Sith (language)

Initially, the Sith, a species of red–skinned Humanoids hailing from the Stygian Caldera, were the sole speakers of this language. Its use and evolution expanded when the second generation of Dark Jedi splintered from the Jedi Order around 7000 BBY, following the Battle of Corbos, and enslaved the inhabitants of Korriban. The Sith language became emblematic of the newly formed Sith Order, a potent group of dark side practitioners. The creation of translation talismans facilitated this. These artifacts, originally conceived by the Jedi Exiles seeking to uncover Sith secrets, enabled wearers to comprehend the Sith language as if it were their native tongue. The Code of the Sith, initially drafted in Basic by the Exile Sorzus Syn and inspired by the Sith Purebloods' way of life, was also rendered into Sith as Qotsisajak.

Around 5000 BBY, the Sith dreadnaught Omen was compelled to crash on the faraway planet of Kesh. The stranded Sith could not return to space, and therefore settled among the native Keshiri, thus establishing the Lost Tribe of Sith. This event expanded the Sith language's reach. Within this isolated Sith community, the language acquired the designation "the Old Tongue."

Even though most Sith were no longer Sith Purebloods, the language was kept alive in holocrons, temples, and books. However, outside of dark side circles, only a small number of scholars possessed the ability to understand this language, and even fewer could accurately pronounce its intricate word structures. Much later, in the eleventh century prior to the Battle of Yavin, the Human Darth Bane gained familiarity with the ancient Sith tongue during his studies at the Academy on Korriban, a skill uncommon among his peers. Bane sought the wisdom of long dead Masters in leather-bound books inscribed with blood-red ink.

Many years after the Sith Order's inception, individuals as recent as the fallen Jedi Vergere and Jerec or the Sullustan naturalist Dr'uun Unnh, were speakers of the language. The Lost Tribe of Sith's members also managed to maintain knowledge of the Old Tongue, with all members above the rank of apprentice knowing it. For instance, Vestara Khai used it to communicate with a pack of Tuk'ata on Korriban. The final members of the Order of the Sith Lords created by Bane, Darth Sidious and his subsequent apprentices Darth Maul, Darth Tyranus, and Darth Vader, all spoke Sith fluently.

The Sith language's phonetic range included 23 phonemes, or distinct speech sounds. It had about 11 obstruents and 6 or 7 sonorants: /t/, /d/, /k/, /q/, /m/, /n/, /ts/, /dz/, /s/, /z/, /h/, /t͡ʃ/,/j/ /ʃ/, [ɹ/l], /w/, /ʎ/ . The corresponding graphemes used to represent these sounds were t, d, k, q, m, n, ts, dz, s, z, h, ch, j, sh, r/l, w, y.

There were also 6 unique vowels: /i/ or i (as heard in "heat"), /æ/ or â (as heard in "bash"), /u/ or u (as heard in "suit"), /ʌ/ or û (as heard in "club"), /oʊ/ or o (as heard in "toad"), /ɑ/ or a (as heard in "ah"). Furthermore, a and o could combine with i to form diphthongs: oi (as heard in "toy") and ai (as heard in "buy"). The epenthetic vowel was /u/.

Due to this constrained set of sounds, Sith scribes encountered challenges when translating non-Sith names. For example, Palpatine's name would be rendered as Marmûtin, since the Sith language lacked a "p" sound or an "l" between consonants. To address these issues, resourceful scribes would translate names based on their etymological meaning. Assimilation from borrowed words is preferred by place of articulation: in Palpatine, /p/ > /m/

Sith morphemes—the smallest meaningful units in the grammar of a language—often consisted of closed syllables (syllables ending in consonants), giving them a sharp and abrupt sound. The language was regularly stressed, with the accent falling on the first syllable of each word.

The Sith language avoided vowels in hiatus, inserting glides /j/ or /ʎ/ when two vowels appeared adjacently. The phrase siqsayanjat ("about a demon") was composed of siqsa ("demon") and anjat (ablative noun marker), with the glide y added to prevent the hiatus.

The Sith language relied heavily on regular agglutination and used derivative suffixes more extensively than Galactic Basic Standard. Numerous markers could be attached to a root, forming very long words—a single word could even represent an entire sentence. For example, "because of dreaming about a demon" was translated into Sith as the single word kûskutsiqsayanjat. This word comprised four distinct morphemes: kûsk + ut + siqsa + (y)anjat = "to dream" + (nominal verb marker) + "demon" + (ablative noun marker). Some markers were exclusive to nouns, while others were exclusive to verbs.

Sith's typical declarative word order followed verb / subject / object — for instance, "Wonoksh Qyâsik nun" literally meant "Shall free / the Force / me". However, prepositional phrases were also present, and subjects or objects could occasionally be positioned at the beginning of the sentence for emphasis.

Verb roots typically consisted of a single syllable ending in a consonant. Moods, tenses, and other nuances were indicated through suffixation verb markers. For example, the suffix -atul expressed the alethic mood, indicating the speaker's belief that an action was logically necessary or undeniably true. (The phrase Châts nu midwan meant "I gain power," while its alethic form Châtsatul nu midwan could be translated as "I necessarily gain power.") Additionally, the suffix -oksh denoted future tense. (For instance, Won Qyâsik nun meant "The Force frees me," while Wonoksh Qyâsik nun meant "The Force shall free me.") The suffix -win was sometimes added to a transitive verb to indicate ergativity, signifying that the grammatical subject of that verb was actually its semantic object, with the true semantic agent remaining unexpressed. (In the phrase kotswinot itsu or "my chains break," the action is being done to the subject itsu by an unspecified agent.) Thanks to the suffix -ut, verbs could also be nominalized. (For example, kûsk meant "to dream," while kûskut meant "the act of dreaming.")

Sith nouns had cases, inflectional forms indicating their grammatical relationship to other words in the sentence. These cases were indicated by adding a noun marker. Known cases included the instrumental case (-jontû), the ablative case (-anjat), and the dative case (-ottoi). The instrumental case indicated that the marked noun was the means by which the action expressed in the clause was accomplished; for instance, ashajontû meant "through victory." The ablative case was best translated in Basic using the preposition "about." The word siqsayanjat meant "about/concerning a demon." A noun was in the dative case when it functioned as an indirect object: midwan meant "power," while midwanottoi meant "for/to the power."

Initially, the Sith language was written using complex hieroglyphics. Over the centuries, Sith scribes sought to develop simpler writing systems. This led to the creation of two distinct scripts. The first, "Common Sith," was used for everyday purposes, while the second, "High Sith," was reserved for religious use. A third writing system, known as the Kittât, was also used for incantation scrolls. This system consisted of thirty-seven runes and was suitable for both calligraphy and epigraphy.

The Massassi warriors who accompanied the Sith Lord Naga Sadow into exile on the fourth moon of Yavin Prime also developed their own hieroglyphic system, a simplified version of High Sith. They carved numerous inscriptions using this new writing system on temple walls and obelisks scattered throughout Yavin 4's jungle, notably in the Temple of the Blueleaf Cluster or at the monumental rear entrance of the Great Temple. When the Sullustan naturalist Dr'uun Unnh explored Yavin 4 on behalf of the Alliance to Restore the Republic, he successfully translated some of the Massassi texts found in the Temple of Exar Kun. When Luke Skywalker's New Jedi Order established its academy on Yavin 4, Skywalker and some of his students learned to decipher that script, enabling them to read the Books of Massassi.

• Dzworokka yun; nyâshqûwai, nwiqûwai. Wotok tsawakmidwanottoi, yuntok hyarutmidwanottoi. —"Two there should be; no more, no less. One to embody power, the other to crave it." [5]
• Eyah seh maat, shu kor huaan. —Unknown. Something soothing. [14]
• Haa, neyo la yud masur kee, tah uhnah kahru lur shu. —Unknown. Something menacing and challenging. [14]
• Ja'ak. —"I am free." [34]
• Na-hah ur su ka-haat. Su ka haru aat. —Unknown. Most likely something as: "Lead the Sith to us if there are any here." [14]
• Taka zeech ma toka duuwaj. —Unknown. An incantation to gain access to a Sith obelisk. [12]
• Ur-kaa! —Unknown. Probably something such as "Halt!" or "Freeze!" [14]
• Vexok savaka. —"Wake up, there is work to do." [34]
• Zhol kash dinora. —"It is done." [34]

The Sith language made its initial appearance in the comic book series Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi during the 1990s. At that time, instances of the language consisted of nonsensical words, made up only of unpronounceable consonant clusters—such as Nkrttw flgkllm shprrlt mdnnq. This depiction of Sith is inconsistent with later appearances in canon and should probably be regarded as artistic license. In Speak Like a Sith, Ben Grossblatt pointed out that no one would attempt to speak a language consisting of unpronounceable words like r'rhhoqtk. However, in the audio drama adaptation of Tales of the Jedi, Exar Kun's Sith utterances sounded very different from their comic book counterparts, incorporating a range of vocalic sounds.

In the 2004 video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, Darth Nihilus was heard communicating in a manner similar to the Sith holocrons held by Atris, leading some fans to speculate that the Dark Lord spoke Sith. However, while working on the Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide, Star Wars author Abel G. Peña wrote a passage about Nihilus' mask that was ultimately removed. This passage would have offered two scholarly interpretations of Nihilus' speech. According to the deleted passage, the Dark Lord's hissing sounds may have been either the last language spoken in the galaxy, billions of years into the future at the end of time, or the raw dialect of the Force itself, untranslated by midi-chlorians.

In November 2010, senior editor Ben Grossblatt, a linguistics expert, created a functional Sith language for the Book of Sith: Secrets from the Dark Side. His work encompassed Sith grammar rules, sentence structure, and a Sith runic script. More information about the creation of this language was revealed in Speak Like a Sith, an article featured in Star Wars Insider 134. Sith is the second functional constructed language developed for the Star Wars universe, with the first being Karen Traviss' Mando'a.

While Grossblatt's system is both realistic and functional, conflicts exist between his version of the Sith phonology and Sith vocabulary established in earlier works. The Star Wars Insider article states that Sith lacks 'e', 'p', or 'f' sounds, but words or names such as "derriphan" "Ffon," "aleph", Jen'ari, Jen'jidai, Jensaarai or "Kressh" have appeared in older canon sources. Even "Korriban," the name of the Sith species' homeworld, cannot be written using this system due to the absence of 'b'. In fact, some of the new words created for Book of Sith—including "Grotthu" and "Zuguruk"—cannot be properly transcribed. Although Grossblatt did create "new" Sith words consistent with his conlang for the caste names, they did not make it into the final version of the book.