Aurebesh

Aurebesh was a writing system used to transcribe Basic, the most used language in the galaxy. It consisted of 26 letters.

Examples throughout the galaxy
During the Clone Wars, the back of the clone trooper Ponds' helmet had the phrase "Some guys have all the luck" written in Aurebesh.

Around 30 years after the Battle of Endor, Aurebesh was still in use. It appeared upside-down on a life vest worn by a member of a X-wing starfighter squadron bearing markings similar to that of the Alliance and reading "Pull to Inflate".

Behind the scenes
"The Aurebesh is a lot like Boba Fett&mdash;it is a facet of the Star Wars phenomenon that had its origin as a cinematic aside, but which has come to be widely embraced, far out of proportion to its humble origins."

- Stephen Crane

An Aurebesh-like script first appeared in the 1983 movie Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi, the last installment in the original trilogy of Star Wars. It could be seen monitor readouts of the second Death Star at the beginning of the movie, when Darth Vader's shuttle is scanned while approaching the battlestation. However, it was Stephen Crane of West End Games who gave each character a name and a corresponding Roman letter or letter combination. At the time, West End Games's flagship product was the Star Wars Roleplaying Game. While he was writing the the Star Wars Miniatures Battles Companion in 1993, Crane decided to develop an alphabet for gamers to use. Upon receiving Lucasfilm's approval, Crane came up with the "Aurebesh," a 34-letter alphabet. It was later expanded to include punctuation marks in Imperial Entanglements, a 1996 supplement to Miniatures Battles.

Stephen Crane's alphabet was subsequently adopted in many Star Wars works, and even made its way into the movies. In 1999, a variant appeared in Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace, on a readout screen of Anakin Skywalker's Naboo fighter. As Skywalker heads toward the battle, the screen reads: "Anakin turn the ship around and go back home right away." Since the 2004 DVD release of Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope, the words on the tractor beam control on the Death Star are now in the Aurebesh.

Since April, 2014, most stories in which Aurebesh appeared are part of Star Wars Legends, previously known as the Expanded Universe, and are therefore not official canon. However, as revealed in a "Ghost Crew Identification Card" available on the official site of Disney XD, the West End Games mapping of Aurebesh has been kept following the redefinition of canon, although the eight digrams have been discarded.