What is Boushh Saying in Return of the Jedi? (Ubese 101)
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- Опубліковано 18 сер 2017
- Ubese is a language of mystery and repetition, but is there an actual logic behind it? Let's find out!
makealang.blogspot.com/2009/01...
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Håkon Nilsen
TK2 Films
Joseph Jonathan Marcus
"Bad Wolf Solutions"
Dominick LaLicata
Sam Williamson
Daniel Day - Розваги
One could also say that this is "Leia as Boushh" speaking Ubese, and she is most definitely not a native speaker, but has to pretend to be. She could be operating with a limited vocabulary and only saying what she has to to keep her concealed identity a secret, limiting interactions to short, relatively easy sentences.
TheShockwave1138 This! 👌🏾
Her diplomatic training (lifelong as a princess of Alderaan) makes this very unlikely. If she can't speak it convincingly, she's not going to so deeply underestimate someone as old as Jabba and try to bluff it when she has time for preparation.
I've always figured that she was speaking through a translator in the helmet, but...
Where was Boushh not Ubese? Everything I’ve found says he was, in both canon and legend continuity...
TheShockwave1138 nobody said that WTF 😆
@@TheShockwave1138 what??😐
My mom can quote Jabba, from another room without reading the subtitles. So I'm sure she'll get a kick out of this.
Dark Blades You have a cool mom!
So, did she?
Omg you lucky dog :O
My mom can too! She and my uncle had the original audio thingy when they were growing up and they listened to it constantly
@@AnimeSunglasses it was two years ago I wrote this. But to answer your question yes she did
When it comes to "douccha", it's important to note that Boba almost shot her just a few seconds ago. In Legends, Leia had an expansive knowledge of galactic politics and factions, so she knows that by threatening a Mandalorian, she's made a miscalculation... because Boba won't hesitate to go for the kill shot. If we're sticking with the pronoun compounds, I might theorize that "dou" is "us" or "we". So she's asking Boba, "We cool?", because she doesn't want to die. Boba confirms by nodding his head slowly
Liam Thompson that is SUPER COOL xD
Ccha is a way to cool down the tenion by showing that you have cooled down, so the person you are refering to should do as well, so that's definitely a way to interpret it
@@notkoyote Whether they are actually Mandalorian or not, any person wearing Mandalorian gear and weapons is not to be trifled with. The deference shown to Boba in the scene works regardless of whether or not he is truly Mandalorian, because regardless of his true lineage or creed, Boba is still an experienced and extremely dangerous bounty hunter.
@@notkoyote I think that might depend on who you ask. As "The Mandalorian" shows, there is at least one significant schism within Mandalorian culture. And to an outsider, anyone wearing Mandalorian armour would probably count as Mandalorian.
@@notkoyote in the old lore he was ex security on the level of a judge dredd like character. Much of the lore in the EU didnt exist until after ROTJ, so its possible she as a political individual, was hyper aware of individuals that had to wear enclosed suits, so shed pay attention to body language.
but can you translate wookie?
It is most likely the beastly, furry-alien version of R2D2 getting bleeped out...
I actually want to try!
EC Henry I'd watch that.
it would be worth it... and an interesting thought experiment using the far more significant Audio library of Shiiriwook. It is possible that we cannot understand it simply because our ears are too dull to pick up the nuances. but try it anyway, i will watch and enjoy as i do everything else you put out.
I'll look into it for sure!
This video took me a REALLY long time, and I can imagine that Shyriiwook would be a lot harder. But I'll definitely look into it, because it sounds like a lot of fun!
You could also interpret "Yuhto" as meaning 50,000, and the repetition of the same word meaning that this amount is non negotiable. Thus, "50,000, no less."
Most intriguing.
If the g- wasnt there, then yeah that would be great, as it goes along well with the i come i come, but as he said, unfortunately it doesnt seem to be a simple repeat, but there is a g-
More likely just "50" and the thousand is implied.
Or maybe "yuhto, gyuto" is "you pay, full price." It would make sense for those words to be very closely related.
Yep, some languages do that.
Like "This. Unnegotiable"
It could be that the 'g' affixed to the second 'yuhto' is a sort of verbal bold-text, or a mark of emphasis. Perhaps something similar to the English-language function of drawing out word sounds or punctuating words. Consider it translated as "Fifty thousand. *Fifty. Thousand.* "
That being said, we must also consider that Boushh's first statement includes 'yuhto'. "Iatei, iatei, yuhto." Would that mean the intent was to have a demand for a 50,000 credit bounty instead of the assumed posted bounty of 25,000?
5:52 And of course, C-3PO understands how Ubese works, and is thus adding the context into his translation for the sake of clarity, so that Jabba fully understand what Boushh is saying.
Surprised Jabba doesn't understand Ubese better as it is close to Obese
I want a full Ubese dictionary and language.
ME TOO
Same
That would be amazing!
Introducing the worlds first one page dictionary!
I want a Ubese Soundboard
Time you enjoyed wasting is not wasted time.
Or:
_Bu, choshh dasto bouto, dastoccha_
have an internet cookie.
🍪
Nah that was a complete waste of time because you’ve already forgotten about this by now
@@someguy9496 this isn't the memory you seek.
@@someguy9496 tome
Dude, you are insane. I love you.
He's a genius.
To bring this up again. I noticed that in Battlefront 2, Leia had a Skin as her Boushh disguise. It also came with Emotes which had both voice and translations.
Any chance of looking back at this with the newer lines added to the works?
It’s possible that the translations are much like the Geonosion in the clone wars show, random gibberish that isn’t well constructed like it was in the movies.
@@cryamistellimek9184 Just like R2-D2. R2's voice for the most part is just made up of random sound effects and beeps, with a voice line subtitles over it. Very rarely did they make a unique sound for a specific voice line.
@@corellioncrusaderproductio4679 with artoo I see much more of a possibility that the message is in the subtle electronic modulation of the signal rather than the superficial pattern of tones. think modem drone
@@corellioncrusaderproductio4679 R2-D2 bts development of language was a combination or amalgamation of binary digital beep boop meets baby talk mannerisms
@@Batlord_Carcas I meant in universe, people can understand R2-D2, but the voice lines they made for him don't actually have any meaning. It's not a real language like some of the other characters have in Star Wars.
"gyatoh" could mean "you give."
"iatoh" is "I give/bring."
"Ei iatoh," could then mean, "or/instead/else I give," and indicate Boushe is giving Jabba a option of which he'd like.
Which means it's not hostage-taking, which Jabba hates, but negotiation, which Jabba loves.
I somewhat agree, but I ALSO have a sudden need to know the Huttese phrase for "potayto, potahto"...
We probably also shouldn't rule out that body language could be an important part of Ubese - a particular tilt of the head, the way you stand - that might convey a lot of information to other Ubese speakers. Or then there's other non-verbal forms of communication. In A Certain Point of View (the 40th anniversary short story collection) it is mentioned that Jawas communicate as much through scent as anything else - it could be that Ubese relies upon pheromones to convey subtle inflections.
ZygmaExperiment
The Twi'Lek language is a combination of speech and signing with their head tails so there's already a precedent in the Expanded Universe.
It could also be that part of the language falls in frequencies that the human ear can't hear. Making what sounds like the same word have different meanings with different high frequency harmonics.
@@siukong Which would also explain why C3PO would have to translate for Jabba. Perhaps Hutts have limited audio range as well.
A slight error in body language is a very plausible way that Jabba could have been tipped off that "Boushh" wasn't really a Ubese.
That's mentioned in The Last Jedi novel! Apparently Ubese find it difficult to speak at all because of their planet's environment, so they have a sort of sign language called 'Ubeninal'.
Given boushh's voice and the fact that he may have a completely foreign set of vocal parts, it's also entirely possible that his people have an entirely separate "flavor" to their language based on the frequency or amount of reverb in their vowels. It would also make sense why C3P0 would have to translate it for them. Only members of their species, or linguistics droids would likely be able to pick up on all those sub-harmonic queues.
As amazingly overly simple as it sounds, it may be that Ubese is a Laconic language, using combinations of simple sounds to create a variety of expressions of concepts using the simplest modes possible. I love the in-depth Analysis.
Andor Fedra lol at first when you said Laconic I thought you were referring to Greek dialects related to Spartan (I.e. found in or around Laconia)
@@brendansmith5529
Xerxes' representative, "And if we invade Sparta?"
Leonidas: "Ei, yohtoh!"
That's what I've always thought or at least what I have thought for a long time, I was raised knowing three languages: Spanish, English and French and I'm an English/Spanish teacher right now, so it makes sense that's the first thing I thought when I rewatched ROTJ as a kid.
I love languages and this video was awesome but I'd like to agree with what you're saying, maybe as a language without time forms conjugation by any means and with very little variations in regards of the verb usage "I come" can mean very different things and repeating "I come" conveys a different message, perhaps meaning "I'm here for…" instead of just "I come", it's one of the things I can think of…
This breakdown was really well done. Please don't hesitate to make more in-depth videos like this in the future. They really are enjoyable.
Me: *speaks gibberish for a movie*
Henrey: *makes sense of it and subsequently creates a language*
Also me: Thank
"How on earth does she say the same word twice and it mean something different"
Mandarin: Please allow us to introduce ourselves
12:54 lol, it’s so funny for me as a Russian, as “zaebis” actually means “f*cking great” in my language. So when Bib states the price Boosh answers that it’s a f*cking great deal, which fits extremely well 😂
Too bad he made this before Battlefront 2 added tons of new Ubese lines with Leia's Boushh skin.
Regarding the repeated "I come" in "iatei, iatei," couldn't that also be because Ubese doesn't have a personal "we" pronoun? As in, saying "I come, I come" would just be their way of saying "we come"?
Definite article comes + definite article comes = plural 'we come' (perhaps) that might also be a non specific pro-noun for I, you, or you modified into they or we by repetition - combined with inflection or gesture.
I also wouldn't rule out the vocodor is transmitting more info than we can hear - but Threepio can and Fett can because of their audio receptors and helmet respectively.
But Bib seems to have no problems understanding so perhaps a secondary component is less likely or perhaps it's just down to a subvocal stress.
If might be possible to have a language that seems gappy - as eithe the pauses added meaning or the language is spoken in infra or ultra-sound so many normal humanoids don't hear it all.... but ones with more enhanced hearing might.
Perhaps Han has that issue with Chewie perhaps some of what he says is hard to understand to many life forms - But Han appears to understand everything said to him.
I like this idea, it could be that the second "I come" represents Chewbacca, and it shows ownership of him (as a prisoner) to refer to him in this way. Rather than "I come, he come" which would be the version of "we come" if the second person was an equal (or at least free).
I like this idea. It also accounts for the use of "this Wookie" in the subtitles.
"Yuh" is "we" repeating yourself could be a way of drawing past tense.
Stop it my brain fucking hurts. I have a brainache.
The fact that we can contextualize even the smallest parts of these movies and find meaning where none exists is exactly why I love the first six movies.
For the reply to "Why should I pay?" the Ubese could be "Well, you get this?"
And the line to Boba could mean "What do you think?"
I don’t think Boushh is even talking to boba
@@laksivrak2203 why did Boba nod then, to 3PO lol?
I want to say “ei” is equivalent to “ie” in Japanese, so the line is “No! You pay!”
That would make the conversation something like:
“I come, I come, with it.”
“You pay. 5000!”
“No! You pay!”
Which sounds like believable dialogue. I kind of imagine Leia’s Ubeese is like 1st year Ubeese too, so things are a mix of formal polite textbook stuff (the greeting might be archaic sounding to a native speaker), stuff she picked up from other speakers, and maybe even a bunch of words without tense/all in present tense because she hasn’t learned past tense yet. 3rd best Ubeese maybe? So of the lines are simplistic it’s only because Leia has a limited vocabulary.
Just some points to make are that according to DVD closed captioning Bib Fortuna is actually sayimg "Please Stay" in Basic to "Boushh", which actually fits contextually with the theoretical use of an honorific form as a reply. In Mandarin, reduplication of certain verbs softens commands them from an imperative mood to a jussive one. Lastly, in the novelization of Return of the Jedi, Ubese is described as being a "magnetic language", a concept which fascinated me despite having no clue what it's supposed to mean.
Oooh, nice addition!
(No friggin' idea what that means either...)
I choose this to be my new headcanon on the subject (not that I really tought about Ubese that often before). Also, dude you deserve WAY bigger of an audience with the amount of work that goes into these. I try and share your videos as often as I can but that's still not enough.
Thank you so much for sharing though; I think it makes a bigger difference than you think! :)
you are very welcome :)
As much as this could easily be all of us just wanting what was basically nonsense words to be a real language, I do REALLY appreciate the analysis. I especially like that you recognize that as a translator C3PO could easily read in implied meaning in the voice and verb forms of the statements. Translation isn't just literally translating word for word, he has to inform Jaba of what the effective meanings are, not just the literal ones.
I never really gave the scene a second thought, I just went with it. But this is flipping awesome. I totally agree that dissecting the language has given me a whole new outlook on the already amazing scene.
Fantastic work.
In the game Battlefront 2, Leia has emotes in English and then in Ubese with her Boushh skin
This is freaking fantastic. As a voice actor, I have to occasionally make up language sounds and this was an awesome explanation. It actually has helped me be more creative. Well done!!
Badass video! I also heard some of the differences you noted, although I am a bit surprised you didn't mention the pause in douccha. Although I can see you romanized it like a Japanese word with a pause, you need to explain that to most people.
Watching this video kind of makes me want a new piece of fiction that explores the Ubese culture more.
I had the same reaction! I have a post up a bit which describes my observations about that.
I'm not sure if this is still canon, but there are a couple of interesting notes in the ROTJ novelisation about Ubese. When Jabba greets Boushh with 'at last we have the mighty Chewbacca', he was speaking Ubese very slowly and without the filter effects that Ubese enviro-suits use. He switched back to Huttese afterwards. It also directly translates 'ei, iahto' as 'tell that swollen garbage bag he’ll have to do better than that, or they’ll be picking his smelly hide out of every crack in this room. I’m holding a thermal detonator.' Then, it translates 'zeebuss' as 'I agree'.
Well in terms of the part where the word clearly repeats and you address this via the English version of “in a galaxy FAR, FAR away”. But because you brought up Japanese to help in one of your explanations, I bring up Filipino. In Filipino the word “araw” means day or sun. “Araw-araw” means everyday. Repeating the word adds stress or increases its meaning. So for “I come” it may infer that the Ubeshian (?) hints that ”I come here all the time, and I get payed” sort of complaining that this is the first time they haven’t been payed upfront for a bounty.
I realized that there might be linguistic differences between the lines of Greedo, and the lines of Jabba. Greedo's lines do indeed sound like an impression of sorts of Quechua; however, from my limited linguistic experience, Jabba's language has an almost Indo-European flavor, but I'm not sure what.
I wanted to say this about the "Ei, Iahto" phrase.
You translated the very first line "Iatei, Iatei, Yuhto" as "I come, I come, you give"
Now, i would suggest that "Iahto" and "Iatei" sound familiar and may have related meanings.
It would fit in the context to translate the first line as "I bring, i bring, you give". Witch would then make more sense with the implied relation between "Iatei" and "Iahto", so that the line "Ei, Iahto" means (most literally translated):
"[because] To you, i bring this! "
"this" meaning the fucking high- explosive in her hand.
As a lover of both Star Wars and linguistics, I had a fantastic time with this one.
that's awesome! i have serious doubts that they put that much effort into crafting the dialogue, but your study of it made it seem like they did. Seriously, this evaluation really does add to the scene. thanks.
Apparently Carrie Fisher made it up and ad-libbed the dialog.
@@GoDamnWeird Well now I have ANOTHER thing to be sad about her never getting a chance to talk about on camera...
Repeated “ietei”, “I come, I come”. Repeated is more likely an intensifier: “I have come a very long way [for this].” Motivating the more impolite “You pay. Now.” form. Stressing expression of the process to get the target -> indicates higher-than-usual trials in the capture -> lack of patience -> “you pay the higher price because of what I went through.”
“Zibus” as thank you is probably less correct, watch his body language: only a slight nod in his direction, if there’s eye contact, it’s only half-done. His tone is dismissive. “Thank you” is more egalitarian than what he might be saying, “good game” might be closer. The lethal negotiation among bounty hunters and the Hutts might be to some extent a customary or semi-expected challenge; negotiations broadly as a ‘dance’.
“Good game” said down-the-snout to a defeated adversary has a lot more flavor than “thank you”.
It is definitly a waste of time
But a good one
I had great pleasure wasting my time watching your video
Zibuhs
Yatei.
Seems like a reasonably good analysis for what little source material is available. As a side note, I always thought Jabba's fluttering nostril shadow was distracting.
I had always heard zebus as "leave us". I freaking love this kind of content.
You have quickly become my favorite Trek and general Sci-Fi related channel, surpassing Trekyards. Every video has perfect quality and they're all so informative, not to mention the awesome Pacific 201 updates and your ship design ideas, which are always incredible. Keep up the great work! Can't wait for more!
Obviously this was cobbled together for quick movie production - but also worth noting the Ubbese have what seems to me like a synthesizer on their face. This could well be modulating the pitch into human-audible range, or we're not capable of hearing all of the sounds. "Yuhto, gyukto" could also mean "you pay, you pay me", referring to a bounty which would have been widely known to everyone - C3PO then clarified this.
To a native English speaker, Mandarin initially seems to have limited sounds, but once you start listening for tones it becomes more complex. We know Lucas had linguists involved in Star Wars, and we clearly see Japanese-like sentence structures in Yoda's speech patterns.
IMO you're on the right track looking to Japanese when analyzing Boush.
My immediate thought while watching this video concerning the detonator went back to presenting Chewbacca.
Both having Chewbacca and having a detonator can be "This Thing" or "I have this."
"I have this (Chewbacca). Pay."
"I have this (detonator)." (as answer to Jabba's question.)
If I consider my limited Japanese, both Chewbacca and the detonator are Kore, "this thing." In my own limited vocabulary, I'd call them both Kore, b/c I don't know Japanese words for Thermal Detonator or Walking Carpet.
OMG! I wrote that blog post so long ago and its awesome to see someone else picking this up and taking it further! Thank you for the attribution and I loved this video.
Nah, Jabba understands him perfectly. Obese is just a dialect of Ubese.
You deserve an awesome award for this, just for being awesome.
This is INCREDIBLE! I have spent a LOT of thought on this scene. My favorite part of watching a low realism sci-fi movie is figuring out the complex puzzle of how it makes sense. This is a masterful solution to one of the most complex puzzles from the series!
Ive got my Spanish finals coming up next week and here i am - learning Ubese
I was also going to say that "Ei" was an attention getting word. The sounds behind attention getting words like "Hey" or "Ey" seem to be almost universal between humans. If you go to a country with a completely different language than English and say "Hey!" Those people will be able to grasp that you are trying to get their attention.
My idea is that she is basically say "hey, pay up" while showing the thermal detonator because she is trying to project impatience and urgency. Edit: I was right about the urgency, but I like your translation better.
I loved this. I never thought much of it til I saw the thumbnail and remembered how little was said.
14 minutes of interesting and deep analysis from several seconds of randomness that the movie writers probably didn't put any thought into... man you're good
This is great. I really love simplistic conlangs, and it's fun to see you create one from a lot of great-sounding if simplistic audio clips.
Honestly can't wrap my head around why good content like this (hell, all of your content is amazing) gets no attention, while stuff like geestly's, star wars reading hour, and star wars explained have over 100k subs.
Note: if anyone is going to be mad that I said those channels aren't good, just know that they spew out the same content constantly, and sometimes copy entire sentences or even paragraphs word for word from Fact Free, another star wars channel.
Well, I guess at the very least, those channels have been around longer than I have. It's a hard market to break into! But the more we share my videos, the more new people will see them!
EC Henry yes sir. Just please promise to keep quality and not venture into quantity. The big channels have made that horrible mistake.
_Well, here goes nothing..._
What's the problem with releasing daily content? Additionally, what about the releases of these channels makes you say they are releasing the same stuff all of the time? And why is that a bad thing?
I can see how it contrasts with this channel in presentation. I'd easily say this channel has a more professional-looking style, using movie clips instead of primarily stills and artwork (I especially like the frame around the video which is completely unnecessary, but cool for some reason I don't know), but that doesn't mean the others are inherently worse.
I don't want to start an argument, but would like to hear an explanation.
Also, some examples of blatant copying from Fact Free would be nice as well.
Noah Black Ok, I hate arguements too so there'll be none of that. Firstly the problem with daily content.
Releasing daily content for your fans is ok by me as long as it has some uniqueness to it (a different topic doesnt really count). Here we have EC Henry talking about a language in star wars and proving to people it's a valid way to speak in the galaxy far far away. By contrast, Geestly's daily content pushes out videos such as:
"Most rutheless clone commander"
"Most misunderstood clone commander"
"Least caring clone commander"
"Unluckiest clone troopers"
"Bravest clone troopers"
"Dumbest clone troopers"
You get the idea. I was one of those guys that liked clones before everyone else started to, yet here I am, starting to dislike them due to the copy paste style of people's videos on them. Theres absolutely no damn quality in these videos because it's the same video as the last except its a different topic. The backgrounds in those videos are usually the only unique thing, but they get used multiple times per week in different vids nowadays. Geestly's can now be called the clone channel. Star Wars Explained has suffered from the similar problem of daily content peppering his quality, but the various things he talks about helps out keeping his content somewhat fresh. He talks about movies, games, canon and legends, while occassionally creating some wierd "what if" scenarios. My only gripe with hin is his format is alredy used up so much that he's just another one of *those* star wars youtubers.
And then theres the Fact Free incident. My memory is a little fuzzy since this happened about a year ago, but I'll do my best to remember. So, Fact Free uploaded a video that might have been on rancors, and I'm like,
"Well, might as well." And I watched it. Then after I'm done, I scroll down and see another video on the same topic (maybe rancors, Im sorry I dont remember) by star wars reading hour. I click on it, and start watching. (Of course, theres the same information, and thats not the problem since its almost impossible to say the same thing differently) Then for an entire segment of hid video that was around 30 seconds long, I recognized word for word from Fact Free's video. Only thanks to watching the first video (which I remember was uploaded first) I saw this complete scumyness.
Im sorry for the essay, but its as short as possible
I just hate that clickbait and poor content channels like Dash Star and Star Wars/BattleFront HQ have ton of subs and views.
This is an astounding video, and I can't begin to describe how much I love it
A delightful interpretation on the Ubese Language. I get the sense C-3PO has added much flourish to many of his translations throughout the original trilogy, and beyond. A job well done!!!
First time on the channel. This is really great! I always thought Leia says to Bib Fortuna, “Leave us.” Thanks for the clarification.
This was one of the *best* SW videos I've ever seen! Fun, fascinating and accessible.
More linguistics videos please.
Nuclear Elevator I second the motion
How about Ewok? :)
You put so much thought and research into this, and managed to keep the video interesting and entertaining. This video seriously needs deserves views and you deserve more subscribers.
In Indonesia, repeated words add emphasis and may change meaning.
Jalan means both "go" and "street". Jalan jalan means "go on a walk/trip".
Hati means "heart". Hati Hati means "take heart (be careful)" and us used for caution signs.
This, sir, is fantastic content. I and others already mentioned it in some reply chains, but this could be an interesting exercise to perform with other languages; Shyriiwook, R2-D2, and I'm sure there is more.
Oh hell yes. I had wondered, on and off, about R2-D2's beeping and warbling SFX in general. C-3PO clearly understands the point he's getting across, so i was wondering if they actually put some effort into making those sounds into something that could function as a language. I would think it was like some sort of shorthand code, like morse's dots and dashes, but with some extra sounds thrown in. That would enable the code sounds to be shortened overall, since there would be more unique combinations with the same number of distinct sounds.
This warms my linguist heart
Having had two semesters of Japanese made this a lot more interesting. I didn't learn much beyond formal speech, but enough to get where you're coming from. I enjoyed you analysis.
Hi! At first I want to say that this is one of the best videos on UA-cam and I think I have watched it now 10 times or more. You cannot imagine how often I asked myself the same question and searched for subtle differences in the words Boussh uses. This video is like a revelation to me (and so much fun! ;D ) and I think it is spot on.
There are, however, two points I would like to mention. Not to disagree with what you analyzed but to give you more to feed on so that you might be inspired to gift us more of these videos (honestly, I am so very, very thankful!).
1) Bib Fortunas "Fifteen" is not translated in the German version of the movie (it sounds exactly the same), so what he says might not be Basic but something in Huttese, Twi'leki or even Ubese (and therefore just sound like "Fifteen").
2) At the beginning, you correctly say that in "iahto" (you die), the first syllable is stressed. However, you do not come back to this in the "translation"-part of the video. So, where does the stress come from and what does it mean? I don't have an answer. It might be just to put stress on "die" but I don't think so. And since many languages have "word-inherent melody" (sorry, I don't know the correct word for this), like Spanish for example, I also do not think that it is the word "die" itself that requires stress in Ubese. If, in Ubese, Verb-Pronoun-Constructions are stressed as "no stress > stress", "you die" should be the same. So the stress on the first syllable might point to the possibility that "iatoh" belongs to a completely different word group and is not a "verb-Pronoun"-construction.
Well... I myself think I should stop now to spread my poor English! ;) Thank you so much for this video (and the Geonosian video of course and all the other nerdy effusions on your channel!)
Oh: I naturally subscribed gtimes ;D;D;D;D !
This is a great video!
I however, believe that Ubese would have WAY more consonants than the ones you mentioned. I know that you have almost nothing to go on, so I'm not faulting you in any way.
Anyway, most Natural Languages, but not all, have consonant sounds that are grouped in pairs by their voicing (IE whether the vocal folds vibrate or not).
Now Ubese has the Z sound (a voiced sibilant), and the S sound (its voiceless pair), the D sound (a voiced alveolar stop), and the T sound (its voiceless pair).
Using that logic, you could add the consonant sounds of:
The Voiceless velar stop (Hard K sound), (the voiceless pair of the G sound).
The Voiced postalveolar affricate (the J sound), (the voiced pair of the CH sound).
The Voiced postalveolar fricative (SI sound, as in the word vision), the voiced pair of the SH sound).
The Voiceless bilabial stop (the P sound), (the voiceless pair of the B sound).
Voiceless palatal approximant (an EXTREMELY rare sound in human languages, I couldn't find any examples)), (the voiceless pair of the Y sound). Frankly, to me it sounds almost exactly like a regular Y sound.
One last thing. This might be way out in left field, but if you look at the spelling of Boushh's name it has 2 H's in it. Now I think this isn't a stylistic choice, I believe that 2nd H is pronounced. Let me explain.
What I'm getting at is about aspiration. English voiceless stops are aspirated for most native speakers when they are at the beginning of a word, or begin a stressed syllable, as in pill, bill etc. Put your hand in front of you mouth and say pin and then spin. One should either feel a puff of air with pin that one does not get with spin. That puff of air is aspiration.
I believe that in Ubese that, at least in, postalveolar sounds are aspirated in the final position of a word. Aspirated consonants are always represented with a lower case h when written phonetically. Hence the 2nd H in the spelling. I believe Ubese does the opposite of English, in that its aspirated consonants are a very hard HA sound at the final position, whereas most English aspirated consonants are barely audible. The words Yatoccha and Douccha are probably spelled Yatochh and Douchh, but pronounced as you spelled them. I also believe that if you pronounced them very slowly (slower than the movie) they're pronounced more like Ya-toch-Ha and Douch-Ha. Boushh's name is more likely pronounced (slowly) as Boush-Ha. A native Ubese speaker would run these sounds together when speaking normally.
That's my 2 cents worth, keep up the great work! :-)
Wow, awesome comment! Thanks for your very well-researched two cents!
More like two dollars...!
Hm. I agree, with the caveat that there might be something about Ubese vocal anatomy that could conceivably make one or two of them unpronounceable, as some sounds are to humans. Tom Scott just did a video about that. ua-cam.com/video/9uZam0ubq-Y/v-deo.html
Dude... this is probably the nerdiest thing I have ever seen from a Star Wars fan.... good job!
Look at the breen aliens from Star Trek, the costumes are almost identical.
In this case though Star Wars was actually the original because ROTJ came out in ‘83 and deep space 9 ( the series where breen are first seen) was in ‘94
Dude, this is great. I’m loving how skilled and dedicated you are to this craft. Thank you!
This rabbit hole was deep and I found your analysis very, very satisfying. Awesome work.
You are bringing those Star Wars explained videos on whole new level. Great work!
This was something I didn't know I wanted lol thank you for this xD
This was an amazing and well thought out analysis. I’d love to see more content in this same vein in other languages as well
I would like you to know that I REALLY enjoyed your video. I love this scene and its one of my absolute favorite Leia moments. Your breakdown of the language will 100% add to my enjoyment of this classic scene going forward. Thank you!
We have the letter Æ / æ in Norwegian, Danish, Icelandic and Faroese :)
It used to be in English too, but the French screwed our language up beyond all logic and reason.
@@FitzPenn Oh? Interesting.
@@Spino2Earth Yeah old English was a much more logical language than modern English.
@@FitzPenn I know.
@@Spino2Earth Freaking frogs
I like conlanguage stuff, linguistics in general in the casual sense. I'd totally want to deconstruct like that in a casual sense. Shame I have crappy hearing, sort of gets in the way. I can still do it a bit when it's written, but appreciating the nuance of the spoken word? Not so much. Though I did hear a lot of the differences you pointed out. Some were kind of obvious, actually, which made me a bit confused as to why those transcriptions were out there in the first place. I mean, if I could hear the differences, I'd have thought the people actually keen on analyzing them in the first place would be listening very carefully.
Man this video is just intense. Going so deep into the Star Wars lore, you are one hell of a dude. Thumbs up!
One more pearl of youtube. These little glows of real or fictional knowledge and uncompromising passion have so much charm. I mean if people on my "friend list" are not entertained by this, they probably don't deserve to be there. Here's to you pal.
*from back row of theater*
Do astromech
I figured for a long time that the language must be tonal, too.
It might still be.
Such an excellent video. I absolutely love this, thank you so much for putting this amount of effort into the video!
I'd like to point out that all of the Ubese we actually here is from Leia, a non-native speaker. We learn in Shadows of the Empire that Leia knows "a little bit of Ubese", so she is definitely not the best example to use to represent the entire language. Despite this, I adore the fact that you sensibly translated every word and phrase that Leia says AND made it make sense. Incredible :)
This was by far one of the greatest analysis videos of unknown Star Wars that I've watched. Worth the sub.
maybe its like how in english "you pay" has two meanings. Maybe they're slightly different words in ubese?
We have here Hoshi's replacement!
For the demand of 50,000 credits, as the price Jabba quotes is 25,000, I considered "yutoh, e'yutoh" (as I heard it) could be translated as "You pay that, and I demand you pay that again" - doubling the value, with the "e" affecting the "you pay that" to imply it is non-negotiable, hence Threepio's additional clarification. But a damn fine video, sir.
This is probably one of the best videos I've watched in a really long time.
The use of Japanese phonetics is cool. Makes sense if you speak it. lol
I heard (from a Slavic perspective) Jatej , Jatei , Joto .
Oooh, I like that input!
Awesome video, I remember being facinated by this conversation as a kid, watching ROTJ again and again on VHS. This video makes it so much better.
I love this video. I have watched it so many times. Thank you so much for making this
Amazing - Eric, please do a video like this on some Star Trek topic next, such as how Romulans, Vulcans and Rigellians might be related, or something.
we know that vulcans and romulans are related.
This one video is making want to sub
This was a bloody amazing video! Thank you, especially for the cleaned-up audio that finally let me hear the dialogue clearly! I always thought there was the odd soft G in there, somewhere, but the music, echo effect on the voice, and background sound effects had me doubting my ears.
The novelisation had much more fleshed out -- and translated -- dialogue for "Boushh," but I guess they didn't want to bog the film down with bargaining. 🤣 If I recall correctly, they had "Zeebuss" as a kind of acknowledgement, or agreement.
I found this video to be very interesting and I'd like to see more like it in the future. I always thought it was silly how they were able to get so many different sentences out of just the same few words repeated and expected us to believe that it's a real language. But your analysis shows that there really is more to it than I had ever noticed.
I think it's naive to assume that an ancient Alien language from another galaxy would conform to the same rules and patterns that our languages do.
Yeah, that's a very fair point. I should have said that this whole analysis is based on the arbitrary assumption that this language functions the way we understand languages to function.
But it's very likely that it wouldn't. For instance, there might be sounds and inflections in Ubese that the human ear can't even detect.
I agree, like the way Jawas use smells as well as sounds to communicate with each-other. humans cannot comprehend it so the Jawas create a trade language.
EC Henry It's also silly because for many languages on Earth it's nearly impossible to translate languages word for word. You're basically left with a basic intent or concept to relay. That's probably what's happening when Han or 3P0 translates Chewie. It's likely not literal. Same with Ubese.
Since these aliens appear to be fairly Earth-like lifeforms, and built a fairly Earth-like civilization, I reckon their language is reasonably Earth-like too.
Ah ... now there is a thought.
I don't know is the full scripts exist but some English versions of Artoo and Chewies dialogue certainly exist such as "The old man is mad" that Chewie says.
I guess Artoo speaking English or with subtitles is kinda cute, funny or rude - and plenty of people have covered that already.
My language is _Obesse_ . And is limited to words of the fast food realm.
"Hambu-pizz. KFC. Mc, Mc, Donalds-Hamb. Wendys-HotDogg."
You did a really good job on this. Thank you. Would love more videos on this.
This was an excellent break down of the scene, loved the incorporation and comparisons to Japanese for a real world context and it gives the entire interaction so much more character. Definitely gong to add to my next watching of Return of the Jedi too.
finally
been waiting for this for 25 years
I still think Boussh is pronounced BOW-ssh and not BOO-ssh.
I knew I couldn't be the only one!
Same lol.
Holy shit that was one hell of a video. I took linguistics in college and holy hell your analysis of the language was great. Made that scene even more amazing. Subbing.
Thanks for this! I'm trying to learn as much as possible about as many different languages as possible. I've never learnt a second language yet but this video helped me to understand more about other language structures. A great and fun way to learn! Thank you!