Aurebesh

Aurebesh was a writing system used to transcribe Galactic Basic, one of the most used languages in the galaxy.^[1] In the Outer Rim Territories, Aurebesh was sometimes used alongside Outer Rim Basic, another alphabet.^[2]

Examples throughout the galaxyEdit

Episode VII Rebel Alliance Pilot — Aurebesh appears at lower right.

During the Clone Wars, the back of the clone trooper Ponds' helmet had the phrase "Some guys have all the luck" written in Aurebesh.^[3] Clone medic Kix had the phrase "A good droid is a dead one" tattooed to the side of his head in the early years of the war on Saleucami.^[4]

Around thirty years after the Battle of Endor, Aurebesh was still in use. It appeared upside-down on a life vest worn by Poe Dameron, a member of an X-wing starfighter squadron bearing markings similar to those of the Alliance and reading "Pull to Inflate."^[5]

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Letters and numeralsEdit

Letter

Name
Meaning

Letter

Name
Meaning

Letter

Name
Meaning

Letter

Name
Meaning

Letter

Name
Meaning

Letter

Name
Meaning

Letter

Name
Meaning

Aurek
A

Besh
B

Cresh
C

Dorn
D

Esk
E

Forn
F

Grek
G

Herf
H

Isk
I

Jenth
J

Krill
K

Leth
L

Mern
M

Nern
N

Osk
O

Peth
P

Qek
Q

Resh
R

Senth
S

Trill
T

Usk
U

Vev
V

Wesk
W

Xesh
X

Yirt
Y

Zerek
Z

Cherek
CH

Enth
Æ

Onith
EO

Krenth
KH

Nen
NG

Orenth
OO

Shen
SH

Thesh
TH

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Behind the scenesEdit

"The Aurebesh is a lot like Boba Fett—it is a facet of the Star Wars phenomenon that had its origin as a cinematic aside, but which has come to be widely embraced, far out of proportion to its humble origins."

―Stephen Crane^[src]

Crane Aurebesh sheet — Stephen Crane's original sample sheet of the first incarnation of the Aurebesh

An Aurebesh-like script first appeared in the 1983 movie Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi, the last installment in the original trilogy of Star Wars. It could be seen on monitor readouts on the second Death Star at the beginning of the movie, when Darth Vader's shuttle is scanned while approaching the battle station. Erik Schroeder's decoding of the technical readouts further suggest that this readout is illegible, consisting of lines of character repeats.^[6] However, it was Stephen Crane of West End Games who gave each character a name and a corresponding Roman letter or letter combination. At the time, West End Games's flagship product was the Star Wars Roleplaying Game. While he was writing the Star Wars Miniatures Battles Companion in 1993, Crane decided to develop an alphabet for gamers to use. Upon receiving Lucasfilm's approval, Crane came up with the "Aurebesh," a 34-letter alphabet. It was later expanded to include punctuation marks in Imperial Entanglements, a 1996 supplement to Miniatures Battles.^[7]

Stephen Crane's alphabet was subsequently adopted in many Star Wars works, and even made its way into the movies. In 1999, a variant appeared in Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace, on a readout screen of Anakin Skywalker's Naboo fighter. As Skywalker heads toward the battle, the screen reads: "Anakin turn the ship around and go back home right away."^[8] Since the 2004 DVD release of Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope, the words on the tractor beam control on the Death Star are now in the Aurebesh.^[9]

Since April, 2014, most stories in which Aurebesh appeared are part of Star Wars Legends, previously known as the Expanded Universe, and are therefore not canon.^[10] However, as revealed in a "Ghost Crew Identification Card" available on the official site of Disney XD, the West End Games mapping of Aurebesh has been kept following the redefinition of canon, although the eight letters representing English digraphs are absent.^[11] However, the letters representing digraphs are still used in Star Wars canon, as two of them appear in the canon comic Chewbacca, Part I, and one of them is printed on Ketsu Onyo's helmet in the Star Wars Rebels episodes "Blood Sisters" and "The Forgotten Droid".

Aurebesh-GMSR — Aurebesh letters and punctuation, from the Legends game accessory *Star Wars Gamemaster Screen, Revised*

Aurebesh punctuation, originally created for the Legends game accessory Star Wars Gamemaster Screen, Revised, is also used in Star Wars canon, and can be seen in several episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels.

See also:

Main article: List of use of Aurebesh

FontsEdit

Aurabesh (TrueType) Created by Mike E. Webb on February 10, 1996. As only the alphabet had been described, Webb based his punctuation on work by Eric Kristiansen (a.k.a. Jackill) and invented glyphs for other common symbols. He made the lowercase letters small versions of the capitals.
Aurebesh (Mac TrueType/PostScript and PC TrueType) Created by David Occhino on September 8, 1997. Occhino updated the punctuation to match West End Games, removed the non-canon symbols (except for the Arabic numerals), and made the lowercase letters the same size as the capitals. He also changed the assignments of the digraphs, so it is not backwards compatible with Webb's font.
newAurabesh (TrueType) Created by Peter Schuster on June 21, 1998. Schuster also updated the punctuation to match West End Games, removed the non-canon symbols, and made the lowercase letters the same size as the capitals. He changed the numbers to match Technical Readouts, and changed the assignments of the digraphs, so it is not backwards compatible with either Webb's or Occhino's fonts.
Aurek-Besh (TrueType, standard, narrow, and hand-written) Created by Davide Canavero (aka Boba Fonts) on March 7, 1999. Canavero made small improvements to the rendering of many of the symbols, enlarged the numbers for clarity, and added more logical assignments for the digraphs while keeping Schuster's assignments. As a result, Aurek-Besh is backwards compatible with newAurabesh.
Aurebesh(OpenType) Created by Tycho Ordo in 2012. This font covers the whole ASCII code, which means it will display most English text correctly without missing symbols. It uses ligatures to display the double letters correctly, meaning "th" for example will be displayed as Thesh. It comes in four versions, which differ in the way they display numerals (tech/Arabic) and capital letters (normal/inverted).