Language Inspirations

I was wondering: where did Star Wars writers come up with various Star Wars languages? I've read that Mando'a is similar to German, and some sounds like Maori, but what about Huttese and other alien languages/terms?

 

Huttese is based off some African language (I forget which).

 

Huttese was based off of Quechua, I believe.

 

Mando'a is no way like german. I am German, and not a single word of Mando'a is german or sounds german.

sorry

 

Mando'a would be closer to Italian or Latin, basically something like a romance language. Give-aways are the Bob'ika, Kad'ika.. Italian would be Bobito, Kadito, etc.

 

It's actually not really well related originally to anything at least as far as I know. Jesse Harlin constructed it from scratch; to my ear the primary linguistic influence as of Vode An is actually the general Romance family. While none of the words are like those of the Romance languages, the phonemic construction is definitely Latin-based. It certainly has none of the distinctives even of other Indo-European languages (the guttural tones of German, for example). As to where Karen has taken it since then, obviously she's taken a Germanic (in the linguistic sense, rather than the modern language) structure (essentially conforming it to English) and then created the words from there in what appear to be mostly Latin patterns. Hard to say exactly, as I'm no linguist and I haven't studied Mando'a very much.

 

Must have been something else then.

 

I think it is a common misunderstanding that Mando is like german. Because the most famous Mondo oof all has a german name. Boba Fett. Fett means fat in german.

Therefore people tend to think at least their names have something german about it.

 

I seem to recall that Lucas mentioned using an assortment of asian languages for the Ewoks, muddling them all together or something.

Where did Outini originate I wonder?

 

I think the Rodian language might be the one inspired by Quechua, but I'm not sure.

 

According to the Wook Greedo's speech (Rodian) was based off of Quechua, and Jabba's speech (Huttese) off Greedo's, with a bit of Aymara (another South American language. Just like I said all along ) thrown in.

 

Yeah, I've been told that there are a few Korean (IIRC) words in there. Seems sorta interesting.

 

I believe that Traviss has actually said somewhere that Hungarian was an influence on Mando -- whether for her or for Harlin, I forget.

 

Yeah, I recall hearing the same thing about Hungarian, in exactly the same lack of detail. ;-)

Sullustan is actually Haya.

 

The Nelvan speak hungarian.

 

i think Dha Werda Verda has some Germam sounding bits in it, and and the Taungs evolved into the Mandos, so that might be what you're thinking.

Booten wooten lanlock vootem / Al a sinkee dunken pooten / Achta werda verda roll / Poonka dunkee loten cho.

Leeber soong whar tung tach picta / Manner manner migta richta / Schelecht varn toom-soing pa ho-grunten / Gersh ve dala funken mimpa / Droit! / To Gropen wettkampf Zunken!

Betteltung seeck da mindy cooten / Parta blax dha scunken drassen.

Manner manner, mitteltouse manner / Dha Dhazz jedoch / Land zu land offt letza / Unun nung.

Manner manner / Durchsprung Nocha / Immer hauk gewordenspa / Zeeetoof en poof / Olaffka begonnenspah / Var var goopinski / von moglodite / Kortzva.

Verto verto taplasko ta verto.

Vom zoomenfest / Va va voomenfest / Kopocka locka hatta statan / Schel Tha noobin rest du common / Morbskurtz!

Kaffee kaffee zum doom kaffee! / Ausbroll mobist manner mockah! / Ssstrung tartung tha stroong tartung! / Wo-cha nickschat hobbentrose.

Jungclaus dha spricken / Impoot ga kunginchock!

Kungach / Noplenkacht / Kungar Kungar / Ale Da Kungare!"

 

As a German, I'd pin much of that Dha Werda as Dutch. maybe just ebcause it looks like a phonetical nonsene mix of german and English, pretty much what Dutch sounds like to me.

Also, the thing Mando -> German is pretty much just the pronunciation. It's a general syndrom of English speaking author creating forgein sounding langauges that they often end up with pronuciations to go with spellings that are normal to Germans.

Not sure I'm making sense. If I could use the phonetic alphabet it would be easier. The denominations given to vowels is German. When we write 'i' we usually say 'ee' from an English pov, so a word like 'ibi'tuur' would read to us 'eebeetoor' anyway.

It was the same with Vulcan, I think.

 

That was what I was thinking about. Couldn't remember. Thanks!

 

I've noticed that Mando'a has a lot of Latin influences, and the spawned languages from Latin such as Spanish. The suffix -ita is a Spanish one for little like one other pointed out, but I've also noticed that a lot of Gaelic similarities are present as well. There are a number of Norse words in there as well, for example there's "vaar" for early or ungrown which is similar to the Icelandic word "var" which means was, and many things of the culture also stem from Norse culture (Munin, dried fish being the main snack, the gods being more of personisations of life than actual gods etc). The pronounciation is like a mix of Mexican Spanish and Gaelic or Hebrew. But there's really not many German words or pronounciation things in there. But the language's purpose is like that of Yiddish, which is a hybrid of German and Hebrew.

The Ewoks speak a Cantonese language if I remember it correctly, and the Sullustans an African one.