Jyn Erso, the newest Star Wars heroine, has a lot in common with last year's new Star Wars heroine, Rey. Both kick ass brunettes with pale skin, they certainly share more of a resemblance than Princess Leia and Luke. Add in the mystery of Rey's parentage introduced in The Force Awakens and Jyn's Rogue One: A Star Wars Story timeline, and Jyn starts to look like a prime candidate for Rey's mother. Other than their brown hair and pale skin, Jyn and Rey also share English accents, but is that proof that they're related or just a coincidence? The bottom line is that Jyn and Rey's accents in Star Wars could mean everything, or it could mean absolutely nothing.
Jyn and Rey's shared accent is frequently used as evidence that Jyn is Rey's mother. As we know with Han Solo and Finn and Poe, not everyone in the Star Wars universe has an accent. In fact, many of our Star Wars heroes do not. According to Vox, in the Star Wars universe, the British Received Pronunciation accent (the accent Jyn and Rey share) is known as the Coruscanti dialect. Spoken in the Core Worlds (aka the Galactic Core), the Coruscanti dialect is closely associated with the planet Coruscant, the capital planet of the Empire.
The further out in the galaxy, the less Coruscanti dialect is used, which explains why Luke, Leia, and other characters don't speak with British accents. However, despite living most of her life on Jakku, a planet far on the outer rims of the galaxy, Rey speaks with a pretty clear Coruscanti accent. Because of the mystery of her parentage, many fans grabbed onto Rey's accent as a clue to her family life. Perhaps her parents were from Coruscant, or some other Core World. Coincidentally, as revealed in the Rogue One prequel novel Catalyst: A Rogue One Novel, Jyn spent a good deal of her childhood on Coruscant, which is likely origin for her accent. Could this be proof that Jyn and Rey are related? I wouldn't be so sure.
Yes, Rey's accent suggests she had at least one parent who spoke in the Coruscanti dialect. And, yes, that is the accent Jyn speaks in. But is an accent and brown hair really enough to establish a familial connection in a whole galaxy? Probably not. Here's the thing, as much as we want to find out who Rey's parents are, and as much as we want to find connections between Rogue One and The Force Awakens, just because Jyn exists doesn't mean she has to be related to Rey. There can be more than one heroine in the Star Wars series without them being related. As Daisy Ridely (Rey herself) told MTV, "Just because she's white and got brown hair... it doesn't mean she's my mom."
Here's the bottom line: Jyn could be Rey's mother. But so could the hundreds of other characters we haven't met yet who grew up speaking the Corsucanti dialect. If Jyn is Rey's mother, Rey's accent will be one major connection between the characters. If not, then it will just be a coincidence.
Images: Walt Disney Studios; Giphy (2)
