wolit@rabbit.UUCP (07/28/83)
I'll bet you've all been wondering what Niem Numb, the "heavy-jowled reptilian creature with bulging black eyes," who copiloted the Millenium Falcon with Lando Calrissian during the attack on the Death Star, meant when he muttered, "Atiriri. Inyui hau ukai na haha." Well, wonder no more. Turns out that in the language of the dominant tribe in Kenya, the Kikuyu, it means, roughly, "Attention, you over there, come this way." Which makes no sense at all in context, but sounds authentic (at least the producers must have thought so). All this was dicovered during a recent screening in Nairobi, at which just about everyone in the audience picked up the odd usage. (Don't tell your Kenyan friends: the film doesn't open there until August 19.) Now that I have you on the edge of your seats, I can reveal that the language spoken by the Ewoks is a mixture, mostly of Tibetan and Mongolian. Jan Wolitzky Dept. of Linguistics & Speech Analysis (actually, I read it on the AP newswire) Bell Labs, Murray Hill