Chozo (language)

The Chozo language is the main mode of communication used by the Chozo species. Distinct writing systems are seen in places formerly inhabited by the Chozo, such as Tallon IV in Metroid Prime, Chozodia in Metroid: Zero Mission and SR388 in Metroid: Samus Returns; Samus Aran was taught the language during her upbringing and has consequently owned Gunships with Chozo text. Metroid Dread reveals Chozo to be a functional constructed language that is still written and spoken on planet ZDR. The Chozo language and Chozo scripts are also used in the Metroid Dread skin of the puzzle game Tetris 99 and on some Metroid merchandise, which give more data on them.
==Writing systems==
The Zebesian script or writing system takes a square shape. It appears to be the most common, as it is found on Zebes and SR388. It also appears on the sides of Samus's Gunship as seen in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, Metroid: Samus Returns, Super Metroid, and Metroid: Other M, giving it the most appearances throughout the series. The Diggernaut's Heads-Up Display contains some Zebesian letters, but their significance is unclear. The Zebesian script also appears prior to some in-game text in Other M (after which it is replaced by English letters) and on the Samus Data Screen in Zero Mission.
thumb|Runic Symbol concept art
In Metroid Prime, the Tallon IV Chozo script takes on a more runic design. Unlike the Zebesian script, the Tallon IV runes do not appear to correspond directly to English letters.
A third, previously unseen Chozo alphabet is only known to have been used on planet ZDR. Unlike the scripts on both Zebes, SR388, and Tallon IV, the symbols on ZDR are triangular in shape with dots, lines, or dashes. Despite the differences in shape, the ZDR alphabet closely resembles the Zebesian alphabet.
These differences between writing systems may mean that the Chozo have more than one language, or that their language evolved separately in different groups of Chozo. The script on Zebes and SR388 may have been particular to the Thoha, the one on Tallon IV may have been particular to the Chozo who moved to that planet from Elysia, and the one on ZDR may have been the Mawkin tribe's main writing system. However, no substantial differences are observed between the speech of the Thoha Quiet Robe and the Mawkin Raven Beak, and the ZDR script is the only one used on holograms in Quiet Robe's chamber.
===Zebesian and ZDR alphabets===
The characters found on ZDR in Metroid Dread form a full alphabet, and appear to be derived from those found in Other M. They mirror the English alphabet, but have no upper or lower cases.
The characters take the base form of a triangle with various angular runic patterns. When formed into words and sentences, every other character is mirrored vertically, with the first character in a sentence typically pointing down. They can be read and written left-right or top-bottom.
Characters that appear to be the same as another but flipped horizontally are not the same, but are different letters altogether, such as A/D or F/M.
==Spoken language==
The first spoken variant of Chozo is heard in Metroid Dread, by Raven Beak, Quiet Robe, Samus Aran, and a robotic voice at the entrance to Elun.
Samus encounters Raven Beak in the "Artaria entrance", where he promptly attacks her. While preparing to to kill Samus, he utters the words Hadar sen olmen (also written on his robes), which Samus recognizes the meaning of and appears unnerved by. He repeats this phrase when attempting to execute Samus again later on – at which point there are subtitles that translate it to "Power is everything." – and again after being transformed into Raven Beak X. Aside from this, he expresses his disappointment with her when she refuses his final command to obey him and, after the ensuing battle, gloats at her before she manifests the Metroid Suit and violently drains him of his energy.
Quiet Robe provides the largest amount of information on the spoken language, in the cutscene where he explains to Samus the history of ZDR and the Mawkin tribe that inhabited it. In the same cutscene, Samus herself is shown to be capable of speaking Chozo when she replies to Quiet Robe shortly before his death at the hands of a Robot Chozo Soldier.
When Samus enters the quarantine checkpoint in Elun, a group of spherical robots scans her before allowing her to proceed. A synthesized female voice simply says Sadar oibosi ("Scan complete") as the robots shut off.
=== Versions ===
Some evidence suggests that the Chozo language went through multiple versions before the completion of its official, final version, and older versions of the language appear in some places in Metroid Dread and surrounding media. For example, an early design of Raven Beak's outfit shows the text Hadar sen olsimen, with olsimen used instead of olmen. Additionally, background text on the Elun mural and unused dialogue show evidence of alternate words and syntactical constructions, suggesting that these are from an earlier version of the Chozo language.
Version differences include the following:
* Raven Beak says ladarha for "daughter" in an earlier dialogue at the end of the game, and darha for "daughter" in a later dialogue. Since the earlier dialogue is packaged with the unused dialogue, ladarha appears to have been from an older version.
* Raven Beak's unused dialogue and the Elun mural use nu for "it", whereas ninu is used for "he", "him" and "it" everywhere else. The form nu appears to have been from an older version.
* Raven Beak's unused dialogue uses nim for "this", and syntactic analysis of the Elun mural suggests a translation of "those" for sumahar, while everywhere else in the game, bura is used for both "this" and "these", and mir is used for "that". It appears to be the case that nim and sumahar are only from an older version, and in the current official version the determiners "this/these" (bura) and "that/those" (mir) no longer differentiate between singular and plural.
* Raven Beak's unused dialogue uses los for "was", while mugi is used for "was", "were" and "been" in Quiet Robe's dialogue, suggesting that los is from an older version.
* The Elun mural and official social media refer to tera as the word for "body", while in-game dialogue uses isbi for "body". The word tera appears to have been from an older version.
* Official social media refers to kataw as the word for "destroy" and "defeat", while in-game dialogue uses katalu for "destroy" and "defeat". The form kataw appears to have been from an older version.
* Quiet Robe re-words the possessive phrase "Raven Beak's plans" as ili yoris tar Ashkar Behek (literally, "the plans of Raven Beak"), while in unused dialogue Raven Beak re-words the possessive phrase "Raven Beak's instructions" as nabor tar Ashkar Behek (literally, "instructions of Raven Beak") without the word ili ("the") on the head noun. The exclusion of ili appears to be an older rule, and the inclusion of ili appears to be the current and official rule.
===Phonology===
This documentation on Chozo phonetics may be incomplete, as the language may contain sounds we have not heard yet. The English letters j, q, and x have equivalents in both the Zebes and ZDR alphabets, but sounds for these are never heard in Chozo speech.
====Vowels====
The following table shows the 5 vowel phonemes heard in the Chozo language. The English letter that transcribes the phoneme is indicated in angle brackets <>; the corresponding letter in the Zebes and ZDR alphabets also transcribe the phoneme.
 	Front	Central	Back
Close	i <i>	 	u <u>
Mid 	e <e>	 	o <o>
Open 	 	ä <a> 	
Sounds in the ranges [ɪ ~ e̝] and [ʊ ~ o̝] are also often heard in Chozo speech. While orthographic patterns strongly confirm a 5-vowel system, these sounds often make it difficult to distinguish between e and i and between o and u in speech. For example, maboris (meaning "called" and "told") and daboris (meaning "proceed") may actually be maburis and daburis.
====Consonants====
The following table lists the consonant phonemes heard in the Chozo language. The English letter or digraph that transcribes the phoneme is indicated in angle brackets <>; the corresponding letter or digraph in the Zebes and ZDR alphabets also transcribe the phoneme.
 	 	Labial 	Dental	Alveolar 	Post-
Alveolar	Palatal 	Velar/
Uvular
Plosive/
Affricate	Voiceless 	p <p> 	 	t <t> 	tʃ <ch>	 	k <k>
Plosive/
Affricate	Voiced 	b~β <b> 	 	d~ð <d> 	 	 	g~ɣ <g>
Fricative 	Voiceless 	f <f>, <ph>?	θ <th>	s 
 	ʃ <sh> 	 	x~χ <h>
Fricative 	Voiced 	β <v> (?) 	 	z <z> (?)	 	 	
Nasal 	Nasal 	m <m> 	 	n <n> 	 	 	
Approximant	Approximant	w <w> (?) 	 	l <l> 	 	j <i> or <y> (?)	
Tap/Flap 	Tap/Flap 	 	 	ɾ <r> 	 	 	
A few uncertainties remain about the phonology and orthography of the Chozo language.
* It is unclear whether the sound [β] also exists as an independent phoneme represented by the letter v, or is merely an allophone of /b/ represented by the letter b. For example, the spoken word [säˈβälβä] (meaning "however") could be spelled sabalba or savalba.
* It is also unclear whether the sound [w] is an independent phoneme, as it is only attested in the sequence aw, which could merely be a diphthong au.
* A digraph ph is found in a few places in Chozo text, but its pronunciation is unknown.
* It is unclear whether the phoneme /j/ is represented by the letter or the letter <y>, as Chozo letters for y are never seen in the attested written language.
* Finally, it is unclear whether /z/ is a proper phoneme in the Chozo language, as its only unambiguous attestation is in the species name "Chozo".
Voiced plosives undergo fricativization when between vowels. For example, hadar is pronounced [xäˈðäɾ], with fricative [ð] for d (like in the English word "the"). This is similar to the behavior of voiced plosives in the Spanish language.
Unlike in English, voiceless plosives are not aspirated in the beginning of words. While the English word "case" is pronounced [kʰeɪs], the Chozo word kesa (meaning "encounter") is pronounced [ˈkesä] without the [ʰ] aspiration. (Spanish is similar, with the word "queso" pronounced [ˈkeso].) This has an unfortunate effect of making the voicing of word-initial plosives difficult to interpret in speech, as voiced plosives are sometimes only very subtly voiced. Thus, gal (meaning "for") may actually be kal, gimel (meaning "galaxy") may actually be kimel, doshek (meaning "hand") may actually be toshek, and so forth.
====Phoneme examples====
The following table shows typical examples of the occurrence of the above phonemes in Chozo words.
Transcription	Phoneme	Chozo 	English
a 	/a/ 	ata 	you
b 	/b/ 	bi 	a/an
ch 	/tʃ/ 	chanim 	before
d 	/d/ 	dosh 	to
e 	/e/ 	eka 	rule
f 	/f/ 	ferun 	altar
g 	/g/ 	geren 	continue
h 	/x/ 	habar 	have
i 	/i/ 	ili 	the
k 	/k/ 	kuni 	which
l 	/l/ 	lin 	by
m 	/m/ 	manu 	who
n 	/n/ 	noras 	fellow
o 	/o/ 	olmen 	everything
p 	/p/ 	pul 	??? (a noun)
r 	/ɾ/ 	rahama 	warrior
s 	/s/ 	sen 	is
sh 	/ʃ/ 	ashka 	if
t 	/t/ 	tebolen	extract
th 	/θ/ 	thoha 	Thoha
u 	/u/ 	ulu 	no, not
z 	/z/ 	chozo 	Chozo
u/DefinitelyNotSascha on Reddit: "Dread Spoilers: An analysis of a certain cutscene in Metroid Dread"
u/Previllion on Reddit: "The Birb Speak"
Nintendo World Report TV on YouTube: "We Translated Metroid Dread's Chozo Alphabet and More! (Spoilers)
Chozo Language Vocabulary on Google Sheets
==== Phonotactics ====
The Chozo syllable has the forms V, CV, VC, or CVC, where C represents any consonant (including those represented by two letters such as th and sh) and V represents any vowel.
The syllable-final consonant C in the forms CV and CVC can also be the second vowel i of a diphthong consisting of a vowel + i, such as ei in the word eidis (meaning "enough").
It is unclear whether diphthongs with u as the second vowel also exist, or if such constructions use a syllable-final consonant w instead. For example, it is unclear whether the word for "submit" is umauka or umawka. The spelling w in Mawkin suggests that w is used in such places.
Rarely, a syllable can begin with two consonants such as in kran (meaning the verb "can"), or end in two consonants such as in sabeis (meaning "during"). They are known to exist in the interior of a word as well, as in tu-raun-ka / tu-rawn-ka (meaning "disappoint"). With sparse attestations of such consonant clusters, the general phonotactic rule for these syllable forms is unknown.
There appear to be restrictions on which consonants can be at the end of a Chozo word. It appears to be the case that a word cannot end in a voiced plosive b, d, or g, as the verb mugi (meaning "was", "were", and "been") with the past-tense suffix -i has the un-suffixed non-past form muk (meaning "to be") with the final consonant g being devoiced to k. An exception, however, is the word Mathroid for "Metroid".
==== Stress ====
In the English transcriptions used in the scripts for the Chozo-language dialogue of Dread, the acute accent (◌́) was placed over vowels used to indicate the stressed syllable. These accent placements, however, are not well-known enough to be confidently represented here.
It appears to be the case that each word in the Chozo language has an inherent and consistent stress placement. However, there is no clear general rule, and fans have reported observed inconsistencies on some words in different areas of the Chozo spoken dialogue.
=== Vocabulary ===
Chozo is a relex of English, meaning that its grammar and vocabulary map to those of the English language. As a result, it uses nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and prepositions the same way that these parts of speech are used in the English language, and there is generally a one-to-one correspondence between English words and Chozo words.
Some Chozo words, however, are overloaded with multiple English translations of similar meaning. Such words include the following:
* The word katalu means both "destroy" and "defeat".
* The word maboris means both "called" and "told".
* The word mehen means "think", "believe" and "imagine".
* The word ulu means both "not" and "no".
Phonetic variations of a word are also merged, such as bi for both forms of the indefinite article "a" and "an".
In addition, several grammatical categories of a word are merged in Chozo where they are distinct in English, such as the singular and plural of nouns. This is explored more fully in the following section on grammar.
This subarticle lists all 305 known Chozo words and their sources.
=== Grammar ===
As an English relex, the syntax and morphology of Chozo also map to those of the English language, and the Chozo language uses the same parts of speech and word order used in the English language.
In terms of morphological typology, the Chozo language is an analytic language, with an even smaller morpheme per word ratio than the English language. This means that there are fewer prefixes, suffixes and endings in the language than there are in English, and nearly all instances of words are bare roots without any further divisions.
==== Articles ====
The word for "the" is ili. The word for "a/an" is bi.
==== Nouns ====
The morphology of nouns is somewhat simplified compared to their morphology in the English language. While the English language has the ending -s to indicate the plural of nouns, there is no plural ending for nouns in Chozo, and nouns share the same basic form in the singular and the plural. For example, the noun rahama means both "warrior" and "warriors". Some pronouns, however, do differ between the singular and the plural.
==== Personal pronouns ====
The personal pronouns are the following:
 	1st Person 	2nd Person	3rd Person
Singular	ana "I/me" 	ata "you" 	ninu "he/him, she/her, it"
Plural 	ura "we/us"	ata "you" 	hum "they/them"
Unlike English, the personal pronouns do not differentiate between the subject or object of a sentence. For example, ana is used for both "I" and "me", as in the sentences Ana yamamar Henki Maradis ("I follow Quiet Robe") and Henki Maradis yamamar ana ("Quiet Robe follows me"). Furthermore, the third-person singular pronoun does not appear to differentiate gender, as ninu has been used for both "he/him" and "it", although no translation has been directly attested for "she/her".
An alternate form nu in place of ninu appears on the Elun mural and in unused dialogue, suggesting that it was an older version of ninu.
==== Possessive pronouns ====
A possessive ending -mahar is applied to the personal pronouns to form their possessive counterparts:
 	1st person 	2nd person 	3rd person
Singular	anamahar "my" 	atamahar "your"	ninumahar "his, her, its"
Plural 	uramahar "our"	atamahar "your"	hummahar "their"
All of these forms are directly attested.
In one instance, Quiet Robe says ninu kedar instead of ninumahar kedar for "his eyes". This appears to be merely an error in producing the Chozo language for Quiet Robe's dialogue, as Raven Beak later says atamahar kedar for "your eyes".
This -mahar possessive ending, however, is not used for nouns. Instead, phrases with the "-'s" ending in English are first re-worded using the preposition "of", and then translated into Chozo. For example, Quiet Robe says ili yoris tar Ashkar Behek (literally, "the plans of Raven Beak") for the Chozo of "Raven Beak's plans".
The independent versions of these possessive pronouns ("mine", "yours", "ours", "theirs") are not yet attested. It may be the case that these also use the -mahar forms.
==== Reflexive pronouns ====
The reflexive ending -mis is applied to the personal pronouns to form their reflexive counterparts:
 	1st person 	2nd person 	3rd person
Singular	anamis "myself" 	atamis "yourself, yourselves"	ninumis "himself, herself, itself"
Plural 	uramis "ourselves"	atamis "yourself, yourselves"	hummis "themselves"
Of these forms, only atamis is directly attested, with the remaining forms inferred based on the possessive -mahar pattern.
==== Determiners ====
The determiners are bura for "this/these", and mir for "that/those". These do not differentiate between singular and plural. However, unused dialogue and syntactic analysis of the Elun mural suggest an alternate nim for "this" and sumahar for "those", implying the possibility that the determiners used to distinguish between singular and plural in an older version of the language.
As in English, the determiner mir (meaning "that") is also used as the dependent clause indicator. For example, Quiet Robe says ili Mathroid mir mugi talar suradis to mean "the Metroids that were running rampant".
==== Relative and interrogative pronouns ====
The known relative pronouns are the following: manu means "who", kuni means "which", and minobis means "why". The words for "what", "when", "where" and "how" are not known.
Since wh-questions are not attested anywhere in Chozo speech or writing (the only questions asked by the Chozo characters in Dread are yes/no questions), it is not yet confirmed whether these relative pronouns are also used as interrogative pronouns, but it appears to be likely given the nature of the Chozo language as a relex of the English language.
==== Numerals ====
The Chozo word for "one" is ai, and this is used both in the pronominal sense (such as in ulu ai, meaning "no one"), and in the sense of a numeral. Additionally, dun is "three", ker is "five" and rem is "seven". The Chozo for "two", "four" and "six" are not known, nor are any words or constructions for expressing multiple digits known, nor is it confirmed what base numerals take in the Chozo language.
The Chozo numeral ai ("one") on the Autool model implies that the similar word mu on the Autclast model is also a numeral. But it is uncertain which numeral this would represent.
The Chozo suffix -kon is used to convert a numeral to an ordinal. For example, aikon means "first".
The Chozo suffix -mar is used to convert a numeral to its adverbial form. For example, aimar means "once".
==== Verbs ====
Unlike English, Chozo does not have an ending for the present-tense "-s" of verbs like in "Quiet Robe follows", or for the present participle "-ing" of verbs like in "Quiet Robe is following", or for the gerund "-ing" of verbs like in "Following Quiet Robe is easy". Instead, the infinitive, the gerund, and all present-tense forms of verbs identically use the bare stem of the word.
==== Past tense ====
The past tense and past participle use the suffix -i, the relex of English "-ed". For example, while Quiet Robe uses saral as the infinitive of "eradicate" in Uramahar banta mugi dosh saral bura Mathroid ("Our intention was to eradicate these Metroids"), he then uses sarali with the -i suffix as the past participle "eradicated" in habari bama mugi sarali ("had already been eradicated"). In this phrase, this past-tense -i ending is also used in habari ("had") and mugi ("been").
If the verb ends in a vowel, -i is simply added after the vowel to form a diphthong, as in faragai ("attacked"), nobei ("showed"), and kinui ("did"). There is no clear evidence yet of any verb whose bare root already ends in a vowel i, so it is unknown what the rule is for such verbs, or if any such verbs even exist in the Chozo language.
==== Irregular verbs ====
Some verbs appear to have irregular past-tense forms using features other than the past-tense -i suffix. The verb talar ("run") has the attested past-tense form talaris ("ran"). Similarly, maboris is attested for "called" and "told", mehirin is attested for "needed", and bados is attested for "lain", but the non-past forms of these words are not attested.
The word hundar is used for the past participle of "become". However, it is unclear whether there is an alternate non-past form, or if this is the bare root that lacks a different past participle form because the English word "become" is the same between its bare form and its past participle form.
===== The verb muk =====
The verb muk, meaning "to be", is unique in the Chozo language in that, unlike other verbs, it has multiple conjugated forms for person and number in the present tense, as well as a different form for the present participle.
Its present participle form is huma, meaning "being". Although the gerund is not attested, this is likely to be the gerund form as well.
Its present-tense conjugation is the following:
Conjugation	Conjugation	English	Chozo
Singular 	1st person 	am 	man
Singular 	2nd person 	are 	mar
Singular 	3rd person 	is 	sen
Plural 	Plural 	are 	mar
It otherwise behaves like a regular verb, with the bare form muk used as the infinitive, and the suffixed form mugi with past-tense suffix -i used for all past-tense forms, including "was", "were" and the past participle "been". The de-voicing of g to k in the bare form appears to be due to a phonotactic rule in the Chozo language that disallows the voiced plosives b, d, and g to appear at the ends of words.
== Names of Chozo ==
Most Chozo names appear to follow a two-element pattern consisting of a modifier followed by a head noun. The known examples are:
* Old Bird
* Gray Voice
* Platinum Chest
* Quiet Robe
* Raven Beak
Of these names, only Quiet Robe and Raven Beak have known Chozo language translations, Henki Maradis and Ashkar Behek, respectively.
Of note, not only does this system resemble (and was likely inspired by) the naming conventions of many indigenous tribal languages, it also resembles the ancient Indo-European system. In particular, the two-element feature is shared with the ancient Indo-European naming convention, and is found in many given names of Germanic origin that are still common today: the name "William" comes from Wilja-Helmaz meaning "Will-Helmet", "Robert" comes from Hrōþi-Berhtaz meaning "Shining-Glory", and "Roger" comes from Hrōþi-Gaizaz, meaning "Fame-Spear". In addition, most Chinese given names also use a two-element system: 秀英 (Mandarin xiù-yīng) means "Elegant [and] Outstanding".
The Metroid Prime series appears to have innovated a different system for Chozo names independently of the language and two-element system of the main series, by simply inventing foreign coinages such as "Ou-Qua", "De'la" and "Dryn", or simply using titles such as "the Searcher"
== Names of planets ==
The planets ZDR and SR-388 have alternate native Chozo names: ZDR is Ili Tarin Nalima, and SR-388 is Ili Agar Nalima.
The basic form appears to be Ili __ Nalima, meaning "the __ [Nalima]". The literal meaning of Nalima is not yet known, but this usage implies some meaning like "world" or "nest". The translation "planet" is unlikely as uliris is already the word for "planet", and the translation "homeworld" is unlikely as sarien is already the word for "homeworld".
It is also not known whether Tarin and Agar have literal meanings as common nouns or adjectives.
It is unknown whether any other Chozo worlds such as Zebes, Tallon IV, or Elysia have a native translation of this Ili __ Nalima form.
==Loanwords==
Some nouns have been borrowed between Chozo and English. All known examples of this are spelled the same in both languages,u/Salva4456 on Reddit: "Transcripts from E.M.M.I. Reactivated Cutscene" but many examples are pronounced differently:
*Metroid, which was loaned into English from Chozo and means "ultimate warrior". Despite the origin and spelling, Quiet Robe and Raven Beak pronounce it roughly as Mathroid.
*Samus Aran's name, which was given to her by her English-speaking parents Virginia and Rodney Aran. Quiet Robe and Raven Beak pronounce it approximately as Tamus Arlan.
*E.M.M.I., an English acronym that was borrowed into Chozo. Quiet Robe pronounces it as /ɛmˈmai̯/.
*The absence of a clear /z/ phoneme anywhere else among the attestations lends the suggestion that the proper noun "Chozo" is also a loan.
The words Metroid and Chozo were likely intended to be native words by the developers, and simply happen to act like loans linguistically because they were coined prior to the development of the Chozo language.
==Development notes==
The Chozo language in Dread was created by MercurySteam,andre (andremfpinheiro). "From the production team at Mercury" [in response to a question asking who created the Chozo language] 8 May 2022 1:58 p.m. Tweet. https://twitter.com/andremfpinheiro/status/1523361744336211969Nikki García (nikkigarcia_es). "Hola! No te sé responder a esa pregunta. Me imagino que lo crearon los propios creadores del juego. 😅 Lo siento!" (Rough translation: "Hello! I don't know how to answer that question. [whether she knew who created the language] I imagine it was created by the creators of the game themselves. 😅 Sorry!") 25 February 2022 1:27 p.m. Tweet. https://twitter.com/nikkigarcia_es/status/1497280200857509890 and all writing in the game's background corresponds to real text in the language.andre (andremfpinheiro). "Everything you see in metroid dread where it's written in chozo has a meaning. It was done with that purpose and it was a pain in the ass doing it 🥲" 8 May 2022 6:14 a.m. Tweet. https://twitter.com/andremfpinheiro/status/1523244979174400005 Originally, the writing was not intended to encode a full language, resulting in some words that are random.andre (andremfpinheiro). "Its because some words are just random. I dn't [sic] remember exactly the meaning since I wsn't [sic] the person who created it. I just had to correct some of the designs we had cause at the beginning it was all gibberish and the symbols weren't supposed to have any meaning." 8 May 2022 1:24 p.m. Tweet. https://twitter.com/andremfpinheiro/status/1523353263269367808
All voice actors in Dread spoke Chozo and were provided with both the English and Chozo versions of their dialogue, in order to give them context for the lines.Stephen Hughes. "We had both, so that we had some sense of [...] reference." 8 June 2024. Video. KIWI TALKZ #168 - Stephen Hughes Interview (The Voice Of Quiet Robe).
Javier Arturo Michel Serrano was one of the developers who tested the language. He was fond of saying Ata mar fasma ("You are weak") to his colleagues.Jartur🏳️‍🌈 (JartMode). "Ata mar Fasma=You are WeakIt was my favorite thing to say to my colleagues 🤣As one of the guys who had to check the Chozo language on the game I say Kudos to your great effort!" 20 May 2022 1:36 p.m. Tweet. https://twitter.com/JartMode/status/1527704794139443200 André Mateus Ferreira Pinheiro corrected some of the characters during development of the language, but did not know if there was an official language document for Chozo.andre (andremfpinheiro). "Maybe there is... Can't say much more, I don't want Nintendo's FBI on my doorstep and I kinda like that there's sort of a archeological mistery 😂" 8 May 2022 1:28 p.m. Tweet. https://twitter.com/andremfpinheiro/status/1523354269667102721
==Trivia==
*There are destructible ornamental frames in Main Docking Access and Landing Access that are etched with "illegible Chozo markings".
*Samus's Starship in Super Metroid is the first to show a Chozo word or letter with the design of a backwards "C" with a tail hanging out diagonally.
*It is interesting to note that although the Observatory is a Space Pirate facility, the names of the planets are written in Chozo. According to the Pirate Data entry "Artifact", the Pirates do not know Chozo well enough to meaningfully decipher it.
**Chozo text appears on several other Space Pirate devices, most notably the mechanical structure within the Monitor Station and the door control switch in the Phendrana Drifts.
*The Alimbic language written on walls on planet Alinos strangely resembles the Chozo script used on Tallon IV, despite there having been no known contact between the Chozo and Alimbics. Samus's Translator Module is unable to decipher the Alimbic text, however.
*The Chozo alphabet on ZDR resembles the written language of the Trill species from the Star Trek franchise.
==Gallery==
Mzm-chozo-fresco.png
Otherm cipher.png|English-to-Chozo cipher for text in Other M.
Chozo lettering.png|Gunship text in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes.
Starship chozo text.jpg|Star Ship text in Other M.
250px-Chozo Runes mp1 Screenshot 01.png|Chozo language found in Chozo Ruins (Metroid Prime).
MSR Chozo Letters in Area 3.png|Chozo glyphs reading "FLRX", "AGMC", and "CIOU" in Area 3
MSR Area 3 First Tower Corridor Aeion Tank.jpg|Chozo glyphs reading "CIOU" in the first tower corridor
Odin-fernandez-moreno-chozo-assets-4.jpg|Chozo text in an Odín Fernández "Chozo Assets" render
Chozo hieroglyphs zdr.jpg|Chozo symbols found on planet ZDR take a triangular form.
MD Chozo Archives 07.jpeg|Holographic writing in the seventh image of the Chozo Archives.
==References==
==External links==
* Chozo Cipher Club, a fan group studying Chozo
* Fan-made teaching materials for the language
it:Linguaggio Chozo
Category:Chozo
Category:Gunship Features
Category:Chozo Ruins
Category:Chozodia
Category:SR388
Category:ZDR
Category:Languages
Category:Lore