I Wish That Zelda: BOTW And TOTK’s Gerudo Used Their Own Language More

I Wish That Zelda: BOTW And TOTK’s Gerudo Used Their Own Language More


I find the Gerudo language to be a very interesting part of The Legend of Zelda’s worldbuilding in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, and I only wish the franchise made more use of it. The spoken form of the fictional language was a notable contributor to the amazing depth that the open-world BOTW gave the Kingdom of Hyrule. Since its debut, TOTK has also built upon this language, although not as much as I would have preferred.

The Gerudo may be one of many races found in The Legend of Zelda, but they are undeniably also one of the most significant. In addition to their prominent role in BOTW and TOTK, as well as more recently in Echoes of Wisdom, Zelda’s iconic villain Ganondorf is a Gerudo himself; the only known male Gerudo, in fact. For the most part, the Gerudo are defined by being exclusively female, as well as their prominent physical prowess; as such, much of their cultural identity in the games is analogous to the Amazons of Greek mythology.

The Gerudo’s Spoken Language Is Fascinating

Fictional Languages Are Incredible Pieces Of Worldbuilding

To me, one of the most interesting aspect of worldbuilding that a fictional world can contain is a conlang, a constructed language. The Gerudo language is a simple but no less intriguing example of this concept, presented in BOTW and TOTK as an integral part of Gerudo culture; many NPCs consistently use Gerudo greetings, as well as a few other nouns. Although the full list of Gerudo words is ultimately very short, the language’s prevalence amongst Gerudo still gives the illusion of a much more extensive dictionary existing.

It is very cool to be able to pick up a few words of an entirely fictional language through regular gameplay. The experience makes the Gerudo culture feel both real and something distinct from the rest of Hyrule, as indicated by their native language not being shared by the rest of the Kingdom. Of course, this makes perfect sense given that the desert-dwelling race was once at odds with Hyrule while under the leadership of Ganondorf; originally existing outside Hyrule’s borders would undoubtedly contribute to the Gerudo having a more distinct culture and language.

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It is worth noting that the written form of the Gerudo language has existed for longer than the spoken, and follows different patterns entirely. In fact, similar to other alphabets in The Legend of Zelda, the Gerudo alphabet can be mapped to the Latin alphabet, effectively making it a substitution cipher with direct English translations. Of course, this complicates matters linguistically, as it implies that English words are a part of the Gerudo language; this would obviously make little logical sense considering how different the spoken versions of the two languages are.

The Legend Of Zelda Should Expand The Gerudo Language

The Gerudo Dictionary Is Disappointingly Short At The Moment

Isha the Gerudo mentions how much of a sa'oten, or surprise, Link's capabilities are in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

The only negative that I can find in how BOTW and TOTK implement the Gerudo language is the extent of its usage. TOTK did introduce shortened slang versions of many Gerudo words, but failed to take advantage of the opportunity to build up the dictionary much beyond this. Nevertheless, I would love an opportunity to learn more Gerudo words in the future. Learning more of a fictional language is an intriguing concept on its own, but expanding the dictionary would also expand the culture, especially if the series began to introduce Gerudo idioms and similar concepts.

Rauru and Master Kohga from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

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Of course, I do understand why the series has not provided a truly extensive dictionary so far. Despite how prominent the Gerudo language is when speaking to Gerudo characters, in the end it is only one relatively small part of BOTW and TOTK. The short list of official words is a natural consequence of this; the Gerudo dictionary is varied just enough to provide tantalizing hints at the wider language, whereas building it out further would have distracted from developing the wider game. Nevertheless, there are still opportunities for the Gerudo language to be built up in the future.

There are multiply of ways that this could be accomplished. Of course, the most direct method would be to have the next Zelda game once again place the Gerudo in a prominent role, and introduce new language naturally through interactions with them. Just as BOTW and TOTK’s Gerudo introduced and explained their language to Link as an outsider, so could a new game with new words. Similarly, a supplementary book could also expand the Gerudo dictionary, arguably even more comprehensively than a game would be able to.

It Would Be Easy To Create New Gerudo Words

The Existing Gerudo Words Are Based On Real-Life Language

A close-up of Urbosa in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

Conlangs are an incredible area of worldbuilding to me, given the amount of work that can go into them in order to produce novel words and grammar. Of course, Gerudo grammar is nearly non-existent, although some rules do arise on examination. For example, the prefix “sav” evidently means “good”, as in “Sav’otta” (“good morning”), while the apostrophe appears to indicate it is being used as a modifier. Although this alone provides a near-blank canvas for future developments, creating new Gerudo words is already easier than it may first appear.

In actuality, Gerudo words appear to be derived from Japanese (or Japanese pronunciations of English loanwords), although the original word’s meaning may differ wildly from its in-game counterpart. For example, Sav’otta seems to be a corruption of “Sabotta” in terms of pronunciation, a word that means “slacked off”. Notably, many of these Japanese root words are related to a desert theme, such as the surprised exclamation “Sa’oten” originating in “Saboten” (“Cactus”). As such, whether by continuing the desert theme or branching out into similar-sounding words, there should be plenty of inspiration for new Gerudo words.

The evident conversion of “b” sounds into “v” sounds is itself a remnant of Japanese pronunciations of foreign words. The two sounds effectively being treated as interchangeable in Japanese is reflected in non-Gerudos sometimes having difficulty in differentiating them.

Learning about the Gerudo language offers people a unique way to immerse themselves in the culture of one of Zelda’s more unusual races, with the only limiting factor being how concise the language’s list of known words is. I love this kind of worldbuilding, and I sincerely hope that The Legend of Zelda introduces more Gerudo characters speaking more of their native tongue. As interesting as the Gerudo language is, it is ultimately still quite shallow at present, and it deserves to see further development in the future.

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