The Language and Writing System in Tensura Universe


(SPOILER ALERT! This post may contain some spoilers from anime and LN)

For a fantasy story that tells about another world (or isekai), the presence of artificial language(s) and/or writing system(s) will make the readers feel as if they really go to a world that is completely different from the real world.

A series called "Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken" (shortly "Tensura") or "That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime" is no different. If you pay enough attention to the everything shown in some scenes in the anime or manga, you'll probably find some weird writings there.

What kind of writing is that? What language is it?

The anime implied that the language used by three adventurers (Eren, Kaval, and Gido) was English, as Rimuru said in episode 2, "I was never good at English."

The LN, though, hinted that there wasn't only one language. In the first volume, the language used by those adventurers and the goblin language were mentioned as different matters. The prologue of the ninth volume also stated that the language used by people in a town where Hero Masayuki accidentally transported to (from Earth) was complete gibberish to him. If it was English, technically speaking, people who came from Earth should've known immediately.

Considering that Eren (from Sarion), Kaval, and Gido (possibly from Blumund) were from different countries and they could speak to each other with English, it could be assumed that there were really various languages with English as the lingua franca (just like the real world, really). This matter was never explained further in the LN.

Since it was another world that was supposedly different from the real world, it wouldn't make sense if the people there also called the language as "English". Because it was used as the lingua franca, we could just call it the World Language or 世界語 (Sekai-go).

Long story short, World Language in Tensura universe is basically English, but using a different writing system. How can we read it? I'll show it to you.

WRITING DIRECTION

Just as how many languages in the real world are written, World Language is also written from left to right.

LETTERS

World Language has 26 letters with each letter having an uppercase and a lowercase version. Lowercase letters are written on the upper position instead of being written on the lower position. If you don't really understand, you can scroll up and see the picture below the title as an example.

EXAMPLES

Let's take a look at this scene.

The scene above was taken from OVA 1. How will you read the writings? It reads "YOKOZUNA RANGA" and "TEMPEST" (click to see the answers)

Let's take a look at another scene.

The scene above was taken from Tensura Nikki episode 2. How will you read the writings? The smaller writings read "Fresh fruit" and the bigger writings read "Kiwi", "apple", and "pear" respectively from left.

NUMBERS

Tensura universe uses base 10 numbering system. Numbers are written as big as uppercase letters.

EXAMPLES

Let's take a look at this scene.

The scene above was taken from episode 26 (season 2 episode 2). If we rewrite the first equation, it'll be "6/7 ÷ 2/3 = 6/7 × 3/2 = 18/14". And if we rewrite the second equation, it'll be "6/8 ÷ 3/4 = ?".

PUNCTUATIONS

1. Comma is indicated by a small single strip.
Example:     Kiwi, apple, pear -> Kiwi, apple, pear

2. Full stop (period) is indicated by two small strips.
Example:     I am fine. -> I am fine.

3. Hyphen is indicated by a small right arrow.
Example:     Re-executing -> Re-executing

4. Colon is indicated by a small dot.
Example:     Unique Skill: Predator -> Unique Skill: Predator

5.  Slash is indicated by a mirrored-L-like symbol extended with a line downwards.
Example:     100 km/h -> 100 km/h

6.  Question mark is indicated by a symbol similar to "g" but having more obvious curves and slightly bigger.
Example:     What is this? -> What is this?

7. Exclamation mark is almost the same as in English.
Example:     I told you! -> I told you!

8. Parentheses is enclosed by a pair of T-like symbols.
Example:     Wise One (Great Sage) -> Wise One (Great Sage)

9. Quotation is enclosed by a pair of small c-like symbol 
Example:     "This is bad." -> "This is bad."

10. Ampersand is indicated by a symbol similar to Greek's lowercase delta (δ).
Example:     Angels & Demons -> Angels & Demons

11. Apostrophe is indicated by a small mirrored-c-like symbol
Example:     Rudra's reincarnation -> Rudra's reincarnation

12. Anything other than what I mentioned above is outside my knowledge and/or has yet to be found.

OTHER SYMBOLS

The multiplication and division signs are exactly the same with the real world. The equal sign is, you can say, similar to ][ but rotated 90 degrees. You can look again at the picture I provided as an example in NUMBERS section.

EXERCISE (not mandatory)

Look at this picture. This is apparently an incantation to invoke fire magic. Tell me what it reads. Remember that a wrong lowercase or uppercase letter, a wrong amount of spaces, or wrong amount of newlines isn't tolerated.

Your answer:

THE STORY OF DECIPHERING AND AFTERWORDS

One day, I was really bored. I got nothing to do. Suddenly, when I re-watched some episodes of Tensura anime, suddenly I got an idea. Those writings are interesting. I wonder how it reads, I thought. I tried to search in the internet, but I found nothing. My curiousness pushed me to search the answer myself.

Every time I found a clue for an alphabet, a number, or a punctuation in an episode, I would write it down on a notebook. Even further, when I finally managed to get every glyph I deemed as necessary, I decided to create my own font based on it. And I thought, it would be a waste if I just saved it myself.

That's the story how I managed to decipher it. Because I wanted so much to share it, I wrote a "book" in my Wattpad. But, considering that there were not so many people who watch and/or read Tensura (if compared to extremely popular animes like KnY and AoT), I didn't see any big chance and so, I decided to also write a post in my blog. This blog is much more readable, understandable, and up-to-date though.

Just so you know, this writing system wasn't only used to write World Language. I noticed that in some scenes in anime, this writing system was also used as a sort of "romanization" for Japanese language.

At the end of the day, I'm just a mere imperfect human. There could've some mistakes that I haven't realized. I could've also misunderstood some things. I'm also really really sorry if my explanation is sometimes confusing and ambiguous. I often have a trouble arranging proper words to describe something. :'(

Thank you for reading this post and see you again!

***

(Additional Information)

According to Google Translate, Yokozuna (横綱) means "sumo grand champion"

The link of the Wattpad version I talked about: The Writing System in Tensura Universe - jtaugusta06 - Wattpad

It turns out that the font has already existed and used in Tensura page.

It turns out that some people had already initiated the decryption before me.

This post can be updated anytime if I found something wrong or something new.

I've uploaded my self-made fonts on GitHubGoogle Drive, or Microsoft OneDrive


Comments

  1. Good job dude I’ve been tryna figure there language out too

    ReplyDelete
  2. Where can I find this TenSura webpage you all seem to know the existence of, yet I can't find any information on

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi, can you give me the link for the Tensura font? I can't find it on ten-sura.com home page. It would really help me out.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. https://www.ten-sura.com/4GfGdAp7/wp-content/themes/tensura_portal/assets/font/tenslafont005-tegular.otf

      I get that link by utilizing my Unique Skill [Inspector] xD

      Delete
    2. Oh yeah, by the way, the font I used for this blog isn't the original font. I hand-made it myself because at that time I hadn't found it yet.

      Delete
  4. It won't let me download the font, unfortunately. It keeps sending me to Caret, a coding app on my computer T^T

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Please try the new GDrive or OneDrive links I've provided.

      Delete

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