Languages in Star Wars
The Star Wars space opera universe, created by George Lucas, features some dialogue spoken in fictional languages.
He created the alien dialogue out of existing non-English language phrases and their sounds, such as Quechua for Greedo in the original Star Wars film and Haya for the character Nien Nunb in Return of the Jedi.
Director J. J. Abrams asked Sara Forsberg, who lacked a professional background in linguistics but created the viral video series "What Languages Sound Like to Foreigners" on YouTube, to develop alien dialogue spoken by Indonesian actor Yayan Ruhian.
[4] During production of the prequel trilogy, Lucas insisted that written text throughout the films look as dissimilar from the English alphabet as possible and strongly opposed English-looking characters in screens and signage.
[8] In critical commentary on Episode I – The Phantom Menace, Patricia Williams of The Nation felt there was a correlation between accent and social class, noting that Jedi speak with "crisp British accents" while the "graceful conquered women of the Naboo" and "white slaves" such as Anakin and Shmi Skywalker "speak with the brusque, determined innocence of middle-class Americans".
Yoda characteristically speaks a non-standard syntax of Basic, primarily constructing sentences in object–subject–verb word order rare in natural languages.
This sentence construction is cited as a "clever device for making him seem very alien" and characterizes his dialogue as "vaguely riddle-like, which adds to his mystique".
[12] Gungan characters, notably Jar Jar Binks, speak in a heavily accented Basic dialect critics described as a "Caribbean-flavored pidgin",[10] "a pidgin mush of West African, Caribbean and African-American linguistic styles",[6] "very like Jamaican patois, albeit a notably reductive, even infantilized sort",[13] and suggestive of stereotypical African-American culture.
[16] The alphabet was based on shapes designed by Joe Johnston for the original trilogy, which are briefly featured in screen displays in Return of the Jedi.
[5] In the early 1990s, Stephen Crane, art director at West End Games, became intrigued with the shapes as they appeared on the Death Star.
[16] In anticipation of the December 2015 release of The Force Awakens, Google Translate added a feature to render text into Aurebesh in November 2015, which was subsequently removed in February 2016.
In April 1994, the then unidentified language first appeared in Dave Wolverton's The Courtship of Princess Leia, when the young Teneniel Djo unleashes a Spell of Storm on Luke Skywalker and Prince Isolder of Hapes.
[1] Burtt created R2-D2's dialogue in the original Star Wars with an ARP 2600 analog synthesizer and by processing his own vocalizations via other effects.
[17] In The Force Awakens, BB-8's dialogue was created by manipulating the voices of Bill Hader and Ben Schwartz with a talkbox running through a sound effects application on an iPad.
For the scene in which C-3PO speaks Ewokese, actor Anthony Daniels worked with Burtt and invented words, based on the Kalmyk recordings.
In the original Star Wars film, Greedo speaks an unspecified alien language understood by Han Solo; it was later identified as Rodian.
[21] Bruce Mannheim described Greedo as speaking Southern Quechua in "morphologically well-formed" phrases with sentences ultimately meaningless.
Sonnefrank refused to record the dialogue, feeling it to be a "potentially exploitative move best made by one whose first language was Quechua, if at all".
[28][29] Composer Jesse Harlin, needing lyrics for the choral work he wanted for the 2005 Republic Commando video game, invented a spoken form, intending it to be an ancient language.
To achieve "formal, quasi-military" and "imposing, undeniable" qualities, he preferred closed syllables, creating brisk and choppy words.
[22] Chewbacca's dialogue was created from walrus, camel, bear, and badger recordings from Burtt's personal sound library.
One of the most prominent elements was an American black bear living in Happy Hollow Park & Zoo, San Jose, California.
[41] Ubese is a language heard in a Return of the Jedi scene where a disguised Princess Leia bargains with Jabba the Hutt through C-3PO as a translator.
Wilce also pointed out discussion on the usage of real non-English to create the "Otherness" of characters such as Jabba the Hutt, Greedo, and the Ewoks.
