Yodaspeak

From Yoda +‎ -speak (suffix denoting a manner of speech or writing typical of or characterized by the word to which it is attached), alluding to the somewhat grammatically reversed speech style of Yoda, a character in the Star Wars franchise.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈjəʊdəspiːk/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈjoʊdəˌspik/

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: Yo‧da‧speak

Yodaspeak (uncountable)

1. (informal) A form of speaking in which word order is altered to sound bizarre or unnatural.
   • 1991 January 16, Z. P. Florian, “Luke’s Fantasies”, in Cheree T. Cargill, editor, Southern Enclave, number 28, Garland, Tex.: Cheree T. Cargill, published spring 1991, page 27:

     Yoda’s speech is probably a mix between his race’s native language and Standard, as he likely as not learned Standard later in life and used its vocabulary in syntactical patterns from his native language. Is Standard as old as Yoda? If so, then perhaps, as Sarah suggests, ‘Yodaspeak’ is an early form of Standard that changed at a different rate than galactically, as it was kept within an isolated area, Dagobah—as is the case of Appalachian English.

   • 1994 February, Bill Kunkel, “The Fighters, Asteroid Fields, and Training … LucasArts Releases Rebel Assault to Please the Rebel Pilot in Everyone”, in Steve Honeywell, editor, Computer Game Review and CD-ROM Entertainment, volume 3, number 7, Lombard, Ill.: Sendai Publishing Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 106, column 1:

     The Star Wars mythology was immediately absorbed into gaming's collective consciousness. Its images and icons became gaming's images and icons. Imperial Walkers, intergalactic empires, light sabers, Yoda-speak, the Force, and ther other conventions of George Lucas' epic storyline became prime components in the kit-bashing process that created electronic science fiction games.

   • 1996, David Crystal, with Geoff Barton, “Sentences”, in Discover Grammar, Harlow, Essex: Longman, →ISBN, page 43:

     Yoda in the 'Star Wars' epic has a habit of putting the object in front of the clause, like this: / Nine hundred years have I seen. / Translate the following sentences into Yoda-speak, and underline the objects.

   • 2004, David Katz, edited by Annie Nocenti and Ruth Baldwin, The High Times Reader, New York, N.Y.: Nation Books, →ISBN, page 428:

     Also on the underage sex trip is a dead-on expose of the sexual molestation of young Jedi Knights by their masters, complete with a press conference from Skywalker Ranch featuring Yoda's denial, in perfect Yodaspeak: "No have sex with boys, Yoda did not. Tired Yoda is. Resign he will."

   • 2004, J. Dan Rothwell, “Language: Sharing Meaning with Words”, in In the Company of Others: An Introduction to Communication, 2nd edition, New York, N.Y.: McGraw-Hill, →ISBN, part 1 (Fundamentals of Communication), page 124:

     Subject-verb-object is, syntactically, the typical English word order. That is why the speech of Yoda, the Jedi Master in the Star Wars films, seems so strange. "Strong am I with the Force" and "Your father he is" both have an object-subject-verb order that is very unusual for English. Yodaspeak (OSV word order), in fact, is an unusual construction in all but a few rare languages […].

   • 2016, Kate Burridge, Tonya N. Stebbins, “Syntax: The Structure of Sentences”, in For the Love of Language: An Introduction to Linguistics, Melbourne, Vic.: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, part 3 (‘The Deep Grooves of Language’: Sounds and Grammar), page 234:

     […] Yoda-speak often involves moving phrases to the start of the clause (fronting). […] How does the fronting in Yoda-speak compare with fronting in standard English? Is it more or less constrained than English?

• Yoda-speak

• Yoda condition
• Yoda notation

• anastrophe

• Yoda on Wikipedia.Wikipedia