Forum: scifi.stackexchange.com
Tags: <star-wars><languages>
Title: Do we ever see written English in the Star Wars films?
Question: In  Empire Strikes Back , we see a transcription of what R2's beeps and bloops mean, but it's not English (sorry for the low quality, it's from the 2004 DVDs):   I'd assume it's what Basic looks like when written, but is there some point in the the  Star Wars  films we see written English instead?  (This sort of spun off from a discussion in  How do people understand astromech droids? .)

Answers:
sents: text: At one point there was English but it has been phased out in subsequent versions of the films.
text: Chris Gould at DVD Active did a comparison of all versions of each of the Star Wars films, and in his comparison of Episode 4 , there are a couple of screenshots showing how the power gauge for the Death Star tractor beam was changed.
text: I imagine there are probably more to be found in his other comparisons
text: but I haven't got around to reading those yet.
answer_details: author: scifi.stackexchange.com/users/1363/Talvalin
score: 47
sents: text: As you can see from the original prop, the ITO interrogator droid 's syringe in ANH says "British Made - 200°C"
answer_details: author: scifi.stackexchange.com/users/26757/Timtwim44
score: 24
sents: text: In the original A New Hope when Luke scans the desert with his binoculars the numbers are Arabic numbers.
text: Later when the film was re-released the numbers were changed to be numeric symbols in galactic basic.
text: In the second exchange between Luke and R2-D2
text: the text is longer, unfortunately the only source I have is the one on YouTube at 360p resolution.
text: The first letter on the third main line looks like an "A", unfortunately it is very hard to tell.
text: I think it would be likely that it was English, but since it was already unreadable there was no reason to change it.
text: (I see no difference between the original 1997 first dialogue of text and your example).
answer_details: author: scifi.stackexchange.com/users/1148/Jack B Nimble
score: 20
sents: text: There is a tiny segment in that occurs across all the Stars Wars episodes.
text: Pretty insignificant
text: so I am sure that is why the OP and other answers have missed it.
text: The Opening Crawl has some written English in it.
answer_details: author: scifi.stackexchange.com/users/13442/James Jenkins
score: 6
sents: text: Episodes 2 and 3 of
text: The Mandalorian show a similar heads up display as Luke's original with Arabic numerals: (image screenshot from Episode 3 "The Mandalorian")
answer_details: author: scifi.stackexchange.com/users/55637/NKCampbell
score: 3
sents: text: Arabic numerals in The Force Awakens When General Hux and Captain Phasma discuss Finn 's desertion in The Force Awakens , they examine his service record.
text: Their screen shows Finn's stormtrooper identification number (his only official name) using the Aurebesh alphabet equivalents for "F" and "N" and the Arabic numerals "2187":
answer_details: author: scifi.stackexchange.com/users/78630/Gaultheria
score: 3

Summary of the answers:
At one point there was some English but it has been phased out in subsequent versions of the films.  On the original prop, the  ITO interrogator droid 's syringe in ANH says "British Made - 200°C".
There are a few instances of English being within the Star Wars universe such as; when the  ITO interrogator droid 's syringe in ANH says "British Made - 200°C" .