Lit Constructed languages in Star Wars

Now, I realize this concern of mine is rather specialized and very "niche," but I'm a language nerd. One of the things I always regretted with the Star Wars universe is that so little efforts were put in creating realistic, working conlangs. Take Huttese, for example: it's one of the most prominent languages of the GFFA, both in-universe and out-of-universe. And yet, a basic analysis of the available corpus shows that no one ever thought of creating a proper Huttese grammar. True enough, most phrases were given official translations. But anyone who knows the basics of linguistics would tell you the Huttese featured in the film was only designed to sound cool and foreign. (How come Huttese has two words for "with?" I know of no other language that does.)

To my knowledge, there were only two satisfying attempts at creating working Star Wars conlang. The first was Karen Traviss' Mandalorian language. There are many reasons why I don't like Traviss' work, but I'm still very grateful for that. The second attempt was Ben Grossblatt's Sith language, which he created for The Book of Sith.

Those two attempts, however, didn't go very far, and that's not just because the EU was discarded. Unfortunately, the few later sources that made use of the Mandalorian and Sith languages mercilessly mangled them. The one-time use of Sithese in TCW was utter nonsense that go against the very phonetic palette of Grossblatt's conlang. As far as Mandalorian goes, let me get this straight: Tom Hutchen is a great guy, and his contribution to the fandom has been considerable. However, I disagree with him when it comes to his Mandalorian neologisms; Kar'ta Beskar just isn't proper Mando'a for "Iron heart." The proper form would have been Beskaryc Kar'ta.

My point then: is anyone else interested in having a working SW conlang? Do you think we'll get the chance to see it happen some day?

P.S. Regardless how short-lived it was, Grossblatt's Sith language is my favorite. I like it very much because it isn't just a code for English ("translate every word and expression literally with the same order in the sentence"). That was an agglutinative language, as opposed to the flexional languages most of us are accustomed to.

 

Halle metes chun, petchuk!

I'd love to see Patricia Jackson return to Star Wars and continue working on Olys Corellisi.

 

I liked Olys Corellisi too. It's much like Rorhirric in The Lords of the Rings.

Think of it that way; that's something the Trekkies actually have and we don't! There are entire plays written in thlIngan Hol, darnit. Let's not even mention the Middle Earth universe, which was created by a linguist--and here again, I'm talking about the genuine article, not David Salo's fanciful "'elvish" dialogues in P. Jackson's movies.

Ben Grossblatt owns a Master's degree in linguistics, which means he knows very well a conlang is only working when you have a full grammar. Vocabulary is a secondary thing--you can make it as you go--but grammar has to be nailed down from the very beginning. That means there must exist a full Sithese grammar, somewhere on Grossblatt's computer, but we'll never see it.

 

Öh German and French certainly do, though given that with can have a ton of meanings not that surprising.

 

As a native speaker of French, I can tell you that's not the case. Granted, you could pay "avec une carte de crédit," or "au moyen d'une carte de crédit," or even "à l'aide d'une carte de crédit," but that doesn't make it three different words for "with." In English, you wouldn't say "via" or "through the means of" has the same meaning as "with."

More importantly, though, Huttese has no proper grammar, and that's a (sad) fact. It's mostly due to the language having developped one phrase at a time, by many people who had little to no knowledge of linguistics and never conferred together. That didn't prevent the guys who made SWTOR to write songs in Huttese. Quite entertaing ones, btw. Funny to translate.

 

Avec and par? Or are we just talking past each other here?

 

I'm trying to think of examples of what you're telling me, but I can't seem to find any. Could you enlighten me?

(The Huttese featured in TCW was particularly awful. "Death Watch" was given as Stuka Crispo, which is literally "To see to fry." Nobody heard about conjugation or lexical derivation. Dammit, this isn't even the right understanding of "watch!" It has nothing to do with seeing, it's about guarding. The fact that "watch" has both meaning in English doesn't have to be exactly the same in Huttese, unless Hutts have the same vision of the world as the anglophones.)

 

Well with can mean that it comes with something, that it is with something, was used against something etc. certainly enough similar words in other languages for that purpose. Just like you can use including, along or amidst for different things you could also use with for.

 

Right. I admit that particular example wasn't that good. But you can still recognize that Huttese phrases were mostly written either as a direct code of the English language, either as cool sounding sentences that were assigned a meaning afterwards. And the whole picture doesn't mesh together very well. Foboba was given as the Huttese equivalent of fifteen (seventeen in base eight.) But in ANH, you have that line: Luto eetheen! ('Okay, 15%!')

What annoys me most with lazy conlangs is the whole "code of the English language" thing. The only difference between those and the English language is the words themselves. Other than that, the grammar is the same, the syntax is the same. Which allows blind idiot translations such as Stuka Crispo.

 

Oh I fully agree that it is sadly underdeveloped, which is properly also why it works best if used like in the Leg comics, where the main characters do all actually speak it but mostly just use it to pepper Basic with Huttese words, which just adds flair and is a similar phenomenon as seen in certain youths cultures, when they come from more than one language background which they will often also happily mix and match midsentence.

 

Speaking as someone who isn't a linguist, I have to say that no, I'm not really interested in having a working SW conlang. I often feel like speculative fiction's obsession with them is more an artifact of Tolkien than something that's really necessary.

 

Well, I respect your opinion. Then again, it's fiction, and it's a fandom. Nothing is necessary.

 

Yeah, personally I don't care enough to partake--if I'm going to that much trouble, I'd learn a real language and not Klingon or Elvish--but I have no problem with one existing if other people want to put themselves through it.

That being said, since every upstart setting like Game of Thrones gets it own these days, our lack of one does feel like being left behind in the nerd arms race.

 

Well, I wouldn't be the one to actually try and use a fictional language in real-life either... It's just that, when they use a badly developed conlang in a fictional universe, I can feel it immediately, and it annoys me. I'm just like that. Also, I clearly like to study it.

 

Ben Burtt's "Galactic Phrasebook and Travel Guide" is essential. Especially as a mini biography of Burtt himself.

 

Never had a chance to find that book. In continental Europe, it's incredibly difficult to get one's hands on it.

 

Although I remember in the 80s, there was one Trek author who basically tried to develop Romulan culture, including their own language, which was basically just ignored completely by later authors.

I have seen one interesting fan attempt to codify a working Huttese language somewhere on the web, though I have no idea where one could find it now or if it was still updated to take into account the stuff from Legacy and TCW and the rest.

 

It's not exactly easy to find in England either - I've only seen it in one Forbidden Planet shop.

 

You must be thinking of Andras Rajki's attempt. In fact, it was not updated by the time of TCW, and it has disappeared some time ago. Funnily enough, the Huttese phrases from the Legacy comics actually follow Rajki's grammar and spelling, rather than anything that came from Ben Burtt's book. ("Umo ji muna, Blue." Umo = you (objective case) ; ji = I (nominative case) ; muna = love. This is a phrase originally forged by Rajki. The spelling "ji" where an American would have used "jee.")

 

Yeah, that's fair enough. I guess I'm thinking more from the standpoint of a writer than anything - I don't like the idea that, if I ever actually publish something that attracts fans, they're going to want me to engage in a type of worldbuilding that doesn't interest me at all just because one of the founders of the genre did it.

 

Just wondering: do we know of any loanword in huttese or mando'a?

Go north my friend.

I have seen it here.

 

I'd be glad to do so, actually.

 

There's plenty available on Amazon at the moment.

 

Never even thought of checking that, actually. I'm just that kind of bookshop guy.

Anyway, since Grossblatt's Sith language probably won't get any more development, I think I'll end up showing my analysis of the tiny corpus we've got so far.

 

I would actually submit Selonian as interesting. From what we see/hear of it in the Corellian trilogy, there seems to be actual effort put in. I got this from those novels:

Some pronouns may be attached to other words to qualify them without altering form, but serving a different grammatical role. For example, the Selonian first-person pronoun is Sa. Sa may also be used as a possessive suffix, signifying that the larger word relates directly to the speaker. For example, while Mandaba is “language”, Mandaba-sa translates to “my language” (literally, “language of mine”). Similarly, Chana-sa is best rendered “allow me”, where Chana is “allow”. In this sense, Sa serves the purpose of Basic “my” or “mine”, rather than “I”, but there’s no shift in spelling or punctuation. The exact meaning of Sa therefore depends on its position, but it always relates a speech or concept back to the self.

Fa is an equivalent pronoun, typically meaning “you”. A Fa suffix indicates that the word in question relates to an individual the speaker is addressing. For example, Bellorna-fa is an interrogative “speak you?”, where Bellorna-sa translates to “I speak” (literally, “speak me”). Cra signifies a third party or a person not being addressed; Bellorna-cra refers to “their” ability to speak, regardless of the identity or number of “them”.

Abata: “Avoid”.


Bellorna: The act of speaking language.


Bellorna-cra: Loosely translates to “they speak”, literally "speak they".


Bellorna-fa?: “Speak you?”, interrogative.


Bellorna-sa: “I speak” (literally, “speak me”).


Chana: “Allow”


Chana-sa: “Allow me”.


Dejed: “Injured”. Dejed Kurso is “badly injured”, literally “injured well”.


Despecto: “Honourable”, used before a proper name to indicate respect.

Ectal: “These”.


Ecto: “This”.


Fa: “You”.


Ferbraz: “Fools”.


For: Loosely translated, “You will/you will be”.


Fos: Loosely translated, “they will”.


Kas’as Chen’ru: “Grey Cove”.


Kurso: “Good” or “well”. This is used as an exclamation as well as in normal sentence structure. In this regard it resembles the Basic word “good”.


Kurso-kurso: Translates roughly as “so-so” (literally, “good-good”).


Mandaba: “Language”.



Mandaba-fa: “Your language” (literally, “language yours”).



Mandaba-sa: “My language” (literally, “language of mine”).



Pada: Loosely translated, “None of”; signifies that all members of a group cannot or don’t do what is then described. “Pada ectal ferbraz bellorna-cra” translates to Basic as “none of these fools speak [my language]”.



Sa: “I”.


The Selonian “Bellorna-fa ecto mandaba-sa, despecto Han Solo? Pada ectal ferbraz bellorna-cra” translates to Basic as “Do you speak my language, honourable Han Solo? None of these fools do”, or literally “Speak you this my language, honourable Han Solo? None of these fools they speak”. The words “Kurso! Sa kogna fos ul embaga. Persa chana-sa prognas els abata for dejed kurso” read “Good! I think they will force us to fight. Allow me to win quickly and you will avoid being well injured”.