Grammar Girl here.

Today's topic is Yoda's grammar.

Yes, Yoda from Star Wars.

And now, why would I talk about Yoda?

Well, a couple of weeks ago there was a Star Wars marathon on TV, and a listener named

Pat asked if Yoda is speaking real English when he says things like, powerful you have

become.

It was such a fun question I couldn't resist, but it's outside my area of expertise

because it's more of a linguistics question than a grammar or usage question.

Fortunately, people who know about linguistics listen to this podcast, and I was able to

tap into their expertise and get an answer.

A big thank you to Charles Carson, managing editor of the journal American Speech, and

Peter Sakolowski, editor at large at Merriam Webster, for helping me with this topic.

Both Carson and Sakolowski point out that it depends on what Pat means when he asks whether

Yoda is speaking real English.

Clearly, Yoda is communicating using English words, and we understand what he means, so

in that sense, it's real.

Yoda makes words plural the way we normally make words plural, and conjugates his verbs the

same way we do.

The only difference between standard English and Yodish, as some websites call it, is the

word order.

Typically, standard English sentences follow a subject verb object order.

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