Yoda’s reputation took a hilarious hit this week after Yaddle, the female of his species first introduced in The Phantom Menace, finally got a speaking role in a piece of Star Wars media. Bryce Dallas Howard voices the Jedi Master in the new animated series, Tales of the Jedi, but how did this affect Yoda? Yaddle speaks like a normal person, making it clear that not all Yoda’s kind talk backwards, thereby calling into question everything we understood about the wise Grand Master.
As it turns out, Yoda isn’t just some con artist who hoodwinked the galaxy for centuries, as a rare Star Wars fact has been unearthed that finally provides an answer to the discrepancy between Yoda and Yaddle’s speech patterns. As pointed out by @StarWarsMeg1, Yoda performer Frank Oz has previously revealed that his character actually talks in the way of the ancient Jedi Knights, given his extreme age at 900. Yaddle, meanwhile, who is 400 years younger, speaks modern Galactic Basic (i.e. English).
Prior to Yaddle’s return in Tales, everyone expected Grogu to speak backwards like Yoda once he learned to talk, but now we know that he’ll eventually converse in regular Galactic Basic just like everyone else. For a hot minute there, we all thought Yoda was just trolling us. Now it’s clear his way of speaking is a remnant of an ancient form of Galactic Basic that serves to remind us how old Yoda is. Essentially, he’s like someone today speaking medieval English.
Yoda might’ve been a key fixture of the franchise since 1981, but there’s still so much we don’t know about him. Maybe the next season of Tales of the Jedi should focus on his origins.
