Troy Kotsur, Who Invented the Tusken Raiders Sign Language, Won Best Supporting Actor at the Oscars

The 94th edition of the Academy Awards was held on Sunday night, and besides a few incidents during the ceremony, one of the highlights of the night was Troy Kotsur winning Best Supporting Actor for CODA. Kotsur, the first male deaf actor to win an acting Oscar, is a member of the Star Wars community too.



He was the first deaf actor to appear in a Star Wars project when he played one of the Tuskens in Chapter 5 of The Mandalorian. He is also credited in Chapter 1 of The Book of Boba Fett as the creator of the Tusken Sign Language. Congratulations to him and the entire deaf community for this unprecedented win.



Kotsur spoke to Daily Moth in early 2020 about his Star Wars fandom and why he decided to invent a brand-new language for the Tuskens. He said that he became a Star Wars fan when he was eight, despite the fact that accessibility for deaf people was rather limited at the time:

He then explained why he wanted to avoid ASL in favor of a new language:

In late 2021, a couple of months before The Book of Boba Fett premiered, Kotsur was made an honorary member of the 501st Legion 'for bringing depths to our beloved Star Wars characters and for developing the language of the Tusken Raiders'.



https://twitter.com/TroyKotsur/status/1455296895056691201



Congratulations to Troy Kotsur and the entire deaf community for this historic win. May the Force be with you! You can check out his beautiful speech below -- it was truly one of the most wonderful moments of the night. And if you are interested in seeing how the rest of the ceremony went, you can also check out the live coverage and recap we did on our sister site Movie News Net.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52tjGGy5iqY



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