Oldspeak, also known in Oldspeak as centrum lingua ("Core Tongue"), and sometimes referred to by modern historians as Centralian (based on the language's endonym), was a creole language and the galaxy's lingua franca prior to the development of Early Modern Basic, used from c. 18000 BBY until c. 4000 BBY.
A "hybrid" of High Coruscanti, Old Alderaanian, Old Corellian, Alsakani, and Tionese, Oldspeak established the foundations for the modern iterations of Galactic Basic Standard, and was spoken on the majority of Human worlds in the galactic community. By the time of Early Modern Basic's development in c. 4000 BBY, Oldspeak remained in use in the Core Worlds for ceremonial purposes. Some backwater worlds still spoke variants of the language in the form of Centralian by the time of the Imperial era.
Behind the scenes[]
Oldspeak is based on Medieval Latin, having influences from both the Romance and Germanic language families.