Yoda’s Jedi lingo it is!

QUESTION Who came up with Yoda’s distinctive style of speaking in the Star Wars films?

While credit is often given to puppeteer Frank Oz, there is clear evidence that Star Wars creator George lucas laid the foundations for Jedi Master Yoda’s unusual syntax.

The draft script for The empire Strikes Back, where Yoda first appears, was written by sci- fi screenwriter leigh Brackett. ‘Star Wars — sequel’ was delivered to lucas shortly before Brackett’s death from cancer in March 1978.

in this script, the Jedi Master’s full name is Minch Yoda and he speaks in a standard way, for example: ‘ Suppose i told you that i taught Obi-Wan Kenobi?’

While some scenes from Brackett’s script were retained — such as the raising of the X-wing fighter from a swamp using the Force — lucas mostly rejected it and wrote the next two drafts himself.

he envisaged Yoda as a guru and it’s clear from the second draft that his distinctive voice was emerging.

For example: ‘There is nothing in there i assure you. letting the dark side of the Force do your thinking you are.’

lucas later explained how Yoda’s speaking style developed: ‘i thought, OK, i’ve got this character who is kind of like a little Dalai lama, so i came up with an eastern sounding name.

‘Then i felt his dialogue and cadence should be unique . . .

‘i thought an accent isn’t going to work here. i’ve got to come up with something even more dramatic because he’s such a weird, alien character. i had to come up with something that’s not a foreign language, not an accent, but somewhere in between those two things. That’s how i started Yoda’s backward style.’

in 1980, lucas contacted Muppet creator Jim henson about operating the Yoda puppet. he was unavailable, so Frank Oz was assigned as chief puppeteer and creative consultant.

he was a master voiceover artist — the voice of Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Animal and Sam eagle in The Muppet Show, and Cookie Monster, Bert and Grover in Talking in reverse: Jedi master Yoda Sesame Street — yet lucas originally only wanted him for the puppet work.

however, Oz captured Yoda’s essence so precisely that he was given free rein to develop the character.

Credit also must go to screenwriter lawrence Kasdan, who honed the brevity and meaning of Yoda’s lines.

english is a subject- verb- object language: ‘You will be a Jedi.’ Japanese and German use subject- object-verb: ‘You a Jedi will be.’ Yoda- ese opts for object- subject-verb: ‘Jedi you will be.’ This rare form is otherwise restricted to a few languages in the Amazonian basin.

Harry Saunders, Market Harborough, Leics.

QUESTION Do cows have regional accents?

THERE have been a recent spate of articles suggesting cows have regional accents, but without providing any scientific evidence.

They relied on anecdotal evidence from farmers and established scientific evidence that some species of bird exhibit regional variability in their calls. A wellknown case is the yellowhammer, which has regionally isolated populations.

Accents have also been observed in chaffinches, great tits and coal tits. There may also be a difference between town and country accents.

however, regional accents in cows are unlikely as they rarely form stable, isolated populations that would allow regional diversity to develop. On the contrary, cattle are bought, sold and trucked around the country and internationally. Regional accents in isolated populations are possible, but unlikely.

Dr Ian Smith, Cambridge.

QUESTION Who invented bitcoin?

BITCOIN is a digital currency created in January 2009. it offers the promise of low transaction fees and is operated by a decentralised authority, unlike the currencies issued by a central bank.

it followed the ideas set out in the famous white paper Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer electronic Cash System issued under the name Satoshi nakamoto.

it begins: ‘A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution.’

The identity of Satoshi nakamoto is a mystery. it is not clear whether he/she is a person or a group.

There are a number of rumoured candidates, including nick Szabo, the U.S. computer scientist who conceptualised digital currency by creating Bit Gold in 2005. This was not widely used because of limitations related to trust and distribution.

U.S. software and games developer hal Finney is another possibility. he was the first person to receive a Bitcoin transaction from Satoshi on January 12, 2009. Finney, who died in 2014, denied he was nakamoto, but he was probably aware of the Bitcoin inventor’s identity.

in 2014, a newsweek journalist unearthed California physicist Dorian Prentice Satoshi nakamoto. he seemed like the perfect candidate, having worked as a systems engineer on government defence projects and for financial institutions, yet he has denied any involvement in Bitcoin.

in 2016, Craig Wright, an Australian entrepreneur, claimed to be the inventor of Bitcoin, but was not widely believed.

There are at least ten other candidates. One suggestion is that Bitcoin was created by the Japanese companies Samsung, Toshiba, nakamichi and Motorola because abbreviations of their names can be found within Satoshi nakamoto — Sa-Toshi-naka-Moto.

Ian Killman, Peterborough, Cambs.

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