Re: CHAT: Star Wars and its conlangs

On Wed, 26 May 1999, Joshua Shinavier wrote:

> > Matt Pearson wrote:
> > > The last time we discussed Star Wars languages on this list, I expressed
> > > the opinion that Huttese was a creole (or descended from a creole) in
> > > which the Galactic Common Tongue - i.e. the language represented by
> > > English in the movies - was the superstrate language.  As evidence, I
> > > pointed to lines from Return of the Jedi such as "Nei Jabba no badda",
> > > meaning "Jabba may not be disturbed".
> >
> > Hmm, fascinating idea.  I'd never noticed any similarity between Huttese
> > and English, but now that you point it out, perhaps so.  I'll have to
> > rewatch it.  But if so, it's quite distinct from English.
>
> I always thought that whoever wrote Jabba's script was just short on
> imagination :)
> Most of his lines seem to parallel English -- his words for "Jedi mind trick"
> seemed pretty similar, as did "bantha podu" for "bantha fodder", etc.
It wasn't all the scriptwriters fault.  The puppeteer who played Jabba
(or Jabba's head, anyway) originally said his lines in English, making
the corresponding mouth movements.  Later, when the lines were redubbed
in Huttese, it was necessary that they match up perfectly with the
mouth movements.  So the phrase for "bantha fodder", for example, had
to have the same number of syllables and the same stress pattern as
the English original, so that Jabba would be opening and closing
his mouth in the right places.  That limited things a bit (at least
when Jabba was actually on screen while talking).

Of course, Jabba is basically just a giant muppet, whose mouth just
opens and closes - no lip rounding, no visible tongue articulations,
etc..  So they could've gotten a *bit* more creative with the Huttese,
while still keeping to the metrical structure of the original English
dialogue.  For "bantha fodder", for example, they could've had
something like "chuga bantha" (head-initial compound rather than
head-final, as in English) and it still would've synched up with the
mouth movements...

Matt.