Gerudo (Language)

The Gerudo language, or simply, is the written and spoken language of the NaN Gerudos people.

The Gerudo language first appeared in in its written form, although was not confirmed as such until the. Consisting of 26 different characters, the script is an alphabet directly corresponding to the modern Latin alphabet, making it a. It reappeared in and.

The accompanying spoken language itself was first introduced in, where certain phrases are casually used throughout the BotW: by both the Gerudo and travelers of the region. Although the Gerudo alphabet is seen again in, which is confirmed by to be the alphabet for the same Gerudo language, all instances of the writing are actually in English.

Vocabulary
introduces several words in the Gerudo language, primarily s and a few nouns. Aside from this vocabulary, nothing else is known about the spoken language such as grammar or a complete phonology. The Gerudo also share the Hylian language with the rest of BotW:.

The words in the Gerudo language are mostly derived from corruptions of Japanese words relating to the desert, or of their Japanese or English counterparts. Many of them replace a b sound with v, as the v sound is only used for foreign words in Japanese and is often approximated with a b. This is alluded to in-game with non-Gerudo having the same difficulty differentiating the two sounds.

In Japanese, the signature drink of BotW:, the BotW:, is also given the name, effectively meaning "Vai Meets Voe." It is unclear if this is supposed to be an entirely Gerudo phrase, since the word "meets" is literally in English (using katakana).

introduces informal slang abbreviations for some Gerudo words primarily used by younger Gerudo, such as "sav'a" for sav'aaq and sav'saaba, "votta" for sav'otta, and "sarq" for sarqso.

Script

 * For a list of instances of the writing with translations, see Gerudo Typography Translations

Gerudo is written using an alphabet that corresponds one-to-one with the Latin alphabet. It can be seen at the Gerudo's Training Ground and Spirit Temple (where it appears written in order and its entirety on the stone to the for the stairs at the entrance) in, sparsely at the Arbiter's Grounds in , a stairway in Ganon's Castle in  and throughout Gerudo encampments and Gerudo Town in.

Trivia

 * The "y" in the Gerudo Typography bears resemblance to the "y" found in the medieval runic alphabet, or.
 * The usage of only two single numbers (1 and 5) suggests that the Gerudo numerical system is a simplified variation of . It is possible that counting would consist of the two available numbers being used consecutively to reach the desired number. For example, 6 would be written "5 1", ten would be written "5 5" and fifty five would thus be written with eleven consecutive 5's.
 * In the original Japanese version of, the transcription table identifies the top and bottom parts of the Series: semi-colon as a period and comma, respectively.
 * The title at the top of the Gerudo Alphabet says "Geldo's Typography" in Gerudo symbols. Geldo may have been the original intention for the name's translation.