Yoda's Accent

[Surlethe]

Yoda has a fairly well-known accent ("Your weapons -- you will not need them"; "Not if anything to say about it I have"; "A prophecy which misinterpreted could have been"). There are three possibilities regarding the origin of this accent:

• Yoda is a native Basic speaker who simply comes from an area which speaks Basic with that accent;
• Yoda is not a native Basic speaker; or
• Yoda is a native Basic speaker, but his brain's speech centers are wired differently from humans', causing him to prepose objects.

If it is option 1 or 2, then this indicates that Yoda was either trained as a Jedi late, like Anakin, he was not trained on Coruscant, or a combination of the two. If he were trained on Coruscant from childhood, then he ought to speak Basic like a native Coruscanti, with a Coruscant accent. If it is option 3, then this tells us something interesting about alien physiology: namely, some alien species are capable of speaking different languages, but in a fundamentally limited manner (that is, barring the inability to form sounds, as in the Wookiee language).

[Manus Celer Dei]

IIRC, when Yoda was in the meeting with Palpatine and Amidala near the beginning of AotC he was speaking normally, so presumeably it's not that he's unable to speak normal, merely that he chooses not to most of the time.

Didn't there use to be lots of smaller Jedi temples and encalves spread around the galaxy instead of everyone being trained on Coruscant? Maybe the one where Yoda was trained/raised was in an area where that way of speaking was more common.

Or maybe he's just going senile.

[Cao Cao]

Well, knowing Yoda, he might've been raised on Coruscant but kept that style of speech out of a superiority complex/plain stubborness.

[Isolder74]

Well yoda was trained in the era when the Chun'athtor was operating. He was probably trained on the ship. His mathod of speaking might be dure to his discover a bit later than most so he had already learned to speak in a certain fasion.

[DesertFly]

According to Wookieepedia (take that as you will, though it does have sources), the Chu'unthor was only constructed 500 years BBY, and Yoda is around 900 there, so he would have been almost certainly already a master by then.

I read or heard an interview somewhere, either with Frank Oz or GL that talked about why Yoda talked like that, according to them, the reason he talked like that was due more to how he was taught, i.e., an ancient or "proper" method of speaking than any sort of psychological barrier or anything. In KotoR, there is another Master of Yoda's species who talks normally.

[Civil War Man]

From ESB

For 800 years have I trained Jedi! My own council will I keep on who is to be trained!

Since he was nearing 900 then, it means that he started teaching when he was 100 years old. That suggests that either a) his species matures extremely slowly (to the point where it takes decades for newborns to reach the "youngling" age), b) he was discovered and trained later in life, or c) Yoda is just a really slow learner.

I wonder which one makes the most sense...

[Srynerson]

Yoda has a fairly well-known accent ("Your weapons -- you will not need them"; "Not if anything to say about it I have"; "A prophecy which misinterpreted could have been"). There are three possibilities regarding the origin of this accent:

• Yoda is a native Basic speaker who simply comes from an area which speaks Basic with that accent;
• Yoda is not a native Basic speaker; or
• Yoda is a native Basic speaker, but his brain's speech centers are wired differently from humans', causing him to prepose objects.

I've personally always subscribed to the third theory, simply because there is an increasing amount of real world evidence that language is at least partially a product of particular brain structures and that damage or alterations to those areas can modify how a person speaks (usually described as "aphasia"). In regards to the point that Yoda sometimes uses conventional grammar, there are two possibilities: (a) if he concentrates, Yoda can work through the sentence structure in the same manner that some aphasics can with therapy, but he simply chooses not to except in situations where he wants to make certain his point is clearly communicated; or (b) sometimes the speech pattern generated by his own mental "wiring" happens to coincide with the "correct" pattern.

Of course, based on DesertFly's comment about the other Jedi master from Yoda's species who spoke with normal grammar, we might ponder whether Yoda actually suffers from some xenobiological form of aphasia!

[000]

I'm not familiar with the language, but I've heard somewhere that his speech patterns mirror those of Old English.

Yaddle, the second known member of Yoda's species, has the same syntax as he does, while Vandar Tokare, the third (and final) known member speaks completely standard Basic.

Incidentally, I always wondered how aliens unable to speak basic-- like Tyvokka, a Wookiee-- learned to speak their native language.

[18-Till-I-Die]

Well i always personally just figured it was his way of sounding 'mystical'.

Like...maybe the religious sect of his race (whatever that might be) were to speak in such a way that they were kind of talking 'backwards' as some ancient tradition.

The one who didnt speak like that, perhaps, came from the civilian part of his race. Like some churches still give mass in Latin (or so i hear) but by and large, no one in the general population knows Latin.

So maybe his race used to speak that way, but now only the higher ranking religious figures, shamans if you will, speak that way. Meanwhile the rest of his race speak as a normal human would speak Basic.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

For the record, it's sentence structure, not an accent: an accent would pertain to how he pronounces words, not his word order.

Note, in the following, S = Subject, V = Verb, and O = Object. It was also gathered from Wikipedia, just so you know where to look.

I'm not familiar with the language, but I've heard somewhere that his speech patterns mirror those of Old English.

Old English could follow SVO, OVS, or VSO word order, but also adhered to the V2 rule (aka, "verb is never third") seen in German and Dutch. Modern English follows SVO.

Yoda's speech is a modified form of the OSV rule, which is extremely rare in language, most notably appearing in about five Brazilian languages and in how many Sardinians speak Italian.

Basically though, it was used so Yoda would sound more mystic and Zen-like.

[Cykeisme]

I read or heard an interview somewhere, either with Frank Oz or GL that talked about why Yoda talked like that, according to them, the reason he talked like that was due more to how he was taught, i.e., an ancient or "proper" method of speaking than any sort of psychological barrier or anything. In KotoR, there is another Master of Yoda's species who talks normally.

There is no canonicity in this, but it's a fascinating concept nevertheless: that Yoda speaks Basic the proper way, the way it was meant to be spoken.. or at the very least, the way it was spoken 800 years ago.
That, and all the current speakers are using slang grammar that has become the currently accepted standard.

[DPDarkPrimus]

I read or heard an interview somewhere, either with Frank Oz or GL that talked about why Yoda talked like that, according to them, the reason he talked like that was due more to how he was taught, i.e., an ancient or "proper" method of speaking than any sort of psychological barrier or anything. In KotoR, there is another Master of Yoda's species who talks normally.

There is no canonicity in this, but it's a fascinating concept nevertheless: that Yoda speaks Basic the proper way, the way it was meant to be spoken.. or at the very least, the way it was spoken 800 years ago.
That, and all the current speakers are using slang grammar that has become the currently accepted standard.

That would also explain why the Yoda species Jedi in KOTOR spoke "normally"- everyone was speaking the same way then.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

That hypothesis seriously rubs me the wrong way.

[freker]

didn't yoda use this type of speach to mark certain words?

[18-Till-I-Die]

Actually its entirely possible he is speaking "proper" Basic.

In the same way that people a century ago spoke a more 'proper' kind of English that sounds very rigid and flowery today, maybe a thousand years ago people spoke Basic in that way.

I mean, it actually fits perfectly with our own language in the real world, and how it evolved over time. And English has only been around a fraction of the tens of thousands of years that Basic probably has.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Yeah, thanks for not reading the thread, 18, that's what others have already suggested.

And still, I abhore the idea.

[18-Till-I-Die]

Yeah, thanks for not reading the thread, 18, that's what others have already suggested.

And i was agreeing with them not stating it. I already posted in and have been reading the thread all the way through, i was responding to Cykeisme.

[Lord Pounder]

My theory is that it's his part of his teaching method which has become a habbit he can't shake. If a person speaks in such a arse about faced way a listener is forced to listen more intently just to put the words in an understandable order in his head.

[Winston Blake]

Maybe he just likes using a highly formal or polite registerthat everyone's aware of but rarely uses? e.g. 'I do not believe the object in question poses a threat, sir' vs 'That thing? I don't reckon we should worry about it'. Or a similar system to the Japanese levels of politeness, such that Yoda's speech style is supposed to signify deep humbleness (or superiority)?

[Spanky The Dolphin]

My theory is that it's his part of his teaching method which has become a habbit he can't shake. If a person speaks in such a arse about faced way a listener is forced to listen more intently just to put the words in an understandable order in his head.

Right on. I think there are too many in here overthinking the issue to the point of sillyness.

[Cykeisme]

Or a similar system to the Japanese levels of politeness, such that Yoda's speech style is supposed to signify deep humbleness (or superiority)?

Possible.. and if this is the case, I'd reckon Yoda's speech denotes deep humbleness. When speaking to most people, it's due to his humblororific nature.. and to foes, it's a sort of sarcasm.

[Darth Fanboy]

Vaguely reminds me of how Tuvok served as a mid-ranking officer on Voyager despite serving under Captain Sulu on the Excelsior.

Two things I can think of:

Perhaps Yoda's species has a really long larval stage or infancy, thus making all but the most basic of training possible?

Maybe Yoda took his time as a Knight before deciding to take on pupils, spending his time roaming the galaxy and building the foundations of his knowledge.

[Knife]

That hypothesis seriously rubs me the wrong way.

Any particular reason why?

[An Ancient]

One point though, Yoda has been training Jedi for 800 years, he would've been a Jedi a reasonable time before this.

[Knife]

One point though, Yoda has been training Jedi for 800 years, he would've been a Jedi a reasonable time before this.

True, I'd assume that Obi Wan's rapid progress from Padawan to training Master is abnormal. His unique status of being the only current Jedi to have slayn a Sith Lord in a thousand years, probably gave him some leniency from the council to take a padawan learner when he should have just been a knight for many a year.

Add to that the onslaught of the Clone Wars, and I'd imagine that many a Jedi were promoted or accelerated through the ranks where at another time in history, they'd stay as 'Knights' for most of their careers.