Aurabesh - Definition and Overview

Aurabesh is the alphabet commonly used to represent the English, or "Basic", language in the Star Wars universe. The name comes from a combination of the first two letters, Aurek and Besh (similar to the Greek Alphabet, the first two letters being Alpha and Beta).

Aurabesh is occasionally used in the movies, and in electronic and board games such as Star Wars Monopoly. This text, however, maps very poorly to the written language in the films (based on the conjectural Aurabesh script seen in extra-filmic sources, most words seen in the movies consist solely of consonants).

There are at least two instances in the films where Aurabesh writing actually means something.

• When Anakin Skywalker is flying a starfighter in the Battle of Naboo, a screen read "Anakin turn the ship around and go back home right away." It appears 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."
• In the Re-Re-release of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope on September 21st, 2004, the words displaying information as Obi-Wan Kenobi deactivates the tractor beam, which were written using the English Alphabet in previous releases, are now in the Aurabesh.

See Languages in Star Wars for more on the subject.

External links

• Aurabesh Font (http://www.getfreefonts.com/fonts/177.html/) Mike Webb designed a Truetype font for this alphabet