A Linguistic Guide to 'Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla' (2024)

Modern Scottish Gaelic, a descendant of the Gaelic spoken in Valhalla, is still spoken today, mostly in the Outer Hebrides and on the Isle of Skye. There are also communities of Scottish-Gaelic speakers in Nova Scotia, and there are learners in Australia, North America, and New Zealand. It is an endangered language because the number of speakers have declined over the past hundred years however there have been efforts to revive the fortunes of the language.

Vinland

Later in the game I was surprised to find that there is an optional and unexpected detour to North America, to a region the Vikings called Vinland. While the Vikings are known to have travelled to North America, the historical evidence of their expeditions shows they arrived at a later date than the time period shown in the game.

Upon arriving in Vinland, Eivor remarks on their new surroundings, “Gods. Never have I seen such a place.” Vinland is the literal opposite of the harsh Norwegian landscape they had journeyed from earlier on in the game. On entering the settlement, the linguistic struggle is made clear when Eivor says to himself, “But would my words have any meaning.” Like Eivor, we are in a completely new part of the world in a country that has a radically different language.

The characters in this version of Vinland speak the languages of the Kanienʼkehá꞉ka, also known as the Mohawk and Rotinonhsión:ni, People of the Longhouses. As a linguist, I particularly enjoyed Ubisoft’s decision to give players the rare opportunity to hear one of the Iroquoian languages spoken without translation, as I felt it made for a more immersive experience. The language of the settlement is heard through the NPCs speech during their day to day lives. The main Mohawk characters speak their language during the main story mission and it is not subtitled on the screen for players, putting you firmly in the shoes of Eivor, experiencing a whole new culture. Eivor barters with Mohawk traders and participates in a storytelling ceremony around a fire that is a huge part of the Iroquian oral storytelling culture. Eivors speaks Norse but he is still invited to participate and tell his story.

Ubisoft tweaked the timing of the Viking arrival in order to tie the story of Valhalla to the lore of previous Assassin’s Creed games. It is in this region that players meet the ancestors of the Mohawk people who featured in Assassin’s Creed 3.

Iroquoian is a language family spoken by indigenous people in North America and is associated with the Iroquois Confederacy.Iroquoian is a fairly small language family with around 15 members including Cherokee, Huron, Mingo, and Wyandot.Sadly, as of 2020, all surviving Iroquoian languages are severely or critically endangered, with only a few groups of speakers remaining.

The Isu Language

Isu is the fictional language of the Assassin’s Creed universe created by Antoine Henry, Ubisoft’s associate game director. In the game, it was created by the mysterious and technologically advanced Isu civilization, which is entrenched in the lore of the games. In the Isu story, humans were created for labor, but they rebelled and flourished while the Isu disappeared. Ubisoft imagined that the Isu would have taught some of their language to humans so that they could communicate with them, and they in turn would have evolved into the languages we speak today in the Assassin’s Creed universe.

You might be wondering why I have included a fictional language from Valhalla in a linguistic guide, but in some ways it does have its roots in the real world. The Isu language is derived from a language called Proto-Indo-European, which is the ancestor of many modern languages, including English, Persian, Spanish, Hindi, Greek, and Russian, to name a few.The people who spoke this language are thought to have had a seminomadic horse-riding culture, and originated in the Pontic-Caspian Steppe, north of the Black Sea, around 5,000 years ago. Their culture and language then spread across much of Europe and South Asia.The descendants of this language still share many similarities. Take for example the word for mother, which is Mater in Latin, Mutter in German, Maadar in Persian, and Majka in Croatian.