Aurebesh
The Galactic Basic Standard language, the most common language throughout the galaxy, was written using a 34-character writing system called Aurebesh. In the Outer Rim Territories, another alphabet, Outer Rim Basic, was sometimes used in conjunction with Aurebesh.
During the Republic Era, the Imperial Era, and the New Republic Era, Aurebesh was frequently seen inside macrobinoculars.
The Aurebesh letter resh with a pair of vertical lines at the top was the basis for the credit symbol ( ).
Aurebesh writing was visible on the displays of various technological devices, such as the cockpit screens of N-1 starfighters and within the Separatist installation known as Skytop Station.
During the time of the Clone Wars, certain clone troopers chose to personalize their armor with Aurebesh phrases. For example, the phrase "SOME GUYS HAVE ALL THE LUCK" was inscribed in Aurebesh on the back of Ponds' helmet. Some troopers also acquired Aurebesh tattoos. Kix, a clone medic, had "A GOOD DROID IS A DEAD ONE" tattooed on his head, though he later covered it with hair, while Sketch had his initial, Senth, tattooed on his forehead. Similarly, some Low Altitude Assault Transports were personalized with Aurebesh, such as the Spaceward Ho! and Lucky Lekku, which bore their names, and the Crumb Bomber, which bore the phrase "LAUGH THIS OFF". The word "POLICE" was prominently displayed on the patrol transports that operated on Coruscant.
Businesses throughout the galaxy utilized Aurebesh signage for identification, such as The Hole and Purple Werm. On Coruscant, the Droid Spa employed such a sign to list its services, which included "OIL CHANGES, RUST REMOVAL", "MEMORY FLUSHING, POLISHING MOTIVATOR REPAIR, DE-FLUTTERING, RESTRAINING BOLT APPLICATION AND REMOVAL, GENERAL MAINTENANCE OVERHAULS, JUNK REMOVAL". During the Clone Wars, several posters featuring Aurebesh text were displayed in the Trueping's bar, including advertisements for "DJ RANGTHANG" and for Sy Snootles (also seen in the bar room) that read "THE SY SNOOTLES SHOW" • "IN PERSON" • "SY SNOOTLES" • "SOMEWHERE ON CORUSCANT" • "FRI – SAT 12 – 4" • "SOLD OUT".
Galactic Republic technical documents during the Clone Wars also made use of Aurebesh.
Aurebesh was the language used on wanted posters within the Jedi Archives on Coruscant. Similarly, Aurebesh bounties were posted on the walls of Chalmun's Spaceport Cantina, detailing information such as "NIM MINDBEND" – "WANTED": "DEAD" for "KIDNAPPING, THEFT AND MURDER" – "REWARD: 120,000"; OMAR TOGGS – "WANTED": "DEAD" or "ALIVE" for "RACKETEERING AND EXTORTION" – "REWARD: 75,000"; "ZUG TASSIK" – "WANTED": "DEAD" or "ALIVE" for "MASS MURDER" – "REWARD: 800,000"; "SAVAGE OPRESS" – "WANTED" for "FLEEING THE SCENE OF A CRIME" – "REWARD: 550,000".
The electro-proton bomb attached to Goji and Rod's bomber during the Battle of Malastare had a warning on its nose cone that stated "CAUTION ION DETONATOR". The bomb's body was marked with "CODE SWITCH DESIGNATOR" • "POSITION 1" • "POSITION 2" • "POSITION 3" • "POSITION 4", and one of the tail fins was inscribed with the handwritten message "THIS IS FOR YOU DOOKU".
Loubo, the proprietor of Plop Dribble's, had a tattoo on his right arm depicting a double-heart with the Aurebesh word "MOM" inside.
At Hondo Ohnaka's camp on Florrum, a substantial piece of superstructure was stenciled with the Aurebesh phrase "HONDO'S SALVAGE" – "PRICES SLASHED". Around the time of the Bombing of the Jedi Temple hangar, protestors carried Aurebesh signs that read "THE JEDI ARE CORRUPT" and "STOP CLONING VIOLENCE!".
Aurebesh wanted posters remained in use during the Imperial Era. One example was a poster for Kanan Jarrus, which stated:
During the Imperial Period, an Imperial officer viewed a monitor displaying prisoner names in Aurebesh, including LADY M'Arshngton and Cay Ploon Kett. The Empire also utilized Aurebesh in propaganda posters, one of which bore the slogan "PROTECTING LOTHAL" – "PROTECTING YOU". Furthermore, the blueprints for the TIE/D Defender Elite stolen by the Spectres included Aurebesh text.
The inscription "TRUST IN THE FORCE" was engraved on Jyn Erso's kyber crystal necklace, echoing the last words spoken to her by her mother.
Ren, the leader of the Knights of Ren, wore a mask that was plain except for some red markings, which concealed Aurebesh letters that spelled out his title, "REN".
Thirty-four years following the Battle of Yavin, the life vests worn by Poe Dameron and other Resistance pilots were labeled "PULL TO INFLATE" in Aurebesh, oriented upside-down for easy reading by the wearer.
A script similar to Aurebesh initially appeared in the 1983 film Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, the concluding chapter of the Star Wars original trilogy. It was visible on the monitor displays of the second Death Star at the beginning of the movie, during the scan of Darth Vader's shuttle as it approached the battle station. Erik Schroeder's analysis of the technical readouts suggests that the text was nonsensical, consisting of repeating characters.
In 1993, Stephen Crane decided to create an alphabet for gamers while writing the Star Wars Miniatures Battles Companion for West End Games' Star Wars Roleplaying Game. After receiving authorization from Lucasfilm, Crane developed the 34-letter "Aurebesh" alphabet by redrawing numerous symbols from Return of the Jedi and assigning them to letters or letter pairs from the Latin Alphabet. He later introduced punctuation marks in Imperial Entanglements, a 1996 supplement for the Star Wars Miniatures Battles game. The Imperial Credit symbol (which was not designed by Crane) was created for the Monopoly Star Wars board game.
The name "Aurebesh" comes from the first two letters of the Aurebesh alphabet, Aurek and Besh. This is analogous to the real-world term "alphabet," which originates from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet—alpha and beta.
Stephen Crane's alphabet was subsequently incorporated into numerous Star Wars productions, including the films. In 1999, a variant style of Aurebesh was featured in Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace on a readout screen in Anakin Skywalker's Naboo fighter. As Skywalker approached the battle, the screen displayed the message: "Anakin turn the ship around and go back home right away." The text on the tractor beam control panel of the Death Star, originally in the Latin Alphabet, was replaced with Aurebesh for the 2004 DVD release of Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope and all subsequent versions of the film.
In April 2014, many stories that previously featured Aurebesh were reclassified as "Star Wars Legends" (formerly known as the Expanded Universe) and were no longer considered part of the official canon. This included all sources that defined the correspondence between Aurebesh and the Latin Alphabet. Nevertheless, subsequent canon materials have maintained the original West End Games mapping of Aurebesh. Examples include a "Ghost Crew Identification Card" available on the Disney XD website and the 2015 children's book Star Wars Rebels: Battle Plans from Darth Vader.
Coca-Cola products are sold with special Aurebesh designs at the Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge attraction.
In the Star Wars: The Clone Wars episode "Liberty on Ryloth," a Republic monitor written entirely in Aurebesh includes the German phrase "UND UBERHAUPT," which translates to "and anyway".
During the Star Wars: The Clone Wars episode "The Academy," Soniee's datapad displays "ENTRARE" in Aurebesh when she and her fellow students break into the Government warehouse; "ENTRARE" is Italian for "enter".
The large monitor in Professor Mitaka's laboratory in the Star Wars: Visions episode "T0-B1" is filled with Aurebesh text, much of which is written in Spanish. Examples include "PERMANENCIA DESARROLLO DATOS," meaning "continuation development data," and "ATMOSFERA MINERALES," meaning "atmosphere minerals". When T0-B1 continues the professor's work, he fills the monitors with notes, most of which are transcriptions from the lyrics of the 2018 song "Malamente" by Rosalía, a Spanish singer, with some spelling errors. For example, the original song reads "Ese cristalito roto yo sentí cómo crujía / Antes de caerse al suelo ya sabía que se rompía," but the show's version reads "Ese cris talito roto yo sen cmo crujía antes d ecaerse al suelo y asaba que se rompía".
In The Mandalorian episode "Chapter 22: Guns for Hire", one of the lab tech's readouts contains two paragraphs written in Norwegian. The first paragraph reads:
*Note that "innendors" (spelled "innendørs" in Norwegian), the Norwegian word for "indoor", has incorrectly been split into two words.
The second paragraph consists of lyrics from the Norwegian national anthem, "Ja vi elsker dette landet" ("Yes, we love this country"):
Finally, the word "ALLIANSEN," which is Norwegian for "the alliance," is written vertically in a different readout.
Aurebesh punctuation, which was initially created for the Legends game accessory Imperial Entanglements, is also used within Star Wars canon. For instance, an apostrophe is visible on the marquee outside Ziro's Palace in the animated film Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and an Aurebesh exclamation point is present on the Republic gunship Spaceward Ho! in the Star Wars: The Clone Wars episodes "Storm Over Ryloth" and "Landing at Point Rain," and the animated film; and in a Star Tours advertisement for Glee Anselm in "Lightsaber Lost," a sign for the Abafar Junior Dejarik Club in "Missing in Action," and on the poster The Sport's Greatest Rivalry in "The Rise of Clovis". During a scan by Tech's visor in Star Wars: The Bad Batch episode "The Crossing," the resulting readout includes Aurebesh parentheses and slashes.
However, standard English punctuation, which does not match Stephen Crane's original design, is also seen in several episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars (such as full stops on the display on Cad Bane's security chip bomb in "Holocron Heist," the hologram projector in Lott Dod's library in "Senate Spy," Admiral Yularen's intelligence report in "Cat and Mouse," Ahsoka Tano's board in "The Academy," and the case files for Sifo-Dyas and his aide in "The Lost One") and Star Wars Rebels (such as full stops in an advertisement at Nixus Hub 218 in "Brothers of the Broken Horn," the dismantler droid's scopes in Star Wars Rebels: Steps Into Shadow, a set of blueprints aboard Tiber Saxon's Star Destroyer in Star Wars Rebels: Heroes of Mandalore, and a billboard in a cargo hold in "In the Name of the Rebellion,"; while an English colon appears in the blueprint for the TIE/D Defender Elite in "[Crawler Commandeers]"), as well as the tractor beam control on the Death Star in the 2004 DVD release of Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope and all subsequent releases of the film.
Three stylized English exclamation points are featured on the console of Freya Fenris's racing starfighter, the Red Ace, in the Star Wars Resistance episode "The Voxx Vortex 5000". Furthermore, when Kanan Jarrus infiltrates Fenn Rau's Fang fighter in the Star Wars Rebels episode "The Protector of Concord Dawn," the monitor displays an Aurebesh exclamation point on top of an English one, and the aforementioned scan in Star Wars: The Bad Batch contains regular English colons and an English hyphen, even though the parentheses and slashes are all Aurebesh.
The ampersand (&) is absent from all known Star Wars Aurebesh mappings. However, a fan-created ampersand, originally designed for a fan-made font known as Aurabesh, is featured in the Star Wars: The Bad Batch episode "Faster," where one of the advertisements at the Safa Toma Speedway reads "T&J REPAIR." The ad also appears in Suria space station in the episode "Bad Territory." Mike E. Webb originally developed the Aurabesh font in 1996, and it is available for download online. In the video game Star Wars: Hunters, the letter Enth () is used to represent an ampersand.
In the episode "Bad Territory," mirror-inverted text reading "[obscured]0% OFF" appears on the wall behind Fennec Shand in Tanda's Cantina. The percent sign (%) is also absent from all known Star Wars Aurebesh mappings, but it appears in the fan-made Aurabesh font.
Stephen Crane never developed numbers for the Aurebesh alphabet because the Death Star monitors in Return of the Jedi used standard Arabic numerals. However, an unrelated numerical system consisting of dots and lines first appeared in the West End Games sourcebook Platt's Starport Guide, in a graphic labeled "Current transponder code profile," with the numerals along both axes of a graph. Unlike later appearances, numerals for 0 through 16 are represented. This graph was reused in the West End Games publication Star Wars Gamemaster Screen, Revised, and the West End Games sourcebook Stock Ships.
These numerals were digitized in a fan-made font called New Aurabesh, created by Peter Schuster in 1998, and available for download online. While the original West End Games sources represented numerals 0 through 16, later appearances of the numerals follow Schuster's designation, limited to numerals 0 through 9.
Even though Aurebesh often uses Arabic numerals in its canonical portrayals, the West End Games numerical system has also made appearances in Star Wars media. For example, in the Star Wars Rebels short "Entanglement," the Capital City of Lothal features a mural displaying "7189" using these alternative numerals. Furthermore, the 2015 book Star Wars: The Force Awakens: The Visual Dictionary showcases images of the First Order's rank insignia, which incorporate alternate Aurebesh numerals in the insignias for both sergeant ("Ro 8") and squad leader ("Hal 4"). The "Hal 4" insignia is visible on Lank Paze within the 2017 film Star Wars: Episode VIII The Last Jedi, while the "Ro 8" insignia appears on Armitage Hux's First Order monitor in the same movie. In another instance within The Last Jedi, the data logs of the Libertine, which DJ accesses after stealing the Star Yacht in Canto Bight, utilize these numerals to display prices for starfighters in the owner's catalog.
The reference book Star Wars: The Visual Encyclopedia, published in 2017, includes an Aurebesh font showcasing two Aurebesh numbers, 3 and 7, rendered in the alternate West End Games style. During the raid on Kessel as depicted in the 2018 film Solo: A Star Wars Story, Qi'ra states, "They're in subsector four, coming up on gate X-3-7-1-K." Subsequently, the film cuts to a scene of Han Solo and Chewbacca exiting a doorway marked with "D7 X371K" at the top, employing the alternate numerals. In The Mandalorian, these numerals are visible on the console of the Razor Crest, initially appearing in "Chapter 2: The Child." As initially shown in The Book of Boba Fett episode "Chapter 5: Return of the Mandalorian," the numbers 51 and 11 are displayed on a red monitor on the console of Din Djarin's N-1 starfighter, and a small blue monitor on the opposite side of the console lists every number from 1 to 9. Interestingly, the latter is inverted. In The Mandalorian episode "Chapter 19: The Convert," the monitor on the control panel of a Six-O-Two Mitigator utilized by the New Republic Amnesty Program displays each alternative numeral from 1 to 9, representing various voltage levels.
In the Obi-Wan Kenobi episode "Part II," these numerals are also present on monitors within Daiyu spaceport, as well as on the blueprints of Fortress Inquisitorius in "Part IV." These numbers are also featured in Star Wars: The Bad Batch. For example, the monitor inside Riyo Chuchi's repulsorpod in the Imperial Senate within the Star Wars: The Bad Batch episode "Truth and Consequences" displays these numerals, although standard Aurebesh digits are also visible on the screen. In "The Crossing," Clone Force 99 member Tech uses a special visor to scan his surroundings. When utilized in Cid's mine, the scan results in "IPSIUM DETECTED" followed by a list of the alternate numerals.
For the 2016 release of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the art department created two different Aurebesh fonts, known in production as Dishabesh and Domabesh. Gareth Edwards, the director, requested these fonts because he wanted to avoid a Star Wars universe that only had one type of text and font. Dishabesh was later used again on Enfys Nest's battle helmet in the Solo: A Star Wars Story film. Domabesh can be observed in Rogue One within Jedha City, on the uniform of a Rebel MP, and on Red Twelve's flight helmet. In 2021, Lucasfilm Story Group member Pablo Hidalgo identified the script as "Domabesh" on Twitter, and The Art of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor subsequently confirmed Domabesh as canon. Hidalgo suggests Domabesh is an older script than Aurebesh, but not as old as Ur-Kittât. Nevertheless, no canon source has yet identified Dishabesh.