Books Alphabet Squadron by Alexander Freed

Once again that's my entire point. At least before you could justify the naming of the ships as being a description of their shape, but referring to them as the alphabet just highlights the inconsistency issue.

I don't think you know what an anachronism is if that's your go to example.

 

It doesn't really 'highlight' anything. It was perfectly obvious before they are using 'English' letters to describe their fighter craft while they use a different alphabet for their common writing system... I don't see how acknowledging these letters are part of an alphabet pushes that over the line or emphasises it in any way. It's only 'highlighting' something that was blindingly obvious.

Human beings are specifically of the planet Earth. The idea that there are human beings running around in another galaxy long ago is an anachronism (at least to the same extent that any transplanting of 'Earth' languages, terms and letters).

 

Translation Convention may apply. Something like

"Basic is not an Earth language- nor are any of the other languages, but the books and movies translate it into English for our convenience". High Galactic isn't Greek, either.

So, instead of "Alphabet Squadron" just imagine that, in-universe, it's something like "Aurebesh ______ (word meaning squadron)."


Instead of A-wing, it's "Aurek ____ (word meaning wing)"

And so forth.

 

That's needlessly complicated (like this whole thread's become) and doesn't explain why some words are already "translated". So if someone said "I wish someone would install a refresher in this U-wing", why's only half of the sentence been translated for our convenience?

Also, "anachronism" has now lost all meaning to me.

 

IMO, "Refresher" is the translation. As is "U-Wing".

 

"Bathroom" or "restroom" would be the translation, surely? But even so, you see my point. If the "translation" thing held any water, there'd be no unique terms in the franchise.

 

"Place where you refresh yourself" is the name in full. "refresher" for short. No reason they have to use our euphemisms exactly. Especially considering that often we have many, for the same thing.

Not every author will follow the convention, admittedly. But it's a useful way of justifying the use of "our words" when it most definitely isn't "our galaxy".

Some authors will prefer "space slug" - some will prefer "exogorth".

 

Ehh, I think the Translation Convention can only really apply to non-film stuff... unless we are hearing an overdub of what they are really saying.

 

Never saw the need for a translation convention at all. So, Basic is somehow identical to English, so what? Just go with that one postulate, and everything's fine.

 

Actually, the Aurebesh letters were included in the 2004 DVD version, but other than that, you're right. The term "Alphabet" shouldn't exist in the GFFA.

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To paraphrase The Matrix "You think that's English you're hearing?"

I might go so far as to suggest - not only an overdub of what they're saying, but an "overimage" of what's happening.


That's a way to rationalise cases where apparent size doesn't match - like with the DS2's size relative to Endor. It's not actually changing size - the movies are just a facsimile of the Star Wars Universe.

Or, for that matter, the main cast looking human. They're not humans, they just look human for our convenience, because we're human.

 

Wait, what?

 

Because "Alphabet" comes from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, Alpha and Beta.

Greece doesn't exist in the GFFA.

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That hasn't stopped them giving us Lambda class shuttles (and other "Greek Letter" ones).

 

By that logic half the words spoken in these films shouldn't be spoken because most words have etymologies that wouldn't have arisen in SW - democracy, monarchy, king, emperor, republic, etc, etc. Besides, we know that words like 'Alpha' and 'Beta' are in this universe have have arisen somewhere, just not Greece. Alphabet is merely the English word for the phonemes-based letters of a writing system.

 

Some settings do like to replace various words with their own. John Carter of Mars, for example, replaces "king" with "Jed" and "Emperor" with "Jeddak".
Star Wars has a reputation for doing this, too - at least with similies:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CallARabbitASmeerp

It's one of those things that can be carried too far though, and make the setting less accessible.

 

Hence why the idea that everything's translated and all images are facsimiles hasn't really caught on. It is what it is; different Earth alphabets exist the same as different Earth accents do.

 

I can't believe *I*, of all people, am saying this, but... you guys are making it waaaay to complicated.

 

I honestly thought this is going to be some star wars kids book teaching them the alphabet before opening the thread
you know, one of those "a is for apple" just star warsy

 

Mine could probably be summed up as "Don't worry about the etymology of a Star Wars word" even if the reason behind it (the books and even movies are translating everything for my benefit) it is more complex.

The Galactic Phrase Book, of Legends, is kinda like that - just aimed at older ages.

 

Ehh, I'd say not worrying about it would be not trying to come up with explanations for it, and just accept the real-world reasons for this stuff. "It's just a show; I should really just relax" is the definition of not worrying about it.

 

Right, forgot about that.

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Yep. Basic is identical to English, and that's that. Why is it so? Who cares. It just is.
If the universe is indeed infinite, it's bound to happen.

 

At the end of the day the point I tried to make was the title is misleading in more ways than one. And can lead to a bad perception of the content.

 

The title is a punchline. A joke.

Based on the fact that, if you gave someone new to Star Wars a huge list of "letter-wing" craft, in order, they would almost certainly say "So, these are the alphabet ships?

Calling them "Alphabet Squadron" keeps the essence of the joke.