Runic language

Yorda attempts to communicate with Ico, but the two speak a very different language.

Though both Shadow of the Colossus and ICO utilize fictional languages, there is a special element exclusive to ICO in the form of a runic language used by Yorda. Ico cannot understand her language and must instead communicate with Yorda in very basic verbal and physical terms.

The language was conceived by Team Ico member Kei Kuwabara. The language's writing system resembles hieroglyphs and are decoded using a simple cipher method (i.e., one symbol stands for "A", another symbol stands for "B", etc.).

Symbol Chart

Translating the language manually

1. Translate the runes into their corresponding letters to get a word in backwards Romaji.
2. Flip the order of the letters to form the Romaji word. The tricky part here is that a few vowels will often be missing; one will need to figure out what they are and where they go in order to get a real word. (This was an intentional linguistic move by Kuwabara to make Yorda's speech seem more delicate and ethereal.) Fortunately, Yorda's speech is very basic, and with a bit of linguistic common sense, it's relatively easy to find where the vowels were taken out.
3. Once the final Romaji word is discovered, translate it using whatever means desired to get the word in English.

Trivia

• While Yorda always speaks this language, the Queen uses it only once, when speaking directly to Yorda during the Queen's first appearance at the castle gate. In the rest of her lines and when addressing Ico, she speaks what seems to be the same subtitled language that he uses.
• This chart may prove especially useful for players of the U.S. version of the game, as Yorda's dialogue is not translated when starting a second game.
• The symbol for "Y" appears on the coffin that Ico is sealed in.
  • According to field designer Kazuhiro Numata, in a Twitter post in 2011, the "Y" symbol was actually designed by him and on the coffin before Kuwabara asked him to use it in the script. According to Numata, the symbol had an original meaning but it is secret.
    • Concept art for the coffins mentions "イコ数字" (ICO Numerals) being placed on the lid, so it is possible that the symbol was originally a number for the coffin.
    • Over a decade later, Numata confirmed on Bluesky that the "Y" was originally part of an entirely cut numerical system he developed for the coffins and would have designated Ico's coffin as the 25th, confirming the connection to the "イコ数字" (ICO Numerals) mentioned in the concept art. Unfortunately, due to running out of texture memory, the unique textures for each coffin had to be removed leaving all the coffins labelled as "25".
      • It's likely that Kuwabara chose that symbol for "Y" specifically because "Y" is the 25th letter in the English alphabet.

Gallery

Image posted by Kazuhiro Numata showing the cut numerical system.