We are down to double-digits now! Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is a mere 99 days away from your local cineplex, which can mean only one thing. Merchandise is coming. Soon, anyone hoping to remain fully unspoiled before they step foot into the darkened theater will have to walk through big box stores with blinders on. The deluge has already begun online, thanks to Pyramid International. Right now they have 150 Rogue One items available for pre-order; mostly art prints and coffee mugs.
Many of the images come with words of Aurebesh emblazoned on them. For those who don”t know, Aurebesh is the official written language of the Star Wars franchise. All those weird squiggles you”ve seen on cantina doors, on flight suits, and even grocery lists over the years are actual words. So naturally, my first instinct was to translate these new prints to see what secrets they held.
Spoiler: They”re basically elementary school translation primers. If you”ve ever wanted to learn to write in Aurebesh, now is the time! It”s a simple system really. Each symbol corresponds to a letter or number in the English alphabet. There are a handful of extra letters in Aurebesh that combine a pair of characters, known as a digraph. From there, it”s just plug-and-play.
In the two examples below, both from Pyramid International, the Aurebesh word merely corresponds with the English ones.
Image Credit: Lucasfilm
Image Credit: Lucasfilm
The cynic in me says this is a lazy way to make the art look more ‘Star Wars-y,” but the by-product is that it's a fun way to become a codebreaker. And not all of Aurebesh is a straight translation. For example, this image of K-2SO reads “A Reprogrammed Imperial Droid An Effective Insertion Agent for the Rebel Alliance.” As far as I know, this is the first mention of K-2SO basically acting as a double-agent for the Rebellion.
Image Credit: Lucasfilm
And this coffee mug featuring the tropical world of Scarif from the trailers? It has a tantalizing bit of Aurebesh at the bottom that even my Photoshop ‘ENHANCE!” skills couldn”t bring into focus. If you have better luck, leave your translation in the comments!
Image Credit: Lucasfilm