Inkling (language)

'''THE INKLING LANGUAGE PAGE NEEDS A MASSIVE OVERHAUL. This is where I (and anyone else is welcome) will mess around and fix it.'''

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 fictitous scripts used throughout the games are decipherable, however the way this is achieved may be counterintuitive. Scripts that are decipherable have an internal order that has the fictitious letters correspond to the letters of the Latin alphabet; we refer to this as the “true order”. However, this order is not the only way in which the developers apply the script to in-world text. Another method used is to forgo the true order and pick characters based on how closely they resemble the latin letters, while this resemblance is not found in the script's true order; we will call this “mimicking order”. An example would be the cover artwork from Turquoise October in Splatoon 1, where the Square Script is used in a way to mimic the word “OCTO”, even though this is not the actual meaning of the letters, based on what has been deciphered from texts using the true order of the script. The twenty-fourth Sunken Scroll from Splatoon 2 is an example of the same script being used in its true order, which doesn’t resemble what the text would look like in the Latin alphabet. 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 in the mimicking, nor the true order, but in a scrambled manner, in which characters are rotated and flipped to display gibberish text. Observing text with characters rotated and flipped in ways we know should not exist going off of the true order, this text is to be considered meaningless as well. Lastly, the glyphs that resemble ones from human languages like the Japanse or Arabic are not known to possess any internal order, other than what real-life glyphs they are mimicking.

Focusing on the usage of the script’s true orders 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 occurrences where the script is being used to write romanized Japanese.

=Readable words= Some Inkling words are clearly readable as English or Japanese words.

Bold Script
explain: bold script is often used to mimic words. should this be in all one table with a column for "internal order or mimicry"? or two tables? maybe 2 talbes for bold with how numerous the examples are

Round Script
explain how round script is used according to internal order with little inconsistency

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.

Other examples of readable scripts
The following examples show text that is designed to be readable by the player and do not fall under any of the above listed scripts.


 * Octopus-style posters near the Deepsea Metro read "Octavi", similar to "octavo" which means "eighth", along with a faded picture of an octopus. It is possibly a movie poster.
 * MakoMart posters have oranges on them and read "StVy Fresh", which is very similar to "Stay Fresh". This implies that the slogan was adopted as a food motto as well, also a pun for the real-life term fresh fruit.

Splatfest shirts
Nearly all Splatfest Tees have readable words. A few examples are listed here. For more images of Splatfest Tees, see Splatfest team tees from Splatoon and Splatfest team tees from Splatoon 2.

Decoding
There have been many attempts at decoding the Inkling language, and while it appears to be largely gibberish with instances of using glyphs to make words that resemble existing English and Japanese words, the usage of those glyphs have been inconsistent. Though there have been instances where certain scripts are used more consistently throughout the game and has allowed people to decode them when used as such.

Others believe that, since Nintendo has made previous languages with some translatable words before, such as the Hylian language from the Legend of Zelda series, it could be possible that Inkling can be translated.

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.

Octoling language
The Octolings seem to have their own language seen in Octo Valley and Octo Canyon. It has many similarities to the Inkling language but seems to be in a more box-style font unlike the Inkling language, which can be in a variety of fonts. The Octoling language seems to have two dialects similar to Japanese: the normal Octolings make Inkling-esque sounds, while Octosnipers, Octocommanders and all varieties of Octotrooper make groaning sounds that mimic the noises Inklings and Octolings make when they take damage or are splatted. The noises Jellyfish make (Jelonzo and Jelfonzo, as other Jellyfish are never heard talking) seem to speak in the same "groaning" dialect, implying that some Jellyfish speak Octoling.

In the Japanese versions of both Splatoon games, Inklings talk in hiragana, and Octarians in katakana (along with a brainwashed Callie and Marina, occasionally; detailed in The Art of Splatoon 2). In Japanese media, a character's dialogue being written with katakana can also imply a foreign accent of some sort. Off the Hook's songs are bilingual, with both Pearl and Marina singing portions in Octoling. 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.

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.]]