Aloha, Yoda.
A professor of linguistics believes that he has worked out Yoda’s native language – Hawaiian.
Professor David Adger, of Queen Mary University of London, has investigated what language the famous character would have spoken natively, a mere 900 years before the events in Star Wars even occurred.
“We never get to know what species Yoda is, or what planet he came from. But we can, with the help of linguistics, work out a little bit about what language he grew up speaking.”
Adger used a process called ‘transfer’ – the use of our native language to learn a new language – to discover what he thinks is a Polynesian twang.
Professor Adger explains:
“When I say `Luke is strong with the Force’, Luke is what linguists call the subject of the sentence and strong is part of the predicate. When Yoda says the same thing, he puts that part of the predicate first, so he says `Strong Luke is with the Force!’ It’s a bit of fun obviously, but by using these linguistic rules, we can make a pretty decent guess about the language Yoda grew up speaking – 900 years before the events in the films.”
And do any human languages put the predicate before the subject?
“Actually, yes. That’s how Hawaiian works. So now we know, if Yoda ever came to Earth, he’d probably spend Christmas in Honolulu!”
Naturally. Wouldn’t we all?
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