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- "It's a wonderful language for swearing."
- ―Maize Raynshi
Huttese was the language spoken by the Hutts, a slug-like species who called Nal Hutta their homeworld.[2] It was also commonly spoken on Hutt-controlled planets like Tatooine.[6] Even on worlds such as Lothal, where Hutts were not in power, their tongue was still a widespread trade language. Despite its prevalence, Huttese was generally unknown to stormtroopers, the soldiers of the Galactic Empire, as most of them could not speak anything other than Galactic Basic Standard.[13] Holographic barricade tape at a crime scene on Plazir-15 read "CAUTION" in Aurebesh, and "CHESS KO"[11] (Huttese for "careful"; as in "be careful")[6] in Outer Rim Basic, suggesting that the language was spoken there as well.[11]
Although Huttese was a unique language,[14] it shared certain structural similarities with Aqualish and Rodian, enough that learning one of these languages would make the others easier to learn.[15]
Known words and phrases[]
- "Jupa uba."
"Even if you spoke Huttese, I would be surprised if you knew that one. She said thank you. - ―Balada and Daq Dragus, to Rieve
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Behind the scenes[]
On the DVD commentary track of Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope and in interactive CD-ROM Star Wars: Behind the Magic, Lucasfilm Ltd. sound designer Ben Burtt stated that he based Huttese on Quechua, an indigenous language family spoken by the Quechua peoples, primarily living in the Andes and highlands of South America.[41][42]
George Lucas had called upon Burtt to come up with a voice for the Rodian Greedo in Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope, who at first was to speak with an electronic, insect-like voice, but later decided towards a humanoid language. After going through mutliple languages of the world, Burtt was attracted to Quechua because it featured comical repetitions and some musicality. As the language is endangered, Burtt failed to find a native speaker to produce sound samples, so he found Linguist Larry Ward, a UC Berkeley grad student. He utilized Ward's knowledge and skills to analyse the language and together they created some "fake Quechua" words and phrases.[43][44]
While Burtt and Ward recorded lines of Huttese according to Greedo's snout's movement in the footage, the reverse would happen for Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi; Burtt had to script some Huttese lines before filming begun, so that the operators of Jabba's puppet could move his mouth according to the sounds. Some of the new vocabulary, including bo shuda and boska was made up by Lucas himself. For "Lapti Nek", the "Huttese" lyrics were writen by singer Annie Abrogast, with some help from Burtt.[43]
For Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace, the Huttese dialogues were the first thing finished by Burtt, who "translated" the lines, then recorded their intended pronunciation and intonation, and distributed to the voice actors for reference.[43]
Appearances[]
Non-canon appearances[]
Sources[]
Non-canon sources[]
20 Eerie Easter Eggs from LEGO Star Wars Terrifying Tales on StarWars.com (backup link)- 10 Reasons We Love the LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special on StarWars.com (backup link)
