Sith ( language ) Sith , or the Sith language , was the native language of the people of Ziost and Korriban . It was adopted as the mystical language of the Sith Order after the Dark Jedi Exiles enslaved the Sith species . Sith was an agglutinative language , in which words or even phrases were made up of linears sequences of distinct meaningful units . Despite the preeminence of the Galactic Basic Standard , the Sith language remained in use up until the post - Imperial period . To the Lost Tribe of Sith , an order founded on the remote planet Kesh , the Sith language was known as the Old Tongue . Usage . Originally , this language was only spoken by the Sith , a species of red – skinned Humanoids from the Stygian Caldera . It was later expanded upon and evolved when the second generation of Dark Jedi split from the Jedi Order in 7000 BBY , just after the Battle of Corbos , and enslaved the natives of Korriban . The Sith language became a symbol of the newly created Sith Order , a powerful sect of dark side adepts . This was made easier through the creation of devices known as translation talisman s . Such artifacts , initially designed and created by the Jedi Exiles who sought to learn of the Sith ' s secrets , allowed their wearer to read the Sith language as if it were their own mother tongue . The Code of the Sith , originally penned in Basic by the Exile Sorzus Syn and inspired by the lifestyle of the Sith Purebloods , was also translated in Sith language as Qotsisajak . Around 5000 BBY , the Sith dreadnaught " Omen " was forced to crash land on the remote planet Kesh . The marrooned Sith were never able to to return to space , so they settled amongst the native Keshiri and founded the Lost Tribe of the Sith . This allowed the Sith language to expand far from its cradle . In this marginal Sith colony , the language became known as " the Old Tongue " . Even after the majority of Sith were of other species than the Sith Pureblood , the language was preserved in holocrons , temples , and tomes . However , outside of the dark side circles , very few scholars knew how to decipher this language , and even fewer could pronounce its complex word structures . Much later , in the eleventh century before the Battle of Yavin , the Human Darth Bane became familiar with the tongue of the ancient Sith during his studies at the Academy of Korriban , unlike most of his fellow students . Bane would seek the wisdom of Masters long dead in leather - bound volumes covered with blood - red ink . Millennia after the founding of the Sith Order , individuals as modern as the fallen Jedi Vergere and Jerec or the Sullustan naturalist Dr ' uun Unnh , spoke it . The members of the Lost Tribe of Sith also managed to preserve the knowledge of the Old Tongue , and all members from apprentices and higher knew it . For example , Vestara Khai was able to use it to communicate with a pack of Tuk ' ata on Korriban . The last members of the Order of the Sith Lords founded by Bane , Darth Sidious and his successive apprentices Darth Maul , Darth Tyranus and Darth Vader , were all capable of speaking Sith fluently . Phonology and accent . The phonetic palette of the Sith language consisted of 23 phonemes or speech sounds . There were 17 consonants : " t " , " d " , " k " , " q " , " m " , " n " , " ts " , " dz " , " s " , " z " , " h " , " ch " , " j " , " sh " , " r / l " , " w " , " y " . There were also 6 distinct vowels : " i " ( as in " hit " or " heat " ) , " â " ( as in " bash " ) , " u " ( as in " suit " ) , " û " ( as in " club " ) , " o " ( as in " toad " ) , " a " ( as in " ah " ) . In addition , " a " and " o " would combine with " i " to make diphthongs : " oi " ( as in " toy " ) and " ai " ( as in " buy " ) . Because of this limited segment inventory , Sith scribes faced difficulties when trying to translate non - Sith names . For example , the name of Palpatine would have to be transcribed as " Marmûtin " , as the Sith language did not have a " p " sound or an " l " between two consonants . To overcome such difficulties , creative scribes would actually translate the name into their language based on its etymology . Sith morphemes — the smallest meaningful units in the grammar of a language — were often made of closed syllables ( syllables ending with consonants ) , which made them sound brisk and choppy . The language was regularly stressed , with every word accented on the first syllable . The Sith language discouraged vowels in , and were inserted when two vowels appeared next to each other . The phrase " siqsayanjat " ( " about a demon " ) was in fact composed of " siqsa " ( " demon " ) and " anjat " ( ablative noun marker ) , with the addition of the glide " y " to eliminate the hiatus . Morphology . The language of the Sith extensively employed regular agglutination and used derivative suffixes to a greater extent than Galactic Basic Standard . Many different markers could be added to a root until very long words were formed — and a single word could constitute an entire sentence . For example , the phrase " because of dreaming about a demon " translated in Sith as a single word " kûskutsiqsayanjat " . This word was made of four distinct morphemes : " kûsk " + " ut " + " siqsa " + " ( y ) anjat " = " to dream " + ( nominal verb marker ) + " demon " + ( ablative noun marker ) . Some markers could be added only to nouns , and others only to verbs . Grammar . Word order . The typical declarative word order of Sith was verb / subject / object — for example , " Wonoksh Qyâsik nun " was literally " Shall free / the Force / me " . However , there also existed prepositional phrases , and subjects or objects could sometimes be put at the front of the sentence for emphasis . Verbs . Verb roots were typically one syllable and ended with a consonant . Moods , tenses , and other subtleties were indicated by suffixation verb markers . For example , the addition of " - atul " expressed the alethic mood , the speaker ' s belief that an action was logically necessary or obviously true . ( The phrase " Châts nu midwan " would be " I gain power " , while its alethic form " Châtsatul nu midwan " could be translated as " I necessarily gain power . " ) Also , the addition of " - oksh " expressed 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 , meaning that the grammatical subject of that verb was in fact its semantic object , while the true semantic agent remained unexpressed . ( In the phrase " kotswinot itsu " or " my chains break , " the action described is in fact being done to the subject " itsu " by an undetermined agent . ) Thanks to the suffix " - ut " , verbs could also be nominalized . ( For example , " kûsk " was " to dream " while " kûskut " was " the act of dreaming . " ) Nouns . Sith nouns had cases , inflectional forms indicating their grammatical relation to other words in the sentence . Those cases were expressed by the addition of a noun marker . Know cases were the instrumental case ( " - jontû " ) , the ablative case ( " - anjat " ) , the dative case ( " - ottoi " ) . Instrumental case indicated that the noun it marked was the means of the accomplishment of the action expressed by the clause ; for instance , " ashajontû " meant " through victory . " As regards the ablative case , it could be 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 was used as an indirect object : " midwan " was " power " while " midwanottoi " meant " for / to the power . " Written forms . The Sith language was originally written in complex hieroglyphics . Over the centuries , Sith scribes wished to develop less complicated scripts . This resulted in the creation of two different scripts . The first one , known as " Common Sith " was used for mundane , everyday use , while the other , " High Sith " was for ecclesiastical use . A third writing system known as the Kittât was also used for incantation scrolls . The latter consisted of thirty - seven runes , and was suitable for both calligraphy and epigraphy . The Massassi warriors who followed the Sith Lord Naga Sadow in exile on the fourth moon of Yavin Prime also developed their own hieroglyphic system , a simplified version of High Sith . They carved many inscriptions using this new writing system on temple walls and obelisks scattered across the jungle of Yavin 4 , 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 contained in the Temple of Exar Kun . When the New Jedi Order of Luke Skywalker established its academy on Yavin 4 , Skywalker and some of his students learnt to decipher that script , which allowed them to read the Books of Massassi . Behind the scenes . The Sith language first appeared in the 1990s comic book series " " . At the time , occurrences of that language consisted of nonsensical words , composed only of unpronounceable series of consonants — such as " Nkrttw flgkllm shprrlt mdnnq " . This version of Sith does not blend well with ulterior appearances in canon , and should probably be considered an artistic licence . In " Speak Like a Sith " , Ben Grossblatt noted that no one would even try to speak a language if it consisted of unpronounceable words like " r ' rhhoqtk " . However , in the of " Tales of the Jedi " , the instances were Exar Kun speaks Sith sounded very different from their comic book counterpart , featuring a variety of vocalic sounds . In the 2004 video game " " , Darth Nihilus was heard communicating in the same fashion as the Sith holocrons kept by Atris , leading some fans to believe that the Dark Lord spoke Sith . However , when working on the " Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide " , " Star Wars " author Abel G . Peña wrote a whole passage devoted to Nihilus ' mask that was ultimately cut . It would have notably provided two scholarly explanations of Nihilus ' speech . According to that cut passage , the Dark Lord ' s hissings may have been the first language ever spoken in the galaxy , or the raw dialect of the Force itself , untranslated by midi - chlorians . In November 2010 , senior editor Ben Grossblatt , who has degrees in linguistics , created a functional Sith language for the " " . His work included Sith rules of grammar and sentence construction and a Sith runic script . More information about the creation of this language was revealed in " Speak Like a Sith " , an article featured in the " Star Wars Insider 134 " . Sith is the second working conlang ever developed for the " Star Wars " universe , the first being Karen Traviss ' Mando ' a . While Grossblatt ' s system is realistic and functional , there are conflicts between his version of the Sith phonology and Sith vocabulary established in previous works . While the " Star Wars Insider " article states that the Sith has no ' e ' ' p ' or ' f ' sounds , words or names such as " derriphan " " Ffon " , " aleph " , Jen ' ari , Jen ' jidai , Jensaarai or " Kressh " have appeared in older canon sources . Not even " Korriban " , the name of the Sith species ' homeworld , can be written using this system , due to the lack of ' b ' . In fact , even some of the new words that were invented 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 .