Aurebesh Translator
Type a name or a phrase and see it in Aurebesh, the alphabet on screens, signs and starships in Star Wars. The page draws your text in an Aurebesh font that follows Stephen Crane's 1993 chart, including the eight letters for pairs such as th, sh and ch, and reads it back as letter names: "Hello there" is Herf Esk Leth Leth Osk / Thesh Esk Resh Esk. Save the result as an image or copy the letter names.
How to use the aurebesh translator
- Type a name, a word or a sentence. It appears in Aurebesh as you type, with the letter names underneath.
- Write th, sh, ch, kh, ng, oo, ae and eo in lowercase, or with only the first letter capitalized, to get the eight pair letters. All capitals spell them as two letters.
- Press Download as Image to save the Aurebesh text as a PNG you can post, print or send.
- Press Copy letter names to copy the reading, such as Herf Esk Leth Leth Osk, since copied glyphs would paste as plain letters.
Examples
| Hello there | Hello there Letter names: Herf Esk Leth Leth Osk / Thesh Esk Resh Esk |
| Chewbacca | Chewbacca Letter names: Cherek Esk Wesk Besh Aurek Cresh Cresh Aurek |
| Rebel Alliance | Rebel Alliance Letter names: Resh Esk Besh Esk Leth / Aurek Leth Leth Isk Aurek Nern Cresh Esk |
About Aurebesh
Aurebesh is the alphabet of Star Wars, the lettering on cockpit displays, droid readouts, posters and signs in the films, series and games. Its shapes first appeared on screen in Return of the Jedi in 1983, as markings on monitors and control panels, designed as decoration rather than as something to read. Stephen Crane, a designer working on West End Games' Star Wars roleplaying material, turned those shapes into a full alphabet in 1993. He matched a glyph to each letter of the English alphabet, gave every letter a name, and added letters for common pairs; his chart is dated August 26, 1993. The alphabet takes its name from its first two letters, Aurek and Besh, the way the word alphabet comes from alpha and beta. Lucasfilm later adopted Crane's alphabet, and it has been used across the franchise since, in books, games, props and on screen.
Crane's chart has 26 basic letters, one for each Latin letter, each with a name: Aurek a, Besh b, Cresh c, Dorn d, Esk e, Forn f, Grek g, Herf h, Isk i, Jenth j, Krill k, Leth l, Mern m, Nern n, Osk o, Peth p, Qek q, Resh r, Senth s, Trill t, Usk u, Vev v, Wesk w, Xesh x, Yirt y and Zerek z. It adds eight letters that each stand for a pair of Latin letters: Cherek for ch, Enth for ae, Onith for eo, Krenth for kh, Nen for ng, Orenth for oo, Shen for sh and Thesh for th. Like the Latin alphabet, Aurebesh runs left to right, and a word in it is spelled exactly as it is in English, letter for letter, apart from those eight pairs. The font on this page draws capitals about 10% larger than lowercase letters, and it draws digits and most punctuation in Aurebesh style too.
Aurebesh is not in Unicode, and it is not in the ConScript Unicode Registry either, the volunteer list that assigns private-use code points to invented scripts such as Tengwar and Klingon. So there is no Aurebesh character to type or paste. Every Aurebesh font works the same way instead: the text underneath stays in ordinary Latin letters, and the font draws an Aurebesh glyph in place of each one. This page shows your text in a self-hosted copy of the Aurebesh font by SilvinoR, released under the SIL Open Font License 1.1, which follows Crane's chart. Copying the glyphs would therefore paste plain Latin letters, so the page offers two things to take away instead. Download as Image saves the Aurebesh text as a PNG you can post, print or send, and Copy letter names copies the reading, the letter names separated by spaces with a slash between words.
The eight pair letters need a rule, and the tool follows the font's. Thesh, Shen, Cherek and the others are drawn when the pair is written with a lowercase second letter, as th or Th, ch or Ch, and two separate letters are drawn when both are capitals, because the font treats a word in all capitals as a string of initials. The letter-name reading follows the same rule, so what you copy matches what you see. "Hello there" reads Herf Esk Leth Leth Osk / Thesh Esk Resh Esk, with Thesh for the th, while "THE END" reads Trill Herf Esk / Esk Nern Dorn. "Chewbacca" begins with Cherek, Cherek Esk Wesk Besh Aurek Cresh Cresh Aurek, and "Shoot" is Shen Orenth Trill. Accented letters are folded to their base letter, so Crème is written as Creme. The reading keeps a run of digits as it is, so "Luke 2187" reads Leth Usk Krill Esk / 2187, and leaves punctuation out.
Aurebesh is an alphabet, not a language, and this tool writes English, or any text spelled in Latin letters, in Aurebesh letters. It does not translate anything. That is also how the franchise uses it. On screen, Aurebesh usually spells Galactic Basic, the common language of the galaxy, which in practice is English, so a sign in a Star Wars film normally says an English word in Aurebesh letters. Huttese and Shyriiwook, the Wookiee language, are spoken languages in the films, and writing them would need their words, not an alphabet. There is no decoder, because a picture of Aurebesh cannot be pasted as text; to read one, match each glyph against the chart. Star Wars is a trademark of Lucasfilm, and this page is not affiliated with it. Used as intended, it does what a fan-made chart does, with the pair letters handled for you.
Frequently asked questions
Why can't I copy and paste the Aurebesh text?
Because Aurebesh has no characters of its own. It is not in Unicode, so every Aurebesh font draws its glyphs over ordinary Latin letters, and copying them pastes those letters, not Aurebesh. The glyphs only appear where the same font is applied. That is why this page offers Download as Image, which saves the Aurebesh as a PNG that looks the same everywhere, and Copy letter names, which copies the reading as text.
Does this translate English into a Star Wars language?
No. Aurebesh is an alphabet, not a language, and the tool writes the English you type in its letters, one for one. That matches how the films use it: on screen, Aurebesh usually spells Galactic Basic, which is English, so signs and displays say English words in Aurebesh letters. Languages such as Huttese or Shyriiwook, the Wookiee language, are spoken in the films, and writing them would need their vocabulary, which no alphabet chart supplies.
What are the extra letters like Thesh and Shen?
Stephen Crane's 1993 chart adds eight letters that each write a pair of Latin letters: Cherek for ch, Enth for ae, Onith for eo, Krenth for kh, Nen for ng, Orenth for oo, Shen for sh and Thesh for th. The tool uses them whenever the pair appears with a lowercase second letter, so "the" is Thesh Esk and "Shoot" is Shen Orenth Trill. You can always spell a pair as two letters by typing it in capitals.
Why does THE come out differently from The?
The font treats a word written all in capitals as a string of initials, so it draws each capital as its own letter: THE is Trill Herf Esk. Written The or the, the th is a pair and becomes the single letter Thesh, so the word is Thesh Esk. The letter-name reading follows the same rule, so the names you copy always match the glyphs you see. Type in capitals when you want every letter spelled separately.
Who created Aurebesh?
The glyphs first appeared on screen in Return of the Jedi in 1983, as decoration on displays. Stephen Crane, working on West End Games' Star Wars roleplaying material, turned them into a full alphabet with a letter for each English letter, names for all of them and eight pair letters; his chart is dated August 26, 1993. Lucasfilm later adopted it. The font on this page, by SilvinoR under the SIL Open Font License, follows Crane's chart.
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