Question about Star Wars Languages

In the 2004 DVD one of the good changes they did was changing the text on the tractor beam display from English to reportedly called "Aurebesh," the native text of the Empire? I was wondering, with the text, did the team that made Star Wars really invent a whole language, or did they just make up text symbols? Same with other languages like the one spoken by Greedo, Nien Numb (the co-pilot to Lando), and Jabba the Hutt. Were those languages really made up or did they just use a bunch of random words that had no correlation to an invented language?

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.

Yeah, none of the languages in the Star Wars movies are full-on languages, like Elvish, Na'vi, or (apparently) Klingon.

There are some words that seem to mean something, though.  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.

Aurebesh, and other Star Wars alphabets, on the other hand, definitely are fully-fledged, in that each symbol is a substitute for a real Roman letter.  This isn't the case in the original trilogy so much (the text on the screens in Return of the Jedi are simply gibberish, I've tried transliterating them to Roman text before), but in the example you've given about the tractor beam letters, it transliterates directly back into the English seen in the original version.

...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.)

zombie84 said:

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.

IIRC Niem Numb speaks an African dialect, and the Ewoks are based on the old lady, but she was some obscure Chinese dialect.

But I have been known to make mistakes. From time to time.

^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.

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...)

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'm pretty sure Greedo and/or Jabba were speaking Quechua, just with gibberish sentences. Similar with Lando's copilot in Jedi (I think one of his lines translates as "A thousand herds of elephants are on my foot.")

About 10 years ago Ben Burtt did this novelty pocket-sized phrasebook with short translations for Star Wars languages (like Huttese and Bocce), but from what I can tell they're either original material for the book or transcribed from the screen. I think he said a few short phrases in the movies were his, but that they were mostly mangled human languages. Like it's been mentioned, nothing to combat Tolkien or Marc Okrand.

Krakatoa said:

I'm pretty sure Greedo and/or Jabba were speaking Quechua, just with gibberish sentences. Similar with Lando's copilot in Jedi (I think one of his lines translates as "A thousand herds of elephants are on my foot.")

I think the ROTJ commentary on the DVD says that Lando's copilot's lines actually translate well from whatever African language it's in, and in that country the theaters would erupt in applause when they heard their own language.

"Jabba one inch heh cokhbah musshahnee trite annyou anya russka, hehehe"

"chess poco tootaaah, christooh krenkaaa... ya oscar!"

I've always wondered why these two sentences ended with an "oscah" sounding word despite the completely different content.

I sort of dismissively chuckled when reading it, but that Cracked article was right... now I know Greedo's played by a woman in high-heel flip flops...

Damn you Cracked! You ruined everything! Not just Star Wars... but everything!

xhonzi, you are bantha chow.

Hey xhonzi, have I mentioned that I really like what you have done with your hair lately?