Films
Star Wars’ Yoda is Hawaiian, according to linguistics professor
Mark Hamill and Yoda from the 1980 movie The Empire Strikes Back (Picture: AP Photo/Lucasfilm Ltd.)
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Forget a galaxy far, far away: turns out Yoda’s from Hawaii.
It’s the latest academic revelation from the field of linguistics: a professor has been shouting from the rooftops with the answer to the question on every Star Wars fans’ lips.
David Adger, from Queen Mary University of London, has investigated the language of the iconic Star Wars character, who was born 900 years before the events in the Star Wars films.
Using ‘linguistic detective work’, David has discovered that Yoda is from the American island of Hawaii.
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The professor told the Press Association: ‘All the other creatures in Star Wars speak their own languages. With the Ewoks, Wookiees and Jabba The Hutt they subtitle a chunk of it, so they’re all speaking their own language.
‘Yoda comes from a mysterious planet and (Star Wars creator) George Lucas never tells us anything about Yoda … he’s meant to be this mysterious Jedi Master.
‘But he’s obviously speaking English as a second language … His real language, which I’ve called Yodish, we don’t know anything about.’
Professor Adger added: ‘He’s speaking English but changed the structure of it to be like his native language.
‘We can find out something about Yoda’s native language by looking at how he speaks English, in the same way as I can find out about a French person’s native language by looking at how that French person speaks English.’
The professor reckons Yoda ‘grew up speaking’ Hawaiian.
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‘Yoda says things like “the greatest teacher failure is”… If you were to say that in a language like Hawaiian … it would be almost exactly the same … putting the predicate before the subject,’ David concluded.
The latest Star Wars film, The Last Jedi, has been warmly received by critics but has received fan backlash, the harshest suggesting Disney and director Rian Johnson have betrayed the franchise they’ve loved for 40 years.
‘This movie is an absolute insult to all Star Wars fans,’ one user wrote on the film review website, Rotten Tomatoes.
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Films
‘Antebellum’ has a ‘Get Out’ vibe, but doesn’t live up to its twist
“Antebellum” is built around a provocative twist, and it’s a good one — as well as one that definite..
“Antebellum” is built around a provocative twist, and it’s a good one — as well as one that definitely shouldn’t be spoiled even a little. Once that revelation is absorbed, however, the movie becomes less distinctive and inspired, reflecting an attempt to tap into the zeitgeist that made “Get Out” a breakthrough, without the same ability to pay off the premise.
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