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PS4's 2018 God Of War game features Kratos learning to raise his son, through a quest across landscapes inspired by Norse mythology.

Many enemies and NPCs use a language that sounds like it might be of Nordic inspiration ; do they use a real existing language (or one that have existed)? Or did the developers just made up words and sentences for those sequences?

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    I couldn't find anything about the spoken dialogue. but the written runes throughout the game are apparently a legible form of Old Nordic writing that even contain hints (and spoilers!) for what's yet to come, for those who take the time to translate.
    – Steve-O
    Commented Feb 21, 2019 at 16:49

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TL;DR

Ancient Norse and/or Greek

Kratos understands and IS understood by others, implying he speaks ancient Norse, which is later confirmed through dialog between himself and Atreus. In the same conversation we find that he can not at all write it, as he hasn't bothered to learn.

In my head canon, however, whenever he responds to his own hallucination, whether it be Athena or Zeus, he is speaking and hearing Greek. Mimir is well traveled and Atreus has a godly power and understanding of language, so I assume they understand what's being said at these times.

Edit: Also in my head canon, I think whenever Kratos is talking only to himself, such as when he's limping away after his first battle with Baldur, he is speaking in Greek because it's more familiar to him and he has no need to translate his thoughts for others during those times.

https://www.reddit.com/r/GodofWar/comments/9czztt/what_language_do_kratos_and_atreus_speak/

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  • Thank you for the link, however what I would like to know is if the sentences that can be heard pronounced by enemies (and that are not English) have a meaning at all. (In the game, what we players hear from the mouth of Kratos is always sentences in English - or macho grunts)
    – wip
    Commented Feb 19, 2019 at 21:57
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    @wip I would imagine that they could have easily made the enemies speak Greek as well; especially considering it's a AAA game with a hefty budget. In other games, triple-A and non triple-A alike, any time I hear unimportant characters speak Ukrainian or Russian it has always been intelligible.
    – MonkeyZeus
    Commented Mar 4, 2019 at 20:26
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    @wip You may wish to try asking your question over at mythology.stackexchange.com as there could be more people familiar with this sort of thing. You may wish to also find a gameplay clip on YouTube of the language in question so that people can more easily answer your question.
    – MonkeyZeus
    Commented Mar 4, 2019 at 20:34

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