They aren't whole languages, just a bunch of random sounds. But, for instance Huttese all has a similar "sound" to it, it's not an actual language they way Tolkien did. It's just sound designer Ben Burtt playing around. I don't know a whole lot about the sounds of Star Wars, but I do know that some of the "languages" are actually based off human languages, for instance I believe it is the character of Nien Numb the co-pilot to Lando in ROTJ, Ben Burtt had some 90-year-old Indian woman come in and speak some obscure dialect because it sounded "alien". I'm probably misremembering the details, but that is generally how it was done. It's not like Klingon or Elvish.

Going off of what I can recall off the top my head...aurebesh has its origins in ROTJ. You can see some of the characters on the DSII's displays. From there the roleplaying game company West End Games adapted the characters taken from that screen and turned it into an actual alphabet and established that as the galactic standard. I recall reading an interview with one of the designers who worked on ROTJ who actually designed the original, and he said that the production actually had their own version written up but it's never been released. Since the release of that roleplaying material, the rest of the expanded universe, the prequels and even the special editions have used it as the official Star Wars alphabet.

As for the languages in Star Wars, that was all the doing of Ben Burtt as zombie has said. He liked to study obscure exotic sounding languages and would scavenge words from them to use. Apparently Ben fell in love with the process because a few years ago he actually wrote an entire travel and phrase book for the Star Wars galaxy. If you'd like to get into all the details of his work I'd recommend you pick up that book. It has a great in depth article he wrote chronicling all the work he did for the films.

The best-researched article I've seen on aurebesh and its origins in ROTJ can be  found here.  I'd explain it, but it's told as a mystery narrative and it's worth going along with it.

well i remember in the commentary they mentioned bringing a linguist in for...I cannot remember

Actually that's not aurebesh, it's a different alphabet altogether. I'd post up a comparison but it seems my DVD drive has decided to take a vacation. =/

^Nice cross-post.

Tobar said:

Actually that's not aurebesh, it's a different alphabet altogether. I'd post up a comparison but it seems my DVD drive has decided to take a vacation. =/

My friend Erik (maybe you have heard of him?) has a nice collection of these fonts on his page.   He knows a lot about these fonts.  He could tell you about these things.

I sense a disturbance in the Force ...

Aurebesh was based on the characters that appear in Return of the Jedi, but it was not created until the 1990s by West End Games for the Star Wars role playing game. When West End Games created Aurebesh, they were clearly trying to emulate the font seen in Return of the Jedi, but many characters are different.

Nowhere in ANH or ESB does that same font from ROTJ appear. They are all different alphabets.

I'd love to make a font based on Luke's X-Wing screens, but the text is blurry even in the HD captures.

ChainsawAsh said:

Ah, I guess I never looked close enough to tell it wasn't Aurebesh.  My mistake.

Cue 90 posts in the ESB:R thread asking Ady to replace the X-wing screen text with Aurebesh...

(Actually, it would be a neat way to give R2 lines that only insanely die-hard fans can read...)

It's already been done, but with galactic Basic

ChainsawAsh said:

Aren't Galactic Basic and Aurebesh the same thing (Aurebesh being the alphabet, Galactic Basic being the "language," which is English)?

Either way, that's awesome!  Is it gibberish, or did you give him lines?

I think there is a slight difference but i can't be sure. Erikstormtrooper would probably be able to clear that up. And, yes, R2 has lines.

ChainsawAsh said:

...but there's Aurebesh in Empire, too.  It's on the display readout in Luke's X-Wing, which he reads to understand what R2 says.  (Yes, I know this shot is in Jedi, but it's in Empire, as well - I even think they reused the shot for Jedi.)

adywan said:

ChainsawAsh said:
Aren't Galactic Basic and Aurebesh the same thing (Aurebesh being the alphabet, Galactic Basic being the "language," which is English)?

Either way, that's awesome!  Is it gibberish, or did you give him lines?

I think there is a slight difference but i can't be sure. Erikstormtrooper would probably be able to clear that up. And, yes, R2 has lines.

adywan said:

ChainsawAsh said:

Ah, I guess I never looked close enough to tell it wasn't Aurebesh.  My mistake.

Cue 90 posts in the ESB:R thread asking Ady to replace the X-wing screen text with Aurebesh...

(Actually, it would be a neat way to give R2 lines that only insanely die-hard fans can read...)

It's already been done, but with galactic Basic

Awesome!

ChainsawAsh said:

Aren't Galactic Basic and Aurebesh the same thing (Aurebesh being the alphabet, Galactic Basic being the "language," which is English)?

Either way, that's awesome!  Is it gibberish, or did you give him lines?

Technically speaking, in regards to the EU, that's right. But Galactic Basic is also what I called my version of Aurebesh that's screen accurate to what we see in Return of the Jedi. It's slightly different from standard Aurebesh, but I tried to keep as many letters the same as I could.

ChainsawAsh said:

For instance, the prequels make it pretty clear that poodoo is Huttese for "shit."  Interestingly, in ROTJ, it's translated as "fodder," but I think it's funny to imagine that Jabba really calls Han a piece of Bantha shit.

I can't tell you how many people of my generation and younger that think "fodder" means "poo" because of that line in RotJ.  When I tell them that fodder means "food", they bring up RotJ and that Jabba wouldn't say "You are bantha food!" How daft would that be?

The prequels only reinforce this.  I do wish Sebulba was subtitled after his crash.

(Sebulba crashes and slams his fist down on the decking of his pod in a rage.)
SEBULBA: Poodoo!
Subtitle: (translated from the Huttese) Fodder!

The prosecution rests.

xhonzi, you are bantha chow.

I has a sad.

It's a good thing you've seen Inception, or else I'd have to put you on ignore for talking to me like that.

Wait, we never really settled that... You have seen it, right?