guys im getting so into making a conlang for my bloodymary language barrier fic
my notes are a MESS but here's some random snippets. we're getting there! so far i have interrogatives, pronouns, and a small list of verbs/nouns. mostly because im only really translating words as they come up (i am not making a fully fledged language here). there's a lot of shared vocabulary with Grace's English, so although it sounds as old and simlish-esque as Middle English to Simon, he can pick up on a few things.
also, this is only Future Earth's/the COI's language because i decided Simon knows that after so many years in prison. i still have semi-started notes on Eden's dialect (Martian) as his first language... yes, i am insane
this was initially based off of @ctrl-shift-alt-9's linguistics world-building, which ive kinda bastardized (sorry 🫣). op, thanks for all the meta work you've been doing for iron lung! you're a fandom godsend and i hope you don't mind that im taking inspiration from your doc
If you know me, you likely know I have a marked interest in language and talk about it a lot, even going to the lengths of making conlangs for my fanfic. If you don’t, hello! I’m a budding linguistics student and I love language. It’s an aspect of worldbuilding that I think a lot of people neglect, and particularly for Hollow Knight, there’s a lot that can be inferred about the world from how the characters in the game interact. A lot of this is, admittedly, Team Cherry handwaving aspects of worldbuilding and leaving things vague, but it’s still fun to try to piece things together from the scraps we’re given. In this post, I’m going to discuss what the language used in Hollow Knight and how it’s used reveals about the overall area of the broader world outside of Hallownest. Other linguistics students and language lovers, feel free to chime in! I’d love to hear from you and if you have anything to correct me on, please do!
One big thing to know about languages before we get into the thick of it: they become muddied more than some people may think. One specific region will generally speak one or more languages, sometimes designating an ‘official’ language, but what is less obvious is that within one language, there can be a lot of variation, even within specific dialects. It’s also not uncommon for languages to slowly blend and shift into each other over a specific area; in some areas that mainly speak one language, the further you go in one direction, the more of a second language will slip in, until the speakers you find only know the second language. (If I’m not misremembering, this happens with the UK; the further north you go, the more Scots you hear, until everyone is speaking only Scots and not English.) It’s not often as discrete as people like to think about, but this language blending can reveal a lot about the influences and presences of those who enforce the language.
Another thing is that English is, relatively speaking, rather odd as a language. It’s part of the West Germanic family (which includes languages like German, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, etc), but it has a lot of influences from French (and more so now with how technology has enabled people to interact at a rate never before seen!). Part of this is due to the Norman invasion of 1066. The local Englishmen were forced to learn and speak French, which is a Romance/Italic language with different language conventions. Over time, these differences affected the conventions of English, resulting in (part of) the mess of the language we know today. For anyone who’s ever laughed at other languages for having grammatical gender, English used to have them too! It just lost them after the Norman invasion, because the grammatical genders for the Italic languages did not align with those of the West Germanic languages, and things got so muddy and confusing that they ended up falling out of use entirely.
All this is to say that influence from other countries and languages often has a much more profound effect in multiple areas of language and communication than most people realize. Lots of English words related to laws and government are from French, as are the words beef and pork (which used to be only affordable to the high class). English lost grammatical gender entirely due to French influence, and no one now knows this unless they specifically go looking for this information! There are other aspects too; the general assumption that someone knows English or should know English is thanks to its global proliferation. You likely wouldn’t assume some random stranger knew Japanese if you’re not in Japan, particularly if they don’t look like they’re Japanese, but you hear a lot about people demanding someone else to speak in English, especially in the US.
Which brings me to my first point: everyone in the game assumes Ghost understands them. Not once do they ever stop and question if Ghost can understand the language they’re speaking. They acknowledge that Ghost does not respond, but they clearly assume that Ghost knows what they’re saying. Even Hornet does this, and I think we can all agree that she is not the type to mince words and waste her breath going off on monologues to someone who has no idea what she’s saying.
This observation can be run the other way too: Ghost knows the language spoken in Hallownest. There are characters who never leave Hallownest, like Hornet (presumably), Myla, Leg Eater, Jiji, Midwife, etc, meaning that it’s likely their shared language is specific to Hallownest. Since Quirrel is also originally from Hallownest, it’s safe to assume that everyone in the game is speaking some dialect of the language spoken in Hallownest (referred to as Hallownestian from here on out for brevity). Ghost clearly understands them all. I have seen some interpretations of how this might work, all of which draw on the fact that they are a godling. Magic is likely not constrained by language, and it’s a pretty reasonable assumption that Ghost understands everything said to them simply because they’re magical. (Then again, Mister Mushroom’s existence kind of argues against this...) But outside of this assumption, it’s unlikely anyone ever taught them Hallownestian. This means they must have learned it somewhere beyond Hallownest, during their travels outside of it.
Which brings up a third observation: Hallownestian is spoken in areas outside of Hallownest. This isn’t a particularly surprising fact, considering how famous Hallownest apparently was. Comparing it to English, which is spoken near-globally, it’s safe to assume Hallownestian had similar influence as Hallownest’s fame grew. Languages often do spread outward like this, in part from immigration and in part from those in power forcing people to learn their language. Generally, the more speakers of a language that are spread out over many areas, the more powerful the area that it originates from is, relatively speaking anyway. If you conquer more regions than other people, you likely have forced all of them to speak your language, and so there are more speakers of your language. If you’re a powerful trade hub or knowledge hub, you probably attracted a lot of people who subsequently learned your language and then taught it to their families and friends.
The more important thing to note is that Hallownestian continued being spoken after Hallownest fell to ruin, and it implies that the general populace in areas outside of Hallownest picked up the language. They possibly began using it just as much, if not more than, the other languages they knew there, enough that Ghost gained enough Hallownestian proficiency to understand everyone you can talk to in the game. They also learned the script too, since they’re able to read the signs in the game. Many languages are only spoken, so the fact that the script spread outside of Hallownest as well is a testament to its fame.
And, we know for certain that there are areas outside of Hallownest (despite what it may try to say) because characters like Cloth, Tiso, Cornifer and Iselda, Ze’mer, and Zote exist. They must have come from somewhere that wasn’t Hallownest, and they definitely spoke other languages. Ze’mer’s speech is evidence enough for that, but Lemm further confirms this (“It's long hard work translating the many languages of the bugs that explore these caverns.”). It’s not clear how far all of them had to travel to reach Hallownest, but from what the White Lady says about the delicate flower (“Far it travelled to reach this place, brought by one beloved, fair knight of lands serene.”), it seems Ze’mer’s kingdom may have been the furthest away from Hallownest. Which makes sense; Ze’mer’s speech is the most obviously different from everyone else you’re able to talk to. It’s likely she learned the language after arriving, instead of learning it in her previous kingdom.
This all points to a fourth observation: Hallownestian spread quite far out, relative to where Hallownest itself is (but this spread has a definite range). How is it that Tiso and Cloth both speak Hallownestian despite seemingly not coming from the same place? How can Ghost understand them both? Magic aside, this would have to be due to Hallownestian’s prominence in both kingdoms Tiso and Cloth come from, as well as the kingdoms that Ghost traveled to. Tiso and Cloth and the other travelers you meet are clearly fluent in Hallownestian too, and that can only be true if they were able to explicitly learn it, perhaps in school or from a massive community of speakers. Anyone who’s learned a second language should know how difficult it is to learn said language when you’re not able to speak to other people who know the language; the travelers’ fluency more than implies that there were many, many people who spoke Hallownestian where they came from.
The specific range can be half-inferred based on Quirrel and Hornet’s dialogue. You probably wouldn’t assume some random stranger on the street speaks English unless you’re in an area that has a lot of English speakers. Quirrel defaults to addressing Ghost in Hallownestian despite acknowledging them as a traveler, and he does the same to Hornet in the comic where she and him fight briefly. Hornet, in turn, does the same to him: she actually initiates the dialogue, challenging him from high up, speaking in Hallownestian (and it likely is Hallownestian considering it’s not likely she’s left the kingdom). There are two possible explanations for this, the first of which is that Hornet and Quirrel are choosing to address who they’re speaking to in Hallownestian based on the knowledge that anyone who is in the area has likely learned the language beforehand. It’s fairly common to learn a few phrases of the language of the country you’re visiting, so it’s not that far fetched of a thought. The other possibility is that neither of them know of an area that doesn’t speak Hallownestian. It’s similar to how even in generally non-English dominant areas, you’ll still find people trying to talk to you in English. Its presence as a lingua franca is so powerful it’s a decent bet to guess that some random person on the street knows the language. Hallownestian evidently has something comparable. Considering that Quirrel is arguably one of the most well traveled people you can talk to in the game, it’s pretty hard to imagine another situation where both he and Hornet would default to addressing someone in Hallownestian. And even if it isn’t a lingua franca, the range of influence Hallownest had must have been absolutely gigantic for them to do this.
And this brings up some speculation on my part: Ghost never left the area of influence of Hallownest. If they had, then it wasn’t for long, and they must have returned over and over again to the general area. Otherwise they couldn’t have learned Hallownestian, since some kingdoms, like Ze’mer’s previous kingdom, do not natively know the language. To be fair, they’re never given the room to demonstrate their understanding of a language besides Hallownestian as there is no other language spoken in the game (Mister Mushroom excluded). Ze’mer’s speech doesn’t fully count as evidence against this, if only because she is speaking a mixture of her native tongue and Hallownestian, though we can infer from Ghost’s interactions with her that they do not understand the words of her native tongue.
You could argue that the Grimm Troupe’s existence implies Ghost knows more than one language, and I honestly cannot push back against that. But with how much they have traveled around, it’s also extremely likely they, too, speak many languages, and they happened to use one that Ghost understands. It’s also likely they already knew Hallownestian, and are simply conversing with them in the shared language of this area. And on top of that, Grimm is a god, so he could be utilizing that connection with Ghost to speak more directly. Really anything works; there’s not enough information about the Troupe’s adventures outside of Hallownest for me to say more.
With the information I have now, I can’t definitively say if Ghost ever left the area of influence of Hallownest. Even then, the influence Hallownest had was massive considering how many travelers you can meet and talk to who know Hallownestian, and it seems to have been, or still is, a lingua franca. I think it says a lot too if Ghost did leave the area, but returned enough that they still learned Hallownestian. Perhaps they knew, deep down, what they were made to do?
At the end of all of this, the final answer to a lot of these questions is that Hollow Knight is, at its core, a video game made by an indie team. Team Cherry simply did not have the time to even give languages thought, so anything I’ve said above is likely just coincidence and speculation. Still, it’s fun to speculate! I’ve been thinking on and off about this a lot, and I finally committed to writing this up. I hope it’s been a fun read, and again, if anyone has stuff to add, I’d love to hear it!
