Ubese (language)

This article is about the language. You may be looking for the Ubese species.

«I have come for the bounty on this Wookiee.»

―"Boushh" speaking Ubese — 20?cb=20250116042720

Ubese,^[2] also known as Ubesian,^[3] was a language that sounded like a scratchy, guttural monotone.^[2] Princess Leia Organa learned Ubese using Ebenn Q3 Baobab's Easy Ubese Phrase Book.^[4] She spoke the language when she infiltrated the palace of Jabba the Hutt on the planet Tatooine^[1] in the guise of the Ubese bounty hunter Boushh.^[5] The protocol droid C-3PO was fluent in Ubese, and translated it for Jabba when his master was having a conversation with "Boushh."^[1]

Examples

Yrrate yraate hru Wookiee.^[6] ("I have come for the bounty on this Wookiee.")^[1]
Zeebuss.^[6]

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Behind the scenes

Ubese first appeared in the 1983 film Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi. Although the language was not named on screen,^[1] it was first identified as such in the subtitles of the 2006 Limited Edition version of the film on both remastered and original cuts.^[7] Before that, Ubese had been described in the Expanded Universe sources (now Legends) and was mentioned as Ubese by Ben Burtt in the Galactic Phrase Book & Travel Guide.

Leia/Boushh's Ubese dialogue was written by Burtt, with short words made to sound as a "terse" language, so that to have a different texture from the Huttese that was also spoken in that part of the film. The voice was performed by Pat Welsh, a senior amateur actress with a distinctive low-pitched voice; Welsh and Burtt met during the making of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, where she voiced the extraterrestrial title character. To produce the alien Ubese voice, Welsh's recording was processed with a ring modulator that produced the electronic textured effect out of an oscillator tone.^[8]