The fictional universe of Star Wars is a multilingual one, in which it is common to have either a passive or active understanding of many multiple languages from numerous alien races and cultures.

Common languages

The language spoken most often by beings in the Star Wars galaxy is Galactic Basic (shortened to Basic) although this name itself is never explicitly mentioned in the films themselves. According to Role-playing game sources, Galactic Basic is a constructed language created from a mixing of the various native languages of the founding members of the Galactic Republic, including the Duros, the Bothans and Humans.

For practicality in the films and literature, Galactic Basic is almost identical to the language of publication (In most cases the original material is modern English). In the English versions of the films, Imperial officers usually speak with RP-like upper-class British accents, as well as some of the Jedi, including Obi Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn. The majority of the Rebels and most other humans, however, have American accents. Non-humans speaking Basic often also have accents, sometimes reminiscent of others found on Earth. The Trade Federation viceroys, for example, appear to speak Chinese-accented English, the Toydarian Watto speaks with a Yiddish accent and Jar Jar Binks' accent and dialect is possibly derived from Caribbean English.

It is worth noting that languages in the Star Wars universe are not always tied to specific species, just as in the real world languages are not always tied to specific nations or races, but can become the native language of a separate population. Notable dialects of Basic include the Gungans of Naboo's pidgin dialect of Galactic Basic (though they do also have a native tongue), and Yoda's unusual dialect of Basic in which sentences follow an OSV order, rather than the more usual SVO. It is unknown if this is a dialect spoken by all members of Yoda's species, or whether it was a quirk only Yoda possessed.

Another lingua franca in the Star Wars Universe that is spoken by many groups and species is Huttese, most notably spoken on Tatooine. The name Huttese suggests that it was created by the Hutt species and adopted by other races, most probably those involved in business with the Hutts such as the Rodians. It is spoken in the films by both non-humans (Jabba the Hutt, Watto, Sebulba and others) and humans (most notably Anakin Skywalker in The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones).

The Ewoks of the forest moon of Endor speak a "primitive dialect" of one of the six million other forms of communication that C-3PO is familiar with, although what this language was is unknown.

Many interspecies conversations in the Star Wars universe are bilingual, with the humans usually speaking Basic and the non-humans speaking their own or a regional language. Code-switching is rare.

Droids and computers

Droids (robots) and computers in Star Wars use either the natural languages that their masters use, usually Basic, or special machine languages. Protocol droids such as C-3PO are "fluent in over six million forms of communication" and are often employed as translators. Astromech droids such as R2-D2 are able to understand commands in Basic and perhaps other languages, but can only communicate through an information-dense language of beeps and whistles; although devices exist that can translate this language into Basic (such as the display in an X-Wing cockpit that allows the ship's astromech and pilot to communicate). Simpler droids communicate only through sounds indicating affirmative/negative, or other simple replies.

Wookiees and other aliens

Wookiees, the most famous being Chewbacca, are physically unable to speak Galactic Basic. Their native language, Shyriiwook, consists of animalistic roars and growls. Although it can be understood by members of other species, it is extremely difficult (if not impossible) for most non-wookies to speak; presumably the word 'Shyriiwook' itself, as well as other Wookiee words or names, are transliterations of the original Wookiee sounds into a form more easily pronounced by others. In one of the novels, Leia Organa-Solo encounters a Wookiee with a speech impediment which conveniently renders his Shyriiwook pronunciation much easier to understand by Leia, who was learning the language at the time.

Another alien species with an unusual language are the insectoid Geonosians seen in Episode II, whose language seems to consist almost entirely of Click consonants.

Writing

There is relatively little writing in the Star Wars universe; most telecommunication is by audio or audio/visual transmission. Where there is writing, such as on display screens in vehicles or occasionally on the side of a building, it is often unclear how the writing relates to the languages being used, although the Aurebesh script is claimed to be the definitive method of writing Basic.

Arabic numerals do appear throughout the films, mainly on computer displays counting down time or distance. At least one instance of the Latin alphabet crops up in A New Hope ("POWER - TRACTOR BEAM 12 (SEC. N6)"), but this appears to be an anomaly; text in the other films is either illegible, offscreen, or in fictional scripts. For the 2004 DVD release, this writing was changed to Aurebesh, confirming that it is no longer canonical.

In the novel The Truce at Bakura, the Ssi-ruuk speak some sort of tonal language which involves whistles. A human prisoner devises an orthography for this language, combining musical notation with phonetic characters; however no details are shown in the book.

Language building

The languages of some fictional worlds have been worked out in great detail, with grammatical rules and large vocabularies, such as J. R. R. Tolkien's Elvish languages and the Klingon language of Star Trek. The fictional languages of Star Wars, in contrast, are not systematically worked out. The Wookiee growls and the beeps of the astromechs mainly carry emotional indicators for the audience via intonation, and Huttese is mainly a jumble of words taken from numerous real human languages.

Other languages heard are longer chunks of actual human languages, albeit ones likely unfamiliar to most of the audience. In A New Hope, for instance, the language spoken by the character Greedo in conversation with Han Solo (in the cantina) is actually a simplified version of Quechua, an indigenous language of the Andean region of South America. In Return of the Jedi, Lando Calrissian's copilot, Nien Nunb, speaks the real human language Haya , a dialect spoken in Tanzania (page 31, Star Wars Insider #67). Similarly, the Ewok language was based on Tibetan, although some fans claim that they also hear English being spoken by the Ewoks at some points during the film.

One can also hear some Finnish in the Phantom Menace. After the first lap of the pod race competition, Watto yells 'Kiitos!' ('Thank You!' in Finnish) to Sebulba, and Sebulba answers 'Ole hyvä!' ('You're Welcome!' in Finnish).

Despite these inconsistences however, a language guide to the most common Star Wars languages such as Huttese and Bocce exists: The Intergalactic Language and Travel Guide, which collects much of the data given in the books and movies surrounding the saga.