Aurebesh

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Aurebesh was a writing system commonly used to represent the Basic language. The name comes from a combination of the first two letters, Aurek and Besh.

Aurebesh implemented consonants, vowels, digraphs, and punctuation marks. Words were separated by spaces. Aurebesh could be written mainly left-to-right or up-to-down. All letters are the same relative size, although occasionally symbols were mirror-inverted to denote capital letters. The symbol for the Republic Credit was a Resh (R for Republic) with two vertical lines through the upper half of the symbol. Letters of the alphabet were also used to denote musical keys, such as the key of Cresh.

The origins, as well as the time it was implemented are not known. It existed at least as early as the Jedi Civil War and afterwards.

[edit] Behind the scenes

[edit] Prominent examples in products

[edit] Movies

During The Phantom Menace, when Anakin Skywalker is flying an N-1 Starfighter in the Battle of Naboo, a screen reads "Anakin, turn the ship around and go back home right away." This is presumably a message to Anakin from R2-D2. It occurs just before Anakin's line, "Go back? Qui-Gon told me to stay in this cockpit, so that's what I'm going to do."

Mace Windu writing on a piece of flimsiplast in Aurebesh.

In Attack of the Clones, Aurebesh can be seen on the walls of the buildings of Coruscant as Jango Fett flies away after killing Zam Wesell. One of the walls can be translated as saying "Warren".
Also in Attack of the Clones, the droid waitress in Dex's Diner has a nameplate that translates to "Flo".
On the sides of Eta-2 Actis-class Jedi interceptors, Aurebesh text can be seen. Anakin's Jedi Interceptor contains the text "Elbert Maria."
In the 2004 DVD release of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, the words displaying information as Obi-Wan Kenobi deactivates the tractor beam on the Death Star I, which were written using the Roman alphabet in previous releases, are now in the Aurebesh. Note that this particular instance was the only scene in the movie to clearly show Roman letters (though highly observant viewers note that a needle on an IT-0 interrogation droid in an earlier scene is marked "British Made").
In Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back Artoo's responses on the X-Wing datascreen was changed from Roman characters to Aurebesh for the DVD release.
In Return of the Jedi, Aurebesh is seen on the monitors of the Death Star II control center, when Darth Vader's shuttle is about to land. These graphics predate the West End Games description of Aurebesh, and produce gibberish if those letter assignments are used.

[edit] The Clone Wars

In the theatrical film, the text "Lucky Lekku" and "Laugh This Off" is visible on two gunships. The former is notable for its very casual, handwritten style. [1]
Also in the film, billboards on Coruscant read "www.starwars.com" [2]
In "Ambush," Thire's macrobinoculars read "infrared mode" and "regular mode." [3]
In "Rookies," Hevy's detonator screen reads "ATTE RUL3Z SOME TEXT." [4]
In "Downfall of a Droid," a tactical readout includes the text "ATTE RUL3Z" and "TAKE THAT GRIEVOUS." [5]
In "Jedi Crash," a starship display reads "IMPACT!" and a medical display reads "STAND BY FOR PROGNOSIS." [6]
In "Defenders of Peace," Separatist shield generators read "CAUTION." [7]
In "The Hidden Enemy," a tactical droid's head reads "TACTICAL;" a display screen reads "SENDING," "RECEIVING" and "LOCATING STATUS;" and the clone Sketch has a Senth tattooed on his brow. [8]
In "Mystery of a Thousand Moons," a building sign reads "KRISTAL SKULL." [9]
In "Innocents of Ryloth," a Separatist display reads "COMIC RELIEF." [10]
In "Liberty on Ryloth," the Lightning Squadron AT-RTs are marked "BEA," Clone Commander Ponds' helmet reads "some guys have all the luck," and a Republic display includes the text "TROUBLE ON THE HORIZON: Status report of advance trooper recognition therapy syndrome evaluation team current phase of experiment proceeding satisfactorily according to projected schedule" and "second most important sport right after football." [11]

[edit] Games

In a few instances, notably in Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith, inscriptions appear mirror-inverted to denote capital letters.
In the main screen menus of Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II, Star Wars Battlefront II, and Star Wars: Republic Commando Aurebesh is shown.
In Star Wars: Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, Kyle Katarn enters the three-letter communication code for Rogue Squadron in Aurebesh into the Doomgiver communication system. The code spells out "THX", an allusion to George Lucas's movie THX 1138, as well as to his sound-system company THX.
On the menu of the PC version of Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy it is seen scrolling in the background, and when you move the mouse over the choices they turn to Roman.
In the mission briefings of Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds, Aurebesh text accompanies the depicted elements on screen. Although translatable, they do not equate to meaningful phrases. Some players have tried to read them and find amusing messages.
In Star Wars: Galaxies, all text that appears as part of the game world—on screens, signs, displays, plaques, posters, and labels—is written in Aurebesh and makes sense when transliterated to English.
In Star Wars: Bounty Hunter, Aurebesh appears in the menu.
In Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, and Star Wars: Empire at War the Aurebesh symbol for credits appears above the total amount of credits.
In the beginning of the Star Wars: Empire at War scenarios, where the player chooses sides, an Aurebesh text advertising Petroglyph occupies most of the screen.
In the Rhen Var citadel level from Star Wars: Battlefront, there is a secret message written on the wall, next to the stairs at the observatory. It says "Rhen Var Is Cold." However, the "E" and the "N" in "Rhen" is switched with each other. It is also on a high part of the outside of the observatory.
Some objects in Star Wars: Droidworks (for example, a water tank) are labeled in Aurebesh.
When the website for the Wizards of the Coast Star Wars Roleplaying Game first went online, it featured a couple of lines of Aurebesh as decoration. One of these lines could be translated to "F*** YOU", and was removed as soon as Wizards was notified of this.
In The Revenge of the Sith video game, the movie titles on the movies menu are in Aurebesh, then they change to Roman letters as you scroll over them.
In Star Wars: Demolition, an energy absorbtion bonus is in the form of a floating yellow Aurek; a deflector shield bonus in the form of a floating bluish Besh; and a cloaking shield bonus in the form of a floating hot pink Krill.
In the Risk: Star Wars Clone Wars Edition board game, the planet and region names are listed in Aurebesh underneath the Roman names.
In the PS3/Xbox 360 fighting game "Soulcalibur IV", Darth Vader, The Apprentice, and Yoda each have extra lightsabers with the Aurebesh letters, represent its weapon effects.
In Star Wars: X-wing Alliance the Aurebesh symbols "NGC" are found on the backside of Delta-class DX-9 stormtrooper transports, possibly relating to the NGC-1710-shuttle in the Death Star novel.
In the Star Wars: Original Trilogy Edition of Monopoly, the banknotes are written in Aurebesh. The translation cipher, identical to the one on this page, is provided on the back of the rules booklet.

[edit] Comics

In Star Wars Republic 49: Sacrifice in the first panel showing Aayla Secura on The Wheel is a neon sign that contains the text "TOSHE STAT[page ends]" and below that the word "KIFFEX."
"VOS" appears in Aurebesh on Quinlan Vos's chest.
In the Second book of Star Wars X Manga, The gravestone of Tao was written in Aurebesh.

[edit] Books

In The New Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels, The New Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology, and The New Essential Guide to Droids, the names of all the things described are in Aurebesh on the opposite page from the picture of that item.

[edit] Outside Appearances

In the 2008 film Fanboys the word "fanboys" is written in mirrored Aurebesh on the doors of the van.
In the television series Code Lyoko, Jeremie's computer uses Aurebesh characters for icons.
in an episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation entitled A Space Oddity, Aurebesh characters are seen in a computer translator used for an in-show television series called "Astro Quest" (A parody of Star Trek).

[edit] Evolution

The tractor beam information gauge, as it appears in the original Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (top) and the 2004 DVD version (bottom).

The Aurebesh-like writing that appears in the original trilogy is totally random and it is believed that the filmmakers did not intend to write any meaningful text with it. The assignment of the letters to Roman equivalents was first developed by Stephen Crane at West End Games in the Star Wars Miniatures Battles Companion (1994), for use with the Star Wars Miniatures Battles game and Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game. The Aurebesh was later expanded to include punctuation marks in the Star Wars Miniatures Battles supplement, Imperial Entanglements (1996).

This original Aurebesh is occasionally used in electronic and board games such as Star Wars Monopoly. Since the letters in the movies are random, the assignment of the West End Games-values to the inscriptions of the movies produces nonsensical results–-most words seen in the movies appear to consist solely of consonants, and some letters appear on screen that are absent from the West End Games Aurebesh.

In the prequel trilogy and in Special Edition releases of the original trilogy, the inscriptions use the West End Games mapping, and can be transcribed to English.

[edit] Origination

Many of the Phoenician Alphabet letter names were probably used for inspiration (or just used) for the Aurebesh letter names. E.g. Beth, Daleth, etc. provided one style of constinents while letters like Resh provided whole letter names. Some symbols also bear resemblance to the Phoenician symbols i.e. Gimel, Daledh, Waw and Lamedh.

The word "Aurebesh" was developed in a manner similar to the word Alphabet, which is derived from the first two letters of the Phoenician/Greek alphabet (Alpha and Beta).

[edit] Aurebesh and Roman

There are some slight indications that the Galaxy also used the Roman alphabet (in the way that Basic is English) along with Aurebesh. This is seen in some in-universe inscriptions (Jedi Code) or emblems, like that of the Jedi Order. The text seen on viewscreens in The Star Wars Holiday Special is in Roman, rather than Aurebesh, due to the fact that Aurebesh had yet to be invented at the time in the real world. Aurebesh was introduced later in The Empire Strikes Back (when R2D2's conversation with Luke Skywalker in the X-Wing on the way to Dagobah is translated on the ship's dashboard readout).

While these instances may be construed as "translations" for Earth audiences, some instances show both Roman and Aurebesh (Corporate Sector Authority). It is not known if those appearances should be considered mistakes, artistic license and/or non-canonical. Additionally, the use of characters from the Roman alphabet to describe various starfighters based on their shapes (X-wing, Y-wing, A-wing, etc.) would seem to indicate that the Roman alphabet exists in-universe, as the shapes of these craft do not match the shapes of the corresponding letters in Aurebesh but do in the Roman alphabet.

In-universe sources show Arabic numbers; however, one of the fan-made fonts (discussed below) presents a numerical system based on dots and lines.

It should be noted that in many instances, the sounds "ch", "sh", and "th" are written using Aurebesh exactly as they would be in English (cresh-herf, senth-herf, and trill-herf, respectively), despite that separate letters exist in Aurebesh for those sounds (cherek, shen, and thesh, respectively). (To see an example of this, examine the text in the picture in the upper right of this page.) While it is possible that these instances represent legitimate in-universe variations of the sound-values for the letters in question, it is more likely that they represent errors on the part of the real-world transliterators (who are understandably more used to employing digraphs than employing single letters to write these sounds).

[edit] Fonts

Note: none of the available fonts use reverse glyphs for capital letters.

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 (aka Jackill), and invented glyphs for other common symbols. He also 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 lower case 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 lower case 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 also keeping Schuster's assignments. As a result, Aurek-Besh is backwards compatible with newAurabesh.

[edit] Appearances

Star Wars: The Clone Wars – "Jedi Crash"
The Clone Wars: Cold Snap
Dear Anakin
Perfect Evil
Star Wars Adventure Journal 10
"Spare Parts" - Star Wars Adventure Journal 11
Star Wars Galaxies
Fists of Ion (Mentioned only)
Specter of the Past
Star Wars Legacy 3: Broken, Part 3
Star Wars Legacy 27: Into the Core
Star Wars: Trivial Pursuit DVD Edition
Star Wars Monopoly: Saga edition

[edit] Sources

Stephen Crane
- Star Wars Miniatures Battles Companion (1994) – Alphabet
- SWMB: Imperial Entanglements (1996) – Punctuation
Star Wars Gamemaster Screen, Revised (1996)
Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith (1998) – Reverse glyphs for capitals
Star Wars Insider 60 (2002) - Established a complete Aurebesh/English translation key, including numbers
The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia

[edit] See also

Languages

[edit] External links

Tommy of Escondido's Alien Fonts – Other SF Fonts includes:
- Aurabesh (1996) by Mike Webb
- AurabeshAlternate (1997) by David Occhino (via a link)
- NewAurabesh (1998) by Peter Schuster
- Aurek-Besh (1999) by Davide Canavero
  - Aurek-Besh Hand (1999)
  - Aurek-Besh Narrow (1999)