Do ponies have their own language or typography?

[G1 Derpy FTW 134]

IS there anymore instances that show the Ponies having there own written language like is shown in this episode (The Show Stoppers) because there language seems to consist of ϟ, ♞, ★, ☾, ☋, and a few others that I can't find (Swirl, Unicorn Horn, Leaf, etc.)...

[Nature's Spell 526]

The first episode had those kind of symbols I think, but the show never went into detail about their written language. Clearly they have a very comprehensive one. Spoken language is unknown.

Edited April 19, 2013 by Nature Spell

[NavelColt 22,879]

Given that all the symbols are clearly horse related, as expected, it would appear that their writing is indeed in some sort of symbolical fashion. Probably just the writers and animators having fun throwing easter eggs around and being creative with subtlety.

[Scootalove 10,689]

Yeah, in a way they do. Not really their own language for speaking but, sign language.

 

They basically have different symbols, that represent something very mythical or about their different symbols.

[Fluttermena 1,223]

Does anyone remember the poster from Sisterhooves Social ? It looks like the ponies have more than one alphabet:

 

 

 

 

 

 

This pretty interesting, at least we know what the writing means on this one, but I have no idea how the language works. (I really want to study linguistics, so I love this kind of thread).

[Blackcat 205]

The way it is in my head canon, the more letter looking language would probably be more common, whilst the symbol writings may perhaps be spells, or used in a more formal setting. 

 

I'm not certain, but I believe a few of twilights books have the symbols in them.

Edited April 19, 2013 by Blackcat

[Love*Potion 575]

This is an interesting topic, however I don't know if the ponies in MLP FiM have their own official language/alphabet. Well, I'm sure they do in the show but from the perspective that they re fictional characters they probably don't.

 

But I'm not sure what it would look like if they did. I know this is a weak example, but whenever Twilight writes to Celestia either she or Spike writes from left to right in an English-like fashion. They use 'scribbles' to display the writing, which kinda makes me think it is more of a letter system rather than symbols or pictures 

 

 

[9x18 24]

I'd have to dig back through some episodes, but at least a couple of the signs/posters shown are clearly english words with the characters intermittently inverted or reversed. Although, per the images above, it's definitely not consistent throughout the series.

[MyLittlePonyTales 273]

I think ponies have their own language. After all, Zecora speaks a different language in Bridle Gossip, so Equestria must have its own spoken language-which seems to be English.

[Rainbow Dash Loyalty 1,275]

Interesting, I never noticed those words in the past episodes. Perhaps there is some sort of Equestrian language, looks like some sort of hieroglyphics in a way. You've gotta be a hardcore brony if you wanna translate all the letters in the alphabet.

[Buttonmash1973 1,026]

That is interesting about both the ponies language and typography.

 

The Sisterhooves Social poster that is looking Russian.

[Stormwind 53]

I think there are multiple written languages in equestria which ponies have to learn, maybe each species has their own written language that carried over from the times before the founding of equestria. And i agree with Blackcat, it seems that the hrogliphic language is more formal while the more anglicized version is informal. As for spoken language, there is no way to tell for sure but i feel like they speak some recognizable variant/dialect of English. Zecora speaks in a tong that seems to be based off of Swahili so we can assume that the ponies speak some sort of English.

[G1 Derpy FTW 134]

I've watched all the episode over again and found (hopefully) all other instances of the various Pony "written" language that is. Do what you want with it, its really interesting but makes no sense what so ever!! (This would have been posted a while back but I had an issue come up...)

 

But before I get into it just want to clarify that there was many encounters of what I like to call "squiggles" This is the best example I could find 

Spike's "Dragon Code"

Now for the other...

"Foal Free Press"

"See Mare in the Moon"

"Mysterious Mare Do Well"

"Daring Do & The Sapphire Stone"

                 "Daring Do Griffin's Goblet"                                           "Exclusive: Mayor's Scandal"(Sorry the show cut off the rest of the words)

"Exclusive"

"Crystal Ponies History Book"(Unfortunately we couldn't see inside) 

"Spikes Jewel Cake Recipe"

[Mzukiller 233]

Of course they do, they're horses. We can only understand what they're saying because Television. Really, it's quite interesting. This whole time they've been using a secret language.

[GuerrierCosmique 146]

The symbol-based system makes no sense to me at all, like the other alien letters. The spoken language is completely unknown. Virtually every film and TV series are produced in the country of origin's tongue, regardless which would be the correct in-universe one. For example, Lord of the Rings is in English except a few parts Quenya, Sindarin and Neo-Black Speech, while the real language used by the characters instead of English was Westron. It's a trope called Translation Convention. Just because we hear the ponies talking English doesn't mean they "really" use or even know it.

Edited May 14, 2013 by Tahirih

[ManiacForPonies 27]

I like to believe that their typography close to ours. But the show usually just puts random symbols (I actually believe  have seen some symbols from the Greek alphabet).   

[CutenessOverload 52]

i would say that they speak english (because its convenient for me )

however their printed alphabet looks like pictograms or hieroglyphs, when in writing sometimes it looks like they write backwards- from right to left 

 

but this... wtf is this? 

 

 

[Verily British 145]

It does indeed look like their language is, for the most part, pictograms or hieroglyphs. Other times you can read what it says even though it doesn't look like English (just look at the Foal Free Press pictures posted somewhere above).

 

If they do have a different written language then that means I MUST LEARN IT. I can already read Galactic Basic (the written language in Star Wars).

 

Yeah, I know, I have no life. But guess what? I don't care 

[Trixie the Greatest 130]

All I can say is that given the numerous puns and references that have already been shown constantly, this is just another of those antics where the show's staff just want you to notice while they giggle in their cubicles coming up with more ideas to put in.

[G1 Derpy FTW 134]

For anyone who is still interested in this topic I have found an amazing break through in the "Equestrian" Language!!! Here are images I found of other peoples interpretation on the language is quite interesting.(I do NOT own these images nor did I write them down, all credit goes to there respected owners.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

For more info on these images please visit the sites below! Thank you.

http://eqsoftworks.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=1016&start=10

http://jackjacko-eponymous.deviantart.com/art/Equestrian-alphabet-283784346

[Astrobrony 655]

As much as I love the show and I love ponies, I don't tend to think about things like that very hard.  Maybe it's just me, but I'm willing to accept that magical ponies speak and 'write' English.  

[G1 Derpy FTW 134]

More info on Pony Language!!! First off I realize that this thread has been dead (no pun intended) for quite some time now but anyways... So I watching some of the older Generations of My Little Pony and noticed one of them reading a Newspaper and surprisingly enough the written Language is similar to that of FIM!!! I just found it interesting and well now in my headcanon all pony languages are consistant!!

[RrVPfX9cPtw59FpC 1,304]

They had a scene with a poster saying "Welcome home, Princess Celest", all written in english. So, although they may have wanted to give the ponies their own language, I think it's english.

[SasQ 1,375]

 @@G1 Derpy FTW, glad to see other pony trying to crack Equestrian alphabets! We should definitely join our efforts, since I once tried to crack it too, and I had some interesting insights. I encourage you to take a look at it.

 

I, too, have a feeling that there could be something more in this alphabet than meets the eye. I also sort of solved the problem of seemingly random scribbles seen on different scrolls in the episodes: they might be a hand-written "hieratic" version of those hieroglyphs, and I show how they might possibly look. Interestingly, something veeeery similar to my hieratic script actually appeared in one episode (with Spike reading a cook book to make his gemstone cake).

 

I also had some ideas about how Unicorns' mathematical notation could look like (a.k.a mathemagic spells ).

 

They had a scene with a poster saying "Welcome home, Princess Celest", all written in english. So, although they may have wanted to give the ponies their own language, I think it's english.

 

They might actually use several languages at once, as we do in our Human World, where many of us speak different languages, but here at these forums we can communicate with English, which is quite universal these days (as was Latin or Greek in the past). In "Lord of the Rings" there was also "common speech", a language used universally throughout all Human realms, but each nation had its own language (Elves had Sindarin and Quenya written in Tengwar alphabet, Dwarves used some language written in Runes, Orcs had Uruk if I remember correctly, Nazguls had their own etc.).

 

In the same way, ponies from different nations can use different languages and alphabets. Unicorns seem to have their own language and writing, similar to Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, but it is used mostly in ancient books of Magic and ancient unicorn history. Also the Crystal Empire seem to use its own unique alphabet (and perhaps a language, too).

 

But there's also a common language and alphabet used universally by all the nations, with letters strangely similar to Latin alphabet mixed up with Greek or Cyrillic script. In my personal head canon I have an idea that in the ancient times, ponies and humans have lived together, but in a distant past the world has been split into two separate worlds, one inhabited by Equines, and the other by Humans (the one we live in to this day). After the Great Divide, both worlds have evolved at different directions, same with their alphabets. Before the Great Divide they both used an archaic form of Latin alphabet, but after division, these alphabets have changed with time and now they look a bit different. But they still share some similarities (traces of the past), which can be seen on these posters. Some letters are modified, some colligated together etc.

 

Unless MLP cartoons are translated from Equestrian and dubbed for us by the skillful voice actors we all know   In original it might as well sound like this:

 

 

So I watching some of the older Generations of My Little Pony and noticed one of them reading a Newspaper and surprisingly enough the written Language is similar to that of FIM!!!

 

WOW! This actually seems like something! Interesting track, worth further investigation.

 

Damn, I've never thought I would need to watch G1 ponies... 

 

Edit 1: Nice collection of screenshots from the show! Such evidence will definitely help in our work.

 

Edit 2: One of your links is broken. Seems that they moved it to a different site.

Edited February 13, 2014 by SasQ

[TwilightDreamer 69]

You know what, I can't really tell but it does look like it.

 

From what we've seen on certain, or at least, some items throughout the show, there probably do have a typography and language that only they can understand and it is something that we humans can't really tell but it seems like that they understand anything with specific wingdings that are unique to the pony language and typography they use in Equestria.