Hylian (Language)


 * See also: Hylian Language Translations

Hylian is the main language used in Hyrule. When written, 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.

A Link to the Past
The first appearance of Hylian was written on various important rocks and pedestals in A Link to the Past. Unlike later examples of Hylian, this was just a repeated string of nonsensical symbols. While the Japanese versions used Egyptian hieroglyphs among them, they were removed from the English language versions. This was also the first time the series showed signs of linguistic evolution, as the Hylian language seen on these rocks and pedestals is seen by characters in this game as an ancient language that is not intelligible to them. The Book of Mudora, presumably a guide to ancient Hylian, is required to translate the ancient Hylian into messages that Link can understand.

Link's Awakening DX
While the Hylian language does not appear in any form, one of the pictures in the DX version curiously contains posters in plain English and Japanese. As Koholint Island is separate from Hyrule, this should not indicate an evolution of the Hylian language, though it has been derived from real life Japanese and English later on.

Ocarina of Time
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 suggested that the writing was simply Japanese hiragana and katakana, just written with different symbols, and the in-game and box art Hylian inscriptions appeared to confirm this.

This writing was also found in The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, even though it was set in Termina.

The Wind Waker
In The Wind Waker, the intro sequence has paintings with the language below it. Like A Link to the Past, The Wind Waker makes use of an archaic form of Hylian that short-lived, contemporary beings cannot understand. At various points in the game Valoo, the Great Deku Tree, and Jabun speak 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, confirming that the language is actually written like Japanese, but using different symbols.

This writing is also featured in Four Swords Adventures, The Minish Cap, Phantom Hourglass, and Spirit Tracks.

Twilight Princess
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 Wii version of the game has the symbols reversed, making translation somewhat more difficult.

The script used in The Wind Waker is however used on tombstones in Kakariko Graveyard, for unknown reasons.

Most of the text in the game can be translated, but in much of the Hylian writing the L and R symbols are mixed up. (ex. "Lanylu" written on the map of Hyrule, "Golon Mines" written on the Dungeon Map of Goron Mines) This may have been caused by the L and R sounds being pronounced the same in Japanese.

Here is the script used in Twilight Princess (Canonical GameCube version. Wii version is mirrored):

The identity of "ancient" Hylian
The unintelligible Hylian that appears in A Link to the Past and The Wind Waker is speculated by some fans to be the Hylian language as it was spoken during the era in which Ocarina of Time took place.