Galactic Basic Standard



Galactic Basic Standard (or Galactic Basic, Galactic Standard, Galaxy Standard or just Basic) was the most prevalent and most used language in the Galaxy.

Evolution
Based off of a mix of early Human languages, Durese, and Bothese, Basic started as a slang or jargon of traders, and spacers. Because of its popularity with members of those professions its popularity and acceptance spread. It was the evolution over the earlier Old Galactic Standard. In this evolution, Old Galactic Standard was influenced by Dromnyr, the language from planet Vulta. Under the Galactic Empire, a version of the language was known as Imperial Basic. The language was adopted by the Rebel Alliance, and as such was spoken in the Alliance of Free Planets, the New Republic, the Galactic Alliance, and the New Galactic Empire.

Usage
Most sentient species that made galactic contact could and did speak Basic in addition to whatever native or regional language they might have used on a daily basis. Some beings normally did not possess the organs necessary to speak Basic, including Polis Massans, Ssi-Ruuk, P'w'ecks, Wookiees, and a number of insectoid races. Most Gamorreans could not speak Basic, though there were exceptions (such as Governor Kugg.) Whether or not a being could speak Basic, it was usually in their best interest to comprehend it, and most did.

The Towanis taught the Ewoks a mysterious and undocumented language, which didn't help them understand Leia Organa, and later, Han Solo and Luke Skywalker who spoke Basic. The relation of that language with Basic is not known.

Basic used the Aurebesh script.

Known accents and dialects
Various cultures created different accents around the Galaxy, each with their own unique set of pronunciations.
 * Coruscanti accent&mdash;as exemplified by Obi-Wan Kenobi, Palpatine, Dooku, etc. It should be noted that most Core World inhabitants also spoke in this manner, such as Mon Mothma.
 * Corellian accent&mdash; exemplified by Han Solo and Wedge Antilles
 * Gungan accent&mdash;as exemplified by Jar Jar Binks and Tarpals
 * Concord Dawn inflection&mdash;as exemplified by members of the Fett family
 * Neimoidian accent&mdash;exemplified by Nute Gunray and Rune Haako
 * Cathar accents&mdash;as exemplified by Juhani
 * Kaleesh accents&mdash;as exemplified by Grievous

Behind the scenes
In both the films and books, Basic is the same as English. In translations to non-English languages, Basic is assumed to be reciprocally the same language as the one being used. As a result, in non-English versions, spoken Basic is considered dubbed and Aurebesh text is considered translated. As in the Lord of the Rings books, the "dubbing" and "translation" had some implications. For example, dialects in English belong to different in-universe accents in the movies. Ewan McGregor's and Ian McDiarmid's accents are for example Coruscanti accents in the movies. Imperial characters had British accents while Rebels usually had North American accents. However, it would seem that this is perhaps a representation of social class, as stormtroopers and other low-ranking Imperials are heard to speak with American accents, and some Rebels in British accents (Mon Mothma, for instance). Other accents are also heard, such as Jamaican (Gungan Basic), Irish (Emon Azzameen and an unnamed Czerka officer outside Anchorhead in KOTOR), Asian (Neimoidian), Australian (Beru, Episode II) Kiwi (The Fett family), Ukrainian (Grievous), or Russian (Juhani).

In E.T.: The Book of the Green Planet, which possibly shares its continuity with the Star Wars saga, a character mentions that she needs help with her "basic". However, in the context of the book, "basic" is most likely a reference to the computer programming language known by that name.

Original etymology
Star Wars authors have coined original English-like words derived from real English elements but which don't exist in English language; they seem useful to a space-driven civilization of the Star Wars characters, but totally useless for our daily language. Such words are 'speciesism' (equivalent to racism, but against sentient beings other than the speakers), 'gentlebeing' (gentleman other than a Human or humanoid.), 'offworlder', 'bird' (slang for spaceship, cf. how US Navy slang calls 'torpedo' as 'fish'), 'hyperspace', 'homeworld', 'spacer', 'sentientologist', 'youngling' (young + suffix -ling meaning 'person') and other technology terms like blaster, midi-chlorian, droid (from android), durasteel, astrogation etc. See slang.

However, Basic vocabulary includes some totally original, of inexplainable etymology, words also unrelated to English, like Moff, Jedi, Padawan, Darth etc. or even compounds like Twi'lek ("twin lekku"). It is possible that such words are derived from other languages.