{"id":1752,"date":"2015-12-16T16:20:28","date_gmt":"2015-12-16T15:20:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ounews.co\/?p=1752"},"modified":"2015-12-16T16:20:28","modified_gmt":"2015-12-16T15:20:28","slug":"do-you-speak-star-wars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/education-languages-health\/languages\/do-you-speak-star-wars\/","title":{"rendered":"Do you speak Star Wars?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Main image:\u00a0<span class=\"attribution\"><a class=\"source\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/markybon\/137748820\/in\/photolist-daZVE-8TnEYF-wRYtJU-vEb86-diBaXw-87MWfv-3nC2ia-4TB3wp-6W4L48-nvcdZ7-dkGgNc-2zrsd-hqRGdk-4AcMFg-nuSuCM-4b9aDd-xxv9s-6P1HFk-c1eQtq-De3Hq-dMHRL-HCRQn-mnUDs9-8CkQcA-secuK-8ND2By-2L8gJ-vQgmfA-BUjyV-9tmmjL-rvGB9U-PDEat-6P4cUW-8dY7it-5DRdSZ-57GzmD-57GyHr-57Gywp-57LHjh-57LGXj-57GwsK-57LG43-57GvCM-57LFfG-57LEPb-57GuxP-57LE7h-57Gtga-c9fxJN-57GqNc\">Mark Menzies<\/a>, <a class=\"license\" href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/4.0\/\">CC BY-NC-SA<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Unless you are C3-PO, fluent in more than six million forms of communication, you may not understand every Star Wars language. I\u2019m not talking about the languages spoken in the saga such as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.completewermosguide.com\/shyriiwook.html\">Shyriiwook<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.completewermosguide.com\/\">Huttese<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.completewermosguide.com\/otherlanguages.html\">Bocce<\/a> or even Binary (beep beep doop!), but the languages into which the Star Wars films have been translated.<\/p>\n<p>Take the title of the saga, for example. Whereas in most languages the translation has kept the words \u201cwar\u201d and \u201cstars\u201d (<em>La guerre des \u00e9toiles<\/em> in French, <em>Krieg der Sterne<\/em> in German, and <em>Guerre stellari<\/em> in Italian, for example) the Spanish translation refers to the war of the galaxies (<em>La guerra de las galaxias<\/em>).<\/p>\n<p>These names are only used in the titles of the original trilogy, however. The subsequent prequels were named Star Wars (in English), followed by the translation of the episode title into the respective language. Despite this, the saga is normally still referred to by the original names in most countries.<\/p>\n<p>When it comes to translating character or vehicle names, there was some degree of variation, particularly with the first Star Wars film. The German translation referred to the Millennium Falcon as <em>Rasender Falke<\/em> (Speeding Falcon), and the French had the Millennium Condor (<em>Le Millennium Condor<\/em>).<\/p>\n<p>The French translators didn\u2019t stop there: Han Solo became Yan Solo, Chewbacca was known as Chiktabba (and his \u201cChewie\u201d diminutive \u201cChico\u201d), and \u2013 most puzzlingly \u2013 Jabba the Hutt\u2019s name was translated as Jabba the Forester (<em>Jabba le Forestier<\/em>), perhaps because translators assumed Jabba lived in a hut in a forest somewhere.<\/p>\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/bFnGnSrcgj0?wmode=transparent&amp;start=0\" width=\"440\" height=\"260\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n<p>Some of the changes in the original French version may have been made to help the voice actors who dubbed the film: C3-PO became Z-6PO, which sounds closer to the English name and therefore easier to dub when the original actors\u2019 refer to him (the lip movements for the French number six are much closer to three than <em>trois<\/em>). Similarly, R2-D2 became D2-R2 (the original combination of 2D2 is <em>deux-de-deux<\/em> in French, which sounds more like a stammer than a robot\u2019s name).<\/p>\n<p>Both robots kept their French names for all of the original trilogy but changed for the prequels.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"align-center zoomable\"><a href=\"https:\/\/62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com\/files\/106251\/area14mp\/image-20151216-25641-12as6uk.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com\/files\/106251\/width668\/image-20151216-25641-12as6uk.png\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<p><span class=\"attribution\"><span class=\"source\">James Chapman: http:\/\/chapmangamo.tumblr.com\/<\/span>, <span class=\"license\">Author provided<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Some of the language changes have remained for all of the films, though, such as the Spanish Millennial Falcon (<em>Halc\u00f3n Milenario<\/em>), and the French \u201cDark Vador\u201d. The change in Vader\u2019s name has meant that every Sith lord since has been known as \u201cDark\u201d rather than \u201cDarth\u201d in French.<\/p>\n<h2>It\u2019s a proper Babel<\/h2>\n<p>Aside from the translations, some real Earth-based languages found their way into the original English language films. Greedo speaks Quechua, the ancient Inca language; Nien Nunb speaks some lines in Haya, a language from Tanzania, and Watto and Sebulba have an exchange in Finnish in Episode I.<\/p>\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/DOyYM1Jp49A?wmode=transparent&amp;start=0\" width=\"440\" height=\"260\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n<p><span class=\"caption\">Non, ne me tuez pas!<\/span><\/p>\n<p>In Return of the Jedi, Oola, the dancer who performs for Jabba the Hut before being thrown into the Rancor\u2019s pit to be devoured, is clearly heard pleading with Jabba in French: \u201c<em>Non, ne me tuez pas!<\/em>\u201d (No, don\u2019t kill me!). Perhaps because even alien exotic dancers are expected to sound sexier in French.<\/p>\n<p>The Japanese language has also influenced Star Wars: the word Jedi is widely assumed to have originated from the Japanese word for Samurai films (<em>jidaigeki<\/em>), and the way Yoda speaks follows basic Japanese grammar structures.<\/p>\n<p>Yoda\u2019s speech, sometimes referred to as speaking \u201cYodish\u201d, is particularly interesting from a linguistic point of view. Rather than the subject + verb + object (SVO) word order that is prevalent in the English language, he tends to speak with the object first, followed by the subject and then the verb (a Jedi Master he is, after all).<\/p>\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/kDoY_zXf7uQ?wmode=transparent&amp;start=0\" width=\"440\" height=\"260\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n<p><span class=\"caption\">Yoda quotes (some people take these things rather seriously).<\/span><\/p>\n<p>This is easily replicated in other languages that also follow the SVO order, such as French or Spanish, but others have to be more creative. In Czech, Yoda actually speaks using the SVO word order, which sounds peculiar to Czech speakers. In the German translation, instead of positioning the finite verb in second place in the sentences, it moves to the end, as in \u201c<em>Eure Sinne nutzen ihr m\u00fcsst<\/em>\u201d (Your senses to use you must).<\/p>\n<figure><\/figure>\n<p><span class=\"caption\">Yoda in German.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Star Wars we all speak now<\/h2>\n<p>There is no doubt that Star Wars has influenced popular culture, but also many languages. Expressions such as \u201cMay the force be with you\u201d (and its translations) are widely recognised by speakers who have not seen the films.<\/p>\n<p>Similarly, the way Yoda speaks and sentences such as \u201cThese are not the droids you\u2019re looking for\u201d and the misquoted \u201cLuke, I am your father\u201d (Darth Vader actually says: \u201cNo, I am your father\u201d) have found their way into popular culture, sometimes adapted for humorous effect. It\u2019s not uncommon to hear somebody using references to \u201cgoing over to the dark side\u201d when trying to tempt someone into doing something.<\/p>\n<p>Are you curious to hear how the revelatory: \u201cNo, I am your father\u201d sounds in 20 different versions? Look no further than this clip which edits together different languages, translations and even voice actors across the various releases of The Empire Strikes Back.<\/p>\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/cas-B-CGnLk?wmode=transparent&amp;start=0\" width=\"440\" height=\"260\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n<p><span class=\"caption\">No, I am your father, papa, padre, vater, etc.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/counter.theconversation.edu.au\/content\/52448\/count.gif\" alt=\"The Conversation\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Written by\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/theconversation.com\/profiles\/fernando-rosell-aguilar-122064\">Fernando Rosell-Aguilar<\/a>, Lecturer in Spanish and Media Fellow, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/theconversation.com\/institutions\/the-open-university\">The Open University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>This article was originally published on <a href=\"http:\/\/theconversation.com\">The Conversation<\/a>. Read the <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/do-you-speak-star-wars-52448\">original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Main image:\u00a0Mark Menzies, CC BY-NC-SA Unless you are C3-PO, fluent in more than six million forms of communication, you may not understand every Star Wars language. I\u2019m not talking about the languages spoken in the saga such as Shyriiwook, Huttese, Bocce or even Binary (beep beep doop!), but the languages into which the Star Wars [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":1754,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[880,1275,1479,2107],"class_list":["post-1752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-languages","tag-fernando-rosell-aguilar","tag-languages","tag-movies","tag-star-wars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}