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When Yoda speaks, he often uses a distinctive speech pattern that differs from other characters in the Star Wars universe:

Take you to him, I will.

The dark side of the Force are they.

So certain are you. Always with you it cannot be done. Hear you nothing that I say?

The very Republic is threatened, if involved the Sith are.

As anyone who’s had to read my incessant posts here will know, I’m not so many good with word rule laws.

But: are there consistent grammatical rules used to construct Yoda’s distinctive speech patterns?

(And for bonus points, just in case this is a thing, do they seem to shift throughout the films? Does, for example, his speech become more “Yoda-ish” in the prequels, as compared to Empire and Jedi?)

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Paul D. Waite
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    @DrRDizzle How is it a duplicate? He's asking about the rules of Yoda-speak, not why he talks that way. Seems like a completely different question to me. – user14111 Dec 29 '15 at 12:44
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    @user14111 Because the answer on that question discusses the rules of Yoda-speak - 'Yoda spoke an unusual version of Basic. He usually tended to place verbs (especially auxiliaries) after the object and subject (an object-subject-verb format). An example of Yoda's speech pattern: "When nine hundred years old you reach, look as good you will not."' – Dr R Dizzle Dec 29 '15 at 12:59
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    @user14111: Yup — as Dizzle implies, “duplicate question” is actually slightly misleading terminology. The duplicate question close reason is for questions that have already been answered, which can happen (and arguably has here, although that doesn’t include answer the bonus point section) even if the question itself isn’t a duplicate of another question. – Paul D. Waite Dec 29 '15 at 13:01
  • @DrRDizzle What I see over at that other question is a terse, low quality answer to the question, what are the rules of Yoda's grammar. We can't downvote it on that account, or post a better answer to a question that wasn't asked. The thing to do in this case is to post a new question. – user14111 Dec 29 '15 at 13:51
  • @user14111: it’s not that bad. But please, feel free to write a better one. – Paul D. Waite Dec 29 '15 at 14:04
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    "Around the survivors a perimeter create." Apparently by Episode II, there were no rules. – Michael Itzoe Dec 29 '15 at 16:27
  • @PaulD.Waite Somebody else would have to do that; I don't know enough about Yoda's grammar to write a good answer. But if I did, where would I post it? It's not an answer to the old question "why does he talk funny", it's an answer to your question that was just closed. – user14111 Dec 29 '15 at 19:44

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