Yoda's Accent

[VT-16]

From what I heard, Frank Oz himself made this long, elaborate backstory for Yoda, where he originated in some form of upper class society where that kind of speech pattern was considered more proper than the normal English used in the films. So in Oz' mind, he wasn't going senile or came from a primitive society, quite the opposite.

The canonicity of this is of course, not there. But it is interesting when the Prequels came out and he did hang out with Chancellors and Senators on the capital planet.

[Zac Naloen]

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.

WTF spanky? Just that theory is over-thinking it.

Okay, his speech pattern is very strongly reminiscent of old english. I've also heard his structure is an anglicised form of latin as well, not sure on the accuracy of this one though. I don't speak Latin and i only read it in newspaper when AOTC came out. Either way its pretty clear that his way of speaking is an outmoded method of speaking as far as english is concerned. It makes a lot more sense that he's speaking "old basic" due to his advanced age rather than having some crazy convuluted teaching method.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Okay, his speech pattern is very strongly reminiscent of old english.

No it isn't, idiot. If you read what I replied to someone else on the first page, you would have seen that I covered that issue.

[Darth Garden Gnome]

No it isn't, idiot. If you read what I replied to someone else on the first page, you would have seen that I covered that issue.

Why can't it be the GFFA's version of Old English? You know, 'Old Basic.' If we assume he spent his formative years learning to speak this way, it would be something that would take some effort to change. Either Yoda doesn't bother because he's lazy, or because the language is constantly changing anyways, and he's tired of trying to adapt to it. Most people don't have the problem of living so long and seeing the language change so much.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Why can't it be the GFFA's version of Old English? You know, 'Old Basic.'

First, I was specifically correcting him on the assumption that Yoda's speech followed the same structure as Old English, which I discussed on page one that it obviously did not.

On the issue you bring up: Because to me it sounds completely absurd as a concept. To me it makes more sense for such a change in language or something called "Old Basic" to have been 25K years ago some time before or shortly after the founding of the Republic, not only 1000 years ago around the time of the battle of Rusaan or however it's spelled.

For me, it's simply an issue of scale.

[Lord Sander]

On the issue you bring up: Because to me it sounds completely absurd as a concept. To me it makes more sense for such a change in language or something called "Old Basic" to have been 25K years ago some time before or shortly after the founding of the Republic, not only 1000 years ago around the time of the battle of Rusaan or however it's spelled.

For me, it's simply an issue of scale.

Ok, so it's not Old Basic, it's an Early Modern Basic. It then evolved into Modern Basic.

[Surlethe]

On the issue you bring up: Because to me it sounds completely absurd as a concept. To me it makes more sense for such a change in language or something called "Old Basic" to have been 25K years ago some time before or shortly after the founding of the Republic, not only 1000 years ago around the time of the battle of Rusaan or however it's spelled.

For me, it's simply an issue of scale.

Remember, 1000 years ago, English did not exist as a language. Given the technological stagnation and prevalance of spoken communication, the development of language would certainly be retarded in the Republic, compared to the current development of language; however, it does stand to reason that in a millenium, the spoken language would have evolved quite a bit, and perhaps Yoda's grammatical pattern is reminiscent of how it was spoken when he learned to speak. I hadn't even considered that possibility before I made this thread.

[Drooling Iguana]

My guess: Yoda was raised by Wookiees, and the Wookie language has grammar similar to Yoda's. I base this partly on Yoda's "Good relations with the Wookiees, I have" line from RotS, but mostly on the fact that Yoda being raised by Wookiees presents a very amusing image.

[Zac Naloen]

Okay, his speech pattern is very strongly reminiscent of old english.

No it isn't, idiot. If you read what I replied to someone else on the first page, you would have seen that I covered that issue.

I notice you ignored my comment on similarities to Latin speech patterns. I need to find a source for that as it was in a special for a newspaper. But from what i recall Yoda speaks in "periodic syntax", which is the same as the context of classical latin. Several other languages (including the earliest post-latin forms of Spanish/Italian/French).


I have don't speak latin so i can't verify this myself.

All i have is this page describing some latin phrases which supports the "OSV" of yodas speech to quote

“Gallos ab Aquitanis Garumna flumen, a Belgis Matrona et Sequana dividit.” Caesar, BG 1.1 This sentence makes a nice example because it is not too long, but nonetheless has the characteristic features of a periodic sentence. The two clauses are parallel: object, prepositional phrase, subject, verb.

I was merely pointing out the absurdity of your support of Pounders comment, when we have ACTUAL evidence of language change over short periods of time in the real world compared to some convuluted method of teaching. But you also ignored that part of my comment nicely.

[FTeik]

IIRC, it was in Heir to the Empire or another novel, where it is said, that Yoda used a changed syntax to give his words more meaning, to increase the impact of what he says to his listeners.

[Tychu]

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!

Not so, if it has to do with Yoda's mental wiriing then all of his species should speak like that. In KOTOR the games and the comics the Yoda species character ( i cant remember his name) speaks normally, i often note that to myself when i see him

I thinks its just Yoda being Yoda

[nightmare]

Ever tried to get someone brought up with Cantonese or Japanese as native language to say "r"? Especially the German "R".

It can be done, but it's damn near impossible for some. But, of course, asians have no problems saying "r" if they grew up in say, germany. Patterns you learn at an early age tend to stick with you, and adults doesn't change so easily.