Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/11/03/the-mandalorian-recruited-a-deaf-actor-to-create-the-tusken-raiders-sign-language.html
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The Knights of the Old Republic games did a lot to make the Tuskens more than just faceless desert mooks (although they’re still technically faceless) and it’s cool to see this continue. Also getting a deaf actor to work on the sign language is cool.
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we watched the episode last night, and were remarking on how well done the tuskens were. this is one of the things that Dave Filoni brings to the series, i think – he understands what made star wars cool to begin with, and he’s so smartly steering the franchise to flesh out those things. the tuskens were one of them. who are they? what is their culture and society like? great stuff.
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I’m waiting for the first Tusken - Klingon dictionary.
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I hear the Tusken Shakespeare is a bitch to perform, but the subtext is sublime.
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Interestingly enough, this isn’t even the first artificial sign language. Given that there are many sign languages across the world, there is an International Sign language (sometimes referred to as Gestuno) that Deaf people who use different sign languages in daily life can use to communicate at events like the Deaflympics.
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What is the linguistic argument for capitalizing deaf?
Aren’t medical conditions not based on proper nouns kept lower-case?
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Seems like my emerging basic rule of “do what the person you’re talking about wants when you’re talking about a person” will work out here.
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The episode marks the only time in Star Wars related film or TV where anyone was actually nice/respectful to the Sand People
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Filoni is also a good enough writer to make references to older material without it looking tacked-on, groan-worthy, or out of place.
Here we have a reprise of a concept hinted at from the original film. Sandpeople are ersatz Fremen.
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Id argue that season 1’s ‘the gunslinger’ had the same respect from Mando to the Tusken’s but this episode definitely took it to a much higher level.
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Good point. On a second viewing, I realized there was a callback to that episode on those lines. Where the Tuskens hand Mando the binoculars he previously gave them in trade.
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Oh totally. I didn’t even catch the binocs til 3rd viewing myself.
What I want to know is, how much of that krayt meat is the kid gonna eat before they get back to Mos Eisley.
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Baby Yoda isn’t Nibbler, so I think there will be some left over for the Tuskens
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One of my favorite bits of Tusken trivia is that the guy who knocked out Luke actually just thrust his Gaffi Stick in the air once, but George Lucas didn’t think it looked imposing enough so he had the footage rocked back and forth to make it look like he was shaking it.
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Pretty sure the Child doesn’t poop fuel, either. 
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It is my sincere belief that Mando has never changed Baby Yoda’s diapers ever.
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It’s not clear that the little guy is wearing anything under that robe. He could be making Mando’s ship very dirty. Fuel in the Star Wars universe is a dense gas, so the Child’s farts could maybe be fuel. If purrgil start following Mando’s ship, we’ll know for sure!
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*** MANDALORIAN SPOILER ALERT ***
I really enjoyed the “normalization of diplomatic relations” with the Tusken Raiders aspect of S2E1. One gets the sense there was some, ahem, acknowledgement by The Mandalorian’s creators of the kind of blatantly racist characterization of nomadic, desert-based, Bedouin-like people from the original Star Wars, and some updates and, for lack of a better term, “humanization” was in order. Really liked how it came together in this episode.
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