The Languages of 'Star Wars'

This fall saw the debut of the "Star Wars" series “The Mandalorian.” And in just a few days, “The Rise of Skywalker” hits the big screen. 

With that in mind, today we’re going to talk about the languages spoken in the "Star Wars" universe. 

Sixty-eight different languages have been featured so far in the various movies, TV shows, comics, and books. And in the original "Star Wars" movie, C-3PO says that he is “fluent in over 6 million forms of communication.” (4)

That’s too much for us to cover today, and we know not all of you are "Star Wars" fans. So we’ll talk briefly about a few of the top languages from this world, and a few fun facts about each.

Shyriiwook and Ewokese

Let’s talk first about the languages spoken by the fuzzy folks of this galaxy: the Wookiees and Ewoks. (By the way, careful spellers will note that “Wookiee” is spelled W-O-O-K-I-E-E. That’s two “Es” on the end.)

Wookiees speak three different languages. Chewbacca speaks Shyriiwook, the most common language of the Wookiees. The other two dialects are Thykarann and Xaczik. All of them sound like a combination of howls and growls.

Wookiees come from a heavily wooded planet, and they are expert woodcarvers. For that reason, their language supposedly has 150 different words for “wood.” (2)

Ewoks are the more petite fuzzy species of this universe. They’re native to the Moon of Endor, and their technology and language are both simple. They use spears and slings as weapons, and C-3PO notes in the “Return of the Jedi” that they speak “a very primitive dialect.” So primitive that he talks with them using a different language: Yuzzum, also native to Endor. Even though 3PO was a protocol droid, apparently Ewokese was too rudimentary to include in his programming.

The sound designer for Ewokese, Ben Burtt, developed the sound of the language by recording speakers from Inner Mongolia, Tibet, Sri Lanka, and India. He chose elements from all of them, weaving them together in a way that evoked the playfulness of the Ewok people. (3)

Droid languages

Let’s move on to droids. Droids play a huge role in the "Star Wars" ecosystem, and they speak many tongues. R2-D2 whistles and squeals in something called “Astromech Binary.” BB-8 uses a more advanced form: 27th generation droidspeak.

Imperial probe droids use Ominisignal Unicode. And some very simple droids — the ones that look like walking trash cans— speak Gonkian, in which the word “gonk” plays a huge role. (4)

Bad guy languages and Galactic Basic

Many of the bad guys in this universe also have their...

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