Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff (co-author with Michael Reaves of the upcoming Star Wars novel tentatively titled Holostar) has updated her A Padawan's Journal blog with some thoughts on alien language/dialogue. Excerpt below:

"It?s when we use the alien?s alienness as a foil for the human?s familiarity that he or she becomes a real character. Then the voice is different. Then you can read a passage without dialogue tags and know when the alien is speaking.

Take Chewbacca for example. Chewie was the first alien in the Star Wars Universe that had extended dialogues. We didn?t understand a word he said, ?cause Wookiees don?t, for the most part speak Basic. They speak Wookiee and the orps (other races of people) just have to learn the lingo. But they understood Basic, so we understood Chewie because Han Solo understood him and acted as a sort of interpreter. I always thought that was pretty clever, because Han never actually repeats what Chewie says (?What?s that you say, boy? Luke?s fallen into the gravity well??) He simply responds to it so that we understand what the Wookiee is warbling about in context. This is as true in the novels I?ve read that feature Chewbacca and Han Solo as it is of the movies."


Click here for the full read!