system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: There is no non-metatextual reason for droids in Star Wars to speak in "droid language".

Let's get the obvious out of the way. Of course, the reason that R2-D2 speaks the way he does is for comic relief. However, I contend that *as a piece of worldbuilding*, having a "droid language" that some droids speak exclusively while others are fully capable of speech makes no sense, as it offers no benefits either to people in the Star Wars universe or to the droids themselves, and on the contrary, has significant drawbacks.

First, what do we know about droid-speak?

**We know that it is a fully-featured language.** C-3P0 responds R2 with a particularity that indicates that they are having a real conversation; R2 is not merely making animalistic noises that convey a general sense of his mood, the way we might "talk" to our pets. It is a complex language capable of expressing complex concepts.

**We know that it is not unique to R2-D2.** I have heard it argued that this was a quirk R2 developed from going too long without a memory wipe. First, this wouldn't explain how C-3P0 can understand him perfectly, and second, even if that were true in the original trilogy, we have since seen other droids speak like this way, including in the new canon. In one episode of The Mandalorian, Mando even asks, "Does anyone speak Droid?".

**We know that it is trivially easy to give droids the ability to speak Basic and/or other organic languages.** The galaxy far, far away clearly figured out naturalistic AI speech a long, long time before a long, long time ago. Droid vocabulators are easy to come by--hell, they're probably a standardized part. It beggars belief that this would any significant cost to droid manufacturing.

So all of this raises the question...*why?*

Consider that someone, or a group of someones, would have had to develop this language in the first place. That represents a major R&D effort, a huge investment of time, energy, and resources. Why go through the trouble of constructing a standardized Droid language if you can just make them speak *your* language? Let's be generous and say that maybe naturalistic speech *wasn't* possible yet. Surely the better return on investment would be research into making that happen rather than starting a consortium of linguists and engineers to develop a new language.

A Droid language offers no benefit to the droids themselves. For communicating with each other, surely they would do so either with connecting cables or in digital ways that would work at the speed of their processing power, much as we have Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, radio, etc. 

For organic beings who have to work with droids, having to learn to interpret a Droid language would be a huge burden and barrier to entry. Again, I keep coming back to this thought: if your society has the technology to build autonomous robots as sophisticated as those in the Star Wars universe, there is simply no way you can't also make them talk. And if *somehow* you got to "functional robot bodies and autonomous artificial intelligence" before "naturalistic computerized speech", then surely the latter is already on the horizon. There's no point in starting a big "Droid language" project that will surely be obsolete almost immediately.

What won't change my view: any explanation grounded in real-world reasons of writing, filmmaking, etc. Like I said, it's pretty clear that this was a writing/directorial decision.

What might change my view: identifying a benefit to Droid language I hadn't considered; challenging an assumption I've made in a way that materially affects the conclusion; other factors I haven't thought of.

May the Force be with you!

-----

EDIT: Lots of great responses, thank you! I think my view has been partially changed: while I'm still not sure it makes *good* sense for droids to speak Droid, I can no longer confidently say that there is absolutely *no reason* for it. 

I awarded some deltas mainly for comments that took one of two approaches:

1. Challenging my assumption that it is "trivially easy" to make droids speak natural language.

2. Challenging my assumption that the Star Wars universe *does* have digital, wireless technology that would allow droids to easily communicate with each other at a distance, thus creating a need that can be filled by a droid language.

I gave deltas to one or two of the first and/or most thorough comments in each of those categories. I'll keep reading comments I haven't gotten to, but I may not respond to everyone.
gpt
>We know that it is trivially easy to give droids the ability to speak Basic and/or other organic languages. The galaxy far, far away clearly figured out naturalistic AI speech a long, long time before a long, long time ago. Droid vocabulators are easy to come by--hell, they're probably a standardized part. It beggars belief that this would any significant cost to droid manufacturing.

I don't think you can simply claim this. Droids in Star Wars are intelligent creatures, much as the wider franchise tries to avoid dealing with that premise seriously.

In humans, speech occupies a massive area of the brain. It shapes the very way we think. Language is very important and influential in sentience.

Therefore, the addition of a vocabulizer, though it may be a simple part, could result in major changes in a droid's behavior over time.' 

The legends universe takes this idea even further, as it explicitly blames a layer of code added to droidspeak for the fact that they are sentient.