Hylian (language)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hylian is a constructed language used in Hyrule, a fictional place in The Legend of Zelda video games such as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. The characters are composed mostly of squarelike symbols and dots with a small amount of curved or diagonal lines, and changes slightly from game to game.
In Ocarina of Time, the scripting appeared on places such as tombstones in Kakariko Village's Graveyard. No official translations or character sets have been released by Nintendo, although some fans have created versions themselves. A lot of evidence suggests that the writing is simply Japanese, and the in-game and box art Hylian inscriptions appear to confirm this.
On Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, the intro sequence had paintings with the language below it, and later in the game the whalelike creature Jabun spoke it to the King of Red Lions. Once the game is finished there is an option for a second quest, in this version of the game all Hylian speech is translated. In Japan, an explanation on the Hylian alphabet was printed on the back of the instruction manual, proving that the language is actually written like Japanese, but using different symbols.
In Twilight Princess, the language is represented by an alphabet based directly upon the Latin one, and the Hylian language in the game is in English. The script used in The Wind Waker is used on tombstones in Kakariko Village Graveyard in Twilight Princess.
