A History of Written Mando'a
Posted: 22 Nov 2021 03:21
Su'cuy an!
I've been researching the various Mandalorian alphabets that have been used in official Star Wars publications, so I figured I'd consolidate all my research here for anyone interested. Here's an image gallery if you want to follow along this write up with visual examples.
The Beginning - 2002
A Mandalorian script first appeared in Ep 2: Attack of the Clones on the various displays inside the Slave I's cockpit. The alphabet was developed by Philip Metschan, a graphic designer that designed many of the holographic and flavor text assets for AotC. Notably, he was not a linguist, a hobbyist conlanger, or even an typographer. First and foremost, Metschan's goal in developing the Mandalorian and other alien fonts was aesthetic and distinction from English. In an interview, Metschan said: "But George is very, very keen about noticing things that look like English, because he's very against any kind of English looking characters in any of the screens or signs."
The Mandalorian script in AotC does not appear to spell anything in English or the very few other languages I could recognize. The font is used horizontally, vertically, and even sideways.
A Language Forms - 2003 through 2004
Jesse Harlin was hired as the principle music composer for the Star Wars: Republic Commandos game. In the process of designing songs for the game, Harlin invented lyrics for a choir to sing. This was the first instance of Mando'a-- both verbally and overall. Harlin passes the songs, his notes, and Metschan's alphabet on to Karen Traviss, the author hired to write the Republic Commando novel series. Traviss used Harlin's lyrics as a starting point for building out the language, inventing a grammar to go with the words. Traviss published Metschan's alphabet along with her Mando'a lexicon on her blog, and may remain through the wayback machine as the only published instance of Metschan's alphabet.
Fan Solutions - 2004
Because it was so difficult to find Metschan's alphabet, many fans couldn't write in Mandalorian script. That is, until Episode IV: A New Hope was released on DVD. On the Tatooine-themed menu specifically, once you selected "options", the screen would cycle through several in-universe typefaces before resolving to English. Notably, one of these typefaces was the Metschan script. The script overlapped in some places and was completely upside down in others, but Erikstormtrooper was able to decrypt the font into English, recreate the font digitally, and publish it on his website. This first version contained several mistakes that distinguishes it from Metschan's, but because of lower-resolution formats, these mistakes wouldn't be corrected or even noticed until after version 1 saw widespread use. How widespread? Well...
The Clone Wars (2008) - 2010
The next time we see written Mandalorian is in episode 2-12 of The Clone Wars, "The Mandalore Plot". We see the script on holographic boards behind Pre Viszla when he comm's with Count Dooku. In some frames, the letters are in clear, bold view that makes it easy to translate, but not if you were using Metschan's alphabet as the key. Why? The Clone Wars used Erikstormtrooper's version 1 script. While the script is fairly accurate to most of Metschan's alphabet, there is an unmistakable difference with the letter "P" that appears on the board, transcribing as "Target: Peace Park". Note: at no time in any official Star Wars works do we see Mando'a written in a Mandalorian script except in a recent SWTOR update that changed Mandalorian banners from English to Mando'a. All other instances of written Mando'a are either English or random letters. In the two other Clone Wars episodes with written Mando'a (3-5 and 3-6), it is with English words.
Star Wars Insider #117 - 2010
To solidify the canonization of Erik's version 1 alphabet, the article "The Duchess and the Jedi" in the Star Wars Insider magazine #117 features several English quotes with direct Mandalorian transcriptions that use his script instead of Metschan's. Now in print, there was no excuse of poor quality, lighting, or angle to explain the discrepancy and squashed all doubts that TCW had indeed used the wrong alphabet.
Rebels - 2016
Written Mando'a did not return until Rebels episode 3-11 "Visions and Voices", where we can see suspiciously blood-red letter painted on the walls of Maul's lair. This is the first instance of the newest version of Mandalorian script, often referred to as the Disney script. The visible letters are shared across all the alphabets and is stylized as handwritten to boot. It is only in retrospect of The Mandalorian show that we can confidently say this is the beginning of a new alphabet. What does the word say? "Kenobi", of course. Mando'a does make one more written appearance in rebels with the season 4 pilot, but it's exclusively in the form of numbers in a Mandalorian visor's UI.
The Mandalorian - 2020
It wasn't until the second season that we saw the namesake's corresponding script. Boba displays his chain code for Din, English words spelled with Disney-alphabet Mandalorian letters. Disney's version actually closesly resembles Metschan's original alphabet, with some letters slightly simplified in a manner similar to English non-serif fonts. The only true changes are the letters "E" and "H", though you'll find the structural difference is still minimal.
SWTOR Banners - 2021
Banners featuring Mandalorian script were added to the game at some point (if you know when, please comment!). Originally, it was English words in Mandalorian script but was later updated to be Mando'a in Mandalorian script. Both versions used the Disney alphabet.
The Future
A lot of Mandalorian-themed merchandising produced and sold by Disney features the newest Mandalorian alphabet, though it appears all of it is strictly English words transcribed into the alphabet. Many fans are hoping for a reintroduction of Mando'a to the Star Wars franchise. With the upcoming Book of Boba Fett and Mandalorian Season 3, we may get to see it happen.
While researching for this write-up I noticed that the Wookiepedia article on Mandalorian writing is pretty inaccurate. A good chunk is because of KT's inaccurate statements about hers and others' work, but some of it has no source at all. For instance, Wookiepedia alleges that traditionalist/True Mandos use Mando'a the language in conjunction with the alphabet and cites the displays on Slave I as proof, despite the fact that AotC predates the language by at least two years. It also claims that New Mandalorians don't write in Mando'a because the script can be translated into English rather than Mando'a, despite the fact literally no Star Wars script of any language translates to anything other than English.
Wookiepedia also claims that Erikstormtrooper invented the letter "C" in his alphabet and that it "doesn't appear in any other media" when really he integrated a character seen in AotC but not officially listed on the Metschan alphabet. For some reason Wookiepedia does not acknowledge that TCW uses Erik's v1 alphabet.
So! If anyone knows what's up with the Wookiepedia discrepancies, has info to add or update, ideas/theories to discuss, or (ka'ra duumi bic) have incredible high-res images for us to decipher, throw in a comment. Until next time, ret'urcye mhi.
I've been researching the various Mandalorian alphabets that have been used in official Star Wars publications, so I figured I'd consolidate all my research here for anyone interested. Here's an image gallery if you want to follow along this write up with visual examples.
The Beginning - 2002
A Mandalorian script first appeared in Ep 2: Attack of the Clones on the various displays inside the Slave I's cockpit. The alphabet was developed by Philip Metschan, a graphic designer that designed many of the holographic and flavor text assets for AotC. Notably, he was not a linguist, a hobbyist conlanger, or even an typographer. First and foremost, Metschan's goal in developing the Mandalorian and other alien fonts was aesthetic and distinction from English. In an interview, Metschan said: "But George is very, very keen about noticing things that look like English, because he's very against any kind of English looking characters in any of the screens or signs."
The Mandalorian script in AotC does not appear to spell anything in English or the very few other languages I could recognize. The font is used horizontally, vertically, and even sideways.
A Language Forms - 2003 through 2004
Jesse Harlin was hired as the principle music composer for the Star Wars: Republic Commandos game. In the process of designing songs for the game, Harlin invented lyrics for a choir to sing. This was the first instance of Mando'a-- both verbally and overall. Harlin passes the songs, his notes, and Metschan's alphabet on to Karen Traviss, the author hired to write the Republic Commando novel series. Traviss used Harlin's lyrics as a starting point for building out the language, inventing a grammar to go with the words. Traviss published Metschan's alphabet along with her Mando'a lexicon on her blog, and may remain through the wayback machine as the only published instance of Metschan's alphabet.
Fan Solutions - 2004
Because it was so difficult to find Metschan's alphabet, many fans couldn't write in Mandalorian script. That is, until Episode IV: A New Hope was released on DVD. On the Tatooine-themed menu specifically, once you selected "options", the screen would cycle through several in-universe typefaces before resolving to English. Notably, one of these typefaces was the Metschan script. The script overlapped in some places and was completely upside down in others, but Erikstormtrooper was able to decrypt the font into English, recreate the font digitally, and publish it on his website. This first version contained several mistakes that distinguishes it from Metschan's, but because of lower-resolution formats, these mistakes wouldn't be corrected or even noticed until after version 1 saw widespread use. How widespread? Well...
The Clone Wars (2008) - 2010
The next time we see written Mandalorian is in episode 2-12 of The Clone Wars, "The Mandalore Plot". We see the script on holographic boards behind Pre Viszla when he comm's with Count Dooku. In some frames, the letters are in clear, bold view that makes it easy to translate, but not if you were using Metschan's alphabet as the key. Why? The Clone Wars used Erikstormtrooper's version 1 script. While the script is fairly accurate to most of Metschan's alphabet, there is an unmistakable difference with the letter "P" that appears on the board, transcribing as "Target: Peace Park". Note: at no time in any official Star Wars works do we see Mando'a written in a Mandalorian script except in a recent SWTOR update that changed Mandalorian banners from English to Mando'a. All other instances of written Mando'a are either English or random letters. In the two other Clone Wars episodes with written Mando'a (3-5 and 3-6), it is with English words.
Star Wars Insider #117 - 2010
To solidify the canonization of Erik's version 1 alphabet, the article "The Duchess and the Jedi" in the Star Wars Insider magazine #117 features several English quotes with direct Mandalorian transcriptions that use his script instead of Metschan's. Now in print, there was no excuse of poor quality, lighting, or angle to explain the discrepancy and squashed all doubts that TCW had indeed used the wrong alphabet.
Rebels - 2016
Written Mando'a did not return until Rebels episode 3-11 "Visions and Voices", where we can see suspiciously blood-red letter painted on the walls of Maul's lair. This is the first instance of the newest version of Mandalorian script, often referred to as the Disney script. The visible letters are shared across all the alphabets and is stylized as handwritten to boot. It is only in retrospect of The Mandalorian show that we can confidently say this is the beginning of a new alphabet. What does the word say? "Kenobi", of course. Mando'a does make one more written appearance in rebels with the season 4 pilot, but it's exclusively in the form of numbers in a Mandalorian visor's UI.
The Mandalorian - 2020
It wasn't until the second season that we saw the namesake's corresponding script. Boba displays his chain code for Din, English words spelled with Disney-alphabet Mandalorian letters. Disney's version actually closesly resembles Metschan's original alphabet, with some letters slightly simplified in a manner similar to English non-serif fonts. The only true changes are the letters "E" and "H", though you'll find the structural difference is still minimal.
SWTOR Banners - 2021
Banners featuring Mandalorian script were added to the game at some point (if you know when, please comment!). Originally, it was English words in Mandalorian script but was later updated to be Mando'a in Mandalorian script. Both versions used the Disney alphabet.
The Future
A lot of Mandalorian-themed merchandising produced and sold by Disney features the newest Mandalorian alphabet, though it appears all of it is strictly English words transcribed into the alphabet. Many fans are hoping for a reintroduction of Mando'a to the Star Wars franchise. With the upcoming Book of Boba Fett and Mandalorian Season 3, we may get to see it happen.
While researching for this write-up I noticed that the Wookiepedia article on Mandalorian writing is pretty inaccurate. A good chunk is because of KT's inaccurate statements about hers and others' work, but some of it has no source at all. For instance, Wookiepedia alleges that traditionalist/True Mandos use Mando'a the language in conjunction with the alphabet and cites the displays on Slave I as proof, despite the fact that AotC predates the language by at least two years. It also claims that New Mandalorians don't write in Mando'a because the script can be translated into English rather than Mando'a, despite the fact literally no Star Wars script of any language translates to anything other than English.
Wookiepedia also claims that Erikstormtrooper invented the letter "C" in his alphabet and that it "doesn't appear in any other media" when really he integrated a character seen in AotC but not officially listed on the Metschan alphabet. For some reason Wookiepedia does not acknowledge that TCW uses Erik's v1 alphabet.
So! If anyone knows what's up with the Wookiepedia discrepancies, has info to add or update, ideas/theories to discuss, or (ka'ra duumi bic) have incredible high-res images for us to decipher, throw in a comment. Until next time, ret'urcye mhi.
