The hidden meaning behind the Animal Crossing language

Animal Crossing villagers have a really unique way of speaking: a language called "Animalese". But how did Nintendo come up with this language, and what are the villagers like Isabelle and Tom Nook actually saying? Let's find out!

A huge thanks to Alex R. and ObservingTrain for helping with the translation for this video!

SOURCES

CREDITS

[simmehchan]

I remember in the earlier games you could change the language, between Animalese, Bebebese, and Silence. Bebebese sounds like the text sound in game when people are not speaking.

[PlushiePoogle]

I play in English and my mom plays in Dutch, and we often play side by side.
You can definitely hear the difference in the way they pronounce vowels and stuff.
So I think they did different Animalese for different languages.

[Squidbeep]

I always noticed this because it felt like the animals were saying a sped up version of the sounds the game would make when typing with the in-game keyboard! (Which pronounces the letters you're typing as you type them.) For a very long time I've made it a fun game to listen to what they say as they're saying it and picking out the sounds of the letters. If you know what to listen for, it's *almost* perfectly decipherable most of the time, and often enough some words just sound pretty accurate.

[RLane-xzcj]

The villagers' rudeness being meant to encourage kids to talk to their parents more is such a strange avenue of wholesomeness- I kinda love it

[tonypang]

Can't believe the international releases weren't touched upon. When you write messages in the game, each letter is read out when you type it. So I imagine they use a similar synthesiser for the other language releases?

[thecosplaycrafter]

This reminds me of Midna's speech from Twilight Princess being created by recording Japanese dialogue and then playing it backwards.

[puppiesarepower]

My coworkers get a huge kick out of my Isabelle imitation.
I go into long work discussions in Isabelle's language; I keep getting requests to become team leader. 😂
It really helps on those looong overnight 12 hour shifts.

[HeruruMeruru]

The English version of Animalese being just them spelling the words is incorrect. If you slow down Animalese you'll find in the newer games they are reading the English words in a Japanese accent, and in the Gamecube it's a English speech synth that pronounce the whole word, but isn't consistent with how words are actually pronounced in English. "See" might be "say", for instance.

[dusttalesans]

I could honestly listen to Thomas’s voice all day, it’s so soothing.

[SlashJaye]

i thought i was the only one that had noticed how the language worked until now, thanks for making this video and bringing the concept up to light; also really interesting idea since it also gives further context and provides the story as to how the idea behind this language came to be. thanks once more for putting up videos like these

[sircamquat]

I've been trying to explain to my friends for years how I can hear the words they're saying in the noises but nobody else would believe me

[dearestdimple]

This is such a great video! When I was researching Animal Crossing development I read the same interview with Taro Bando about insect collecting, isn’t it so funny and charming? Thanks for the great video as always!

[GuyWithThePie]

6:10 This is a commonly spread myth that merely takes slowing down the English version's Animalese to disprove. Animalese in English actually works similarly to existing English TTS, it's just muffled, scrambled and highly sped up. Some have likened it to Japanese TTS trying to say English words phonetically.

If it was just saying the letters one by one, it'd be a lot more noticeable. Take the way he says "get" here for example. You can't make "gee ea tea" sound like that no matter how much you speed it up.

[glo_bin]

At least in the Spanish version, it still feels generally like the word they're actually saying. Like, vowel-wise. It's pretty cool

[NigelMelanisticSmith]

Loved the video, but would have appreciated a mention of Bebebese, since that always interested me

[sonicguyver]

I think it's the same in English speaking countries as well. The animalese is just what we hear when typing a message but sped up. And with the tone changed to match the speaker.

[Flegz]

Yo. It's good to see you uploading a video! Your videos are amazing! Glad that you're back! Keep up the great work!

[jenko]

Thank you for the video! I'd love to see a continuation where you discuss how they changed the voice synthesizer to sound more like English for the players in English-speaking regions!

[Cecona]

It reminded me of the voice function of older computers from like the late 90s early 2000s. And of those old animals that you could have on your desktop that used basically the same method to speak, having either a real or computerized voice and speeding it up a lot. I have a vivid memory of taking one of those voice clips, slowing it down to normal and just hearing a random voice saying “Yellow yellow yellow”

[Noah_Kai]

I’ve been binge watching videos about animal crossing and playing acnh so much today.. then you upload this..wow