimes represented with Square Script, but this is not consistent. In its spoken form, Octolings make Inkling-esque sounds, while Octosnipers, Octocommanders and all varieties of Octotrooper 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 where 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, their dialogue is written in broken English, implying that they do not speak the Inkling language natively.