Monday, September 28, 2020

Last line of Violet's final letter to Gilbert (spoiler)

This post will contain spoilers for Violet Evergarden the Movie, so please stop reading if you don't want to read spoilers. (And a reminder, there is a final cut after the credits finish rolling, so do stay in your seats until then when you catch the movie in the theatres.)

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At the cast event, Director Ishidate mentioned that the last line in Violet's final letter to Gilbert was not voiced, even though that line can be seen in the movie itself. So what did that line say?

Someone actually copied down that last line.
画像1

This isn't really very helpful, since most people can't read the Tellsis language (which is apparently the name of the language that is used for the written word in Violet's world, but fans call it Nunkish). But fans had actually been hard at work ever since the anime series first came out to try to figure out how to decode the Tellsis language. For example, this post here talks about one such effort. There is even an online Python script that can be used to translate Nunkish into English. (Updated Python script can be found here, but I also wrote an app that runs on Windows, Linux, and Android that is far easier to use, which you can find here.)

Anyway, that final line above, when written in the English alphabet, turns out to be "Nun posukui noyirrikon".
 
And because Nunkish is actually based on Tamil, with certain alphabets switched, that line becomes "Nāṉ mējarai nēcikkiṟēṉ" in romanised Tamil. Which supposedly means "I love (you) Major" in English, or "私は少佐殿を愛しています" in Japanese. (Source: 『劇場版ヴァイオレット・エヴァーガーデン、最後の手紙の一文が解読された』って話【ジェバンニが一晩でやってくれた】)

I need to watch the movie again to confirm this... 😂

Update October 2, 2020: As of today, I have watched the movie three times. And I can confirm the last line of the letter, as shown above, is correct. I mean, it is to be expected, since in the earlier part of the letter, Violet said that because Gilbert (aka the Major) taught her the words "I love you," she wanted to communicate those same words, "I love you." Then, she goes on to thank him for many different things. So it is fitting that the letter finally ends with, "I love (you) Major."
 
Update November 14, 2020: Apparently, according to this post, Director Ishidate confirmed at the staff event on November 12 (the first screening at a Dolby Cinema, held in Kyoto and not broadcast to other theatres) that the final line reads "私は少佐を愛しています" (I love you, Major).
 
Note: As an after note for the production staff event at Shinjuku, Suzuki Takaaki, who designed the world setting, disclosed the process of how the language used on the Tellsis continent was created. First, he translated the Japanese text to English. Then, he converted the English text to another language (he did not specify that language, but we know it is Tamil). Then, he did a bit of cryptography work, basically, used a substitution cipher. Finally, the text is rewritten in the alphabet of the Tellsis continent. 

Update January 15, 2021: Bidirectional Tellsis language translator can be found here.
 
(highly recommended to use this one as it is easier to install)

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