Sentience

Sentience (Sapience) was the quality of self-awareness, abstract thinking, and higher reasoning. Sentients possessed a personality, feeling emotionally as well as thinking intelligently. Sentient species of the galaxy numbered in the tens of thousands, with 3PO-series protocol droids being programmed to recognize more than 30,000 of them. The number of individual people in the galaxy was numbered in the millions of billions. Some sentient species included humans, Ewoks, Patitites, Gungans, and Geonosians.

Non-sentient organics of the animal kingdom were variously referred to as "creatures" or "beasts." There also existed creatures that appeared to have emerging sentience, such as the Zillo Beast and Purrgil, being known as semi-sentient. The soul of the varactyl beast was considered simpler and purer than that of a sentient. Despite this, the creature was still intelligent in its own way. Droids were also capable of being sentient, although as with organic beings, some droids, such as 0-0-0 and EV-9D9, took pleasure in inflicting pain upon others.

Text and facts from the “Sentience” article on Wookieepedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Modified for this site.