Splatoon Conlang

The most Official™ page for the Inkling language

[inklinglanguageofficial]

(Hijacking my pinned post to say I need as much feedback as possible from Splatoon fans. Feedback on anything. Please)

The current Syllabary. I’m happy with it but it’s clearly not its final form to me.

INFO: This is what’s known as a Syllabary. That means each symbol represents a syllable. It’s very intentionally designed to be ‘rotationally unique’ as I call it; no symbol is an exact copy of another if rotated or inverted.

Vowel-less consonants all have a complete circle.

The letter sets have clear themes to them for easy identification.

A = Ah

E = Eh

I = Ee

O = Oh

U = Ooh

There are several kinds of symbols that can be seen all throughout the world of Splatoon. At least like five or more different sets that all look different from each other. I wanted to create my own set that takes a bit from each and looks accurate to the Splatoon universe without being a complete copy of any, which took a while, and I’m proud of what I made.

Examples of writing:

The lyrics to Calamari Inkantation 👆

Actual words I’ve made which will get their own posts

More later

[inklinglanguageofficial]

“Ime iyemu matonwosa.”

(Ee-meh Ee-yeh-moo Ma-tone-woah-sah)

We’re eating fried fish.

Ime = We’re: We/Iyu, Are/Me, so Iyume/Iyame is proper while slurred it’s Ime

Iyu is the inclusive we that includes the listener while Iya excludes the listener

Iyemu = Fried fish

Maton = Eat

Wosa = Present tense

Subject-object-verb, so it’s “We’re fried fish eating.”

[inklinglanguageofficial]

Solid = Koka

Liquid = Suu

Gas = Fiu

[inklinglanguageofficial]

Spring = Miya

Summer = Sorya

Autumn = Wani

Winter = Feyeno

Season = Niineno

Four Seasons (as one noun) = Misowafe

Hot = Nasta

Cold = Fori

Fire = Nyoa

Ice = Friazo

Wind = Meo

Water = Ui

[avantgarden-er]

When i don’t post for a few minutes thats me moving in SILENCE. Know that i’m moving in silence in those moments.

[inklinglanguageofficial]

Incomplete pronouns post:

I

Riva/Iva (standard)

Puno (young boy, humble)

Meri (young girl, inoffensive)

Soma (confident)

Monin (military)

You

Kyu (respectful)

Kuba (disrespectful)

Etupe (JP-Anata, rougher than Kyu)

We

Iya (excluding who you’re addressing)

Iyu (including who you’re addressing)

Betu (formal “y’all”, referring to a group)

Betunni (informal “y’all”, because it’s redundant “all of y’all”)

I don’t know if I’ll do gendered pronouns like He and She because apparently in Japanese culture they just use the person’s name with an honorific

(Honorifics and grammar are next)

[inklinglanguageofficial]

Next big update will be pronouns. This will be a large and difficult one to do, but thankfully there’s a relatively small amount compared to, say, verbs. I’ll get these done, and the common ones: like and are if the when because of in at as for ETC

Then all I need to do is get into the zone and smash out dozens of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and get a strong grammar sense and ways to modify with affixes and tense and first/second/third person, and formal/informal speech, and whatever else I’ve forgotten.

No this isn’t a “there’s too much to do” joke, I’m actually doing it all. I work by laying down a plan and path going forward and starting at the beginning. I’m already at stage 3 here; stage 1 was finding all the canon song lyrics and putting together an alphabetical masterlist (actual work), stage 2 was creating a syllabary (actual work), now stage 3 is making words based on the collection of stage 1 and the symbols of stage 2. A language is massive, absolutely, but I’m not concerned. It may be a mountain but I can walk.

[inklinglanguageofficial]

I’d like some input.

The word for good is Wei, and I’m looking for a phrase that formed naturally (retroactively). When ordering food in Splatoon 3 your character can say something that sounds like “Thank you!” but it can also sound like “Wei kyu!” So what’s the phrase mean literally? Good (kyu)

The more common form of thank you is Juste, the shortened version of Justenifa, which means special, similar to how Arigato comes from another word meaning rare.

It should be a thanks specifically for thanking service. Now’s your chance to help define kyu!

Wei kyu!

[inklinglanguageofficial]

Because of Mozzarella’s helpful reply I’m going with kyu meaning ‘you’, being based on Japan’s history of valuing honor and respect, they would thank people in this way, saying “Wei kyu” (lit. Good you) to thank someone for an act of service. Since there is also the preexisting word Kyurari, that becomes ‘yourself’, making rari ‘self’. Wei kyu kanyura Mozzarella-umi!

Now I break down and create Kyuramekyura 🤔

Obviously a phrase…

Edit:

Here it is! Adding ‘ra’ after a pronoun or name is a friendly/endearing way to refer to someone you’re friends with, or to indicate that you’re poking fun and are not serious. The ‘me’ here should mean ‘are’, making the word effectively mean “You’re you after all”, just like “Never change”. Great! Now I have to figure out why it’s one word instead of multiple (Kyura me kyura)

[inklinglanguageofficial]

I’d like some input.

The word for good is Wei, and I’m looking for a phrase that formed naturally (retroactively). When ordering food in Splatoon 3 your character can say something that sounds like “Thank you!” but it can also sound like “Wei kyu!” So what’s the phrase mean literally? Good (kyu)

The more common form of thank you is Juste, the shortened version of Justenifa, which means special, similar to how Arigato comes from another word meaning rare.

It should be a thanks specifically for thanking service. Now’s your chance to help define kyu!

Wei kyu!

[inklinglanguageofficial]

🔠Common Words🔢

Animals

(Noun) Dog = Ebo

(Noun) Cat = Mito

(Noun) Fish = Iwase

(Noun) Fried fish = Iyemu

(Noun) Bird = Joogi

(Noun) Cow = Inwa

(Noun) Milk (from cow) = Matoo

(Noun) Dairy Cow = Matoinwa

(Noun) Pig = Pupu

(Noun) Mouse = Nyuki

(Noun) Rat = Nyukeru

(Noun) Horse = Oeda

(Noun) Feather = Myodi (from old meodi, wind leaf)

(Noun) Wing = Meyora (from wind arm)

(Noun) Animal = Myaromi (move thing)

(Noun) Animal/Beast (You’re an animal!) = Koaiju

[inklinglanguageofficial]

Putting ibi at the end of stuff makes it cutesy! People call their dogs ebibi and their cats mitobibi. It’s also endlessly repeatable! (Pets puppy) Ebibibibibibi ❤️

[inklinglanguageofficial]

Pronunciation post

A = Ah

E = Eh

I = Ee

O = Oh

U = Ooh

Ai = Eye (unique symbol in Inklish, not in English)

Vowels do NOT blend together! Each vowel is a unique syllable!

Koaiju 👈 Here’s the word for beast. Koh-eye-joo? No. Koh-ah-ee-joo.

Joogi is bird. Joo-gee? No. Joe-oh-gee. Only U says ooh. Identical vowel syllables are slightly individually stressed, slightly passed over. Never pronounce it like it’s Joe oh gee, like three different words. It’s just one word.

Unfortunately there’s no way to tell if ai is ‘eye’ or ‘ah-ee’ reading it in English. There’s no problem in Inklish but here you just have to know :/

[inklinglanguageofficial]

🔠Common Words🔢

Animals

(Noun) Dog = Ebo

(Noun) Cat = Mito

(Noun) Fish = Iwase

(Noun) Fried fish = Iyemu

(Noun) Bird = Joogi

(Noun) Cow = Inwa

(Noun) Milk (from cow) = Matoo

(Noun) Dairy Cow = Matoinwa

(Noun) Pig = Pupu

(Noun) Mouse = Nyuki

(Noun) Rat = Nyukeru

(Noun) Horse = Oeda

(Noun) Feather = Myodi (from old meodi, wind leaf)

(Noun) Wing = Meyora (from wind arm)

(Noun) Animal = Myaromi (move thing)

(Noun) Animal/Beast (You’re an animal!) = Koaiju

[inklinglanguageofficial]

Also important note: Unfortunately in this endeavor something had to be sacrificed. In this case it’s the original Splatoon music. I’ve been taking words from them and making definitions, but I haven’t the faintest clue which songs those words come from; they’re all alphabetized in my list. So I have unfortunately been inserting completely random words into the original songs. While it’s possible to create my own “translated lyrics” and fit the pre-existing words into that, it’s far too much effort for what it’s worth (Do you know how often they repeat words? They don’t. That means commonly used words are dead. It’s all just obscure ones with NO overlap between several different artists! No possible chance I’ll make it work)

I cry, for it has to be so.

[inklinglanguageofficial]

So you’re not left in the dark, here’s what’s going down. My list of the 1,000 most used words plus others is almost complete (it just needs to be translated into Inklish)! I will soon be releasing them in themed batches, hopefully weekly. Between those I will be breaking down how the grammar works, and posting fun little posts entirely in Inklish for you to figure out (these are not required to learn).

This is the path to learn! Learn all this and you will eventually be able to speak Inkling! From there I’ll be adding more and more words, getting more specific, as well as delving into big territories such as medical terminology, animal species, arts & crafts, engineering, math, philosophy, physics, everything you can think of!

Let’s go!

[inklinglanguageofficial]

If I’m not posting I’m hard at work

Or I’m lazy but that’s besides the point

[inklinglanguageofficial]

Japanese has tons of loan words from English! I’ve already decided that I want to make this a multi-conlang effort, so I want to find a Simlish conlang which will be my stand-in for English in the world of Splatoon. If anyone knows of one and the conlanger is willing to let me loan those words please let me know!

[inklinglanguageofficial]

Please create this with me! If I like it I’ll update and canonize it. I can’t do this alone, and even if I could, what a sad thing to do. I love community interaction ❤️

Currently I need an endonym for the language. That means what the language calls itself

(Japanese is the exonym; the endonym is Nihongo)

Possibilities:

Nipa

Irumo

Help