At some point, Baby Yoda is going to have to speak. And we as a society have to prepare for that day.
Rewatching season 1 of The Mandalorian with the captions on, you realize there are a lot of “coos” and incoherent babbling sounds that the world’s most precious television character, Baby Yoda, makes.
Officially known as The Child, nothing has stopped this little one from capturing the heart of an entire generation. And The Child’s overall pleasant, heartwarming presence gives everyone the assurance that they can sleep well at night. Though, you may be asking yourself, can Baby Yoda get any cuter? Could The Child do anything more to impress me? And yes, there is an ace in the hole that we’re sure Father Time himself is holding especially for Baby Yoda’s future: the ability to speak.
It’s going to have to happen. And at some point, Baby Yoda will have to say his first word. What will it be? Will it be a name? “Mando,” perhaps? That would probably be the most heartwarming thing he could say — maybe next to Mando’s real name, “Din.” Both are quite easy to pronounce. And Baby Yoda is smart as a whip, so I wouldn’t doubt he has the ability to pronounce multisyllabic words. To make it even more endearing, let’s add it on top of a moment where Mando has to remove his helmet, and we can visibly see him moved to tears upon hearing Baby Yoda speak.
This is all contingent on the two sticking together for quite a long time. (Because really, shouldn’t Mando just adopt Baby Yoda?) And then on top of that, presumably, we may need a time jump to even get to that point of him growing up. He is 50 years old, after all. So let’s do some research.
Thanks to some excellent research done over on iO9, they estimate that Baby Yoda is 24 months (or 2 years old) in human years. Now, the top Google search for “when do babies speak” comes from WebMD. And that tells us babies can begin saying their first words over the course of 9-18 months. Uh oh. Does this mean Baby Yoda is actually overdue for his first words?
Well then, it would seem that The Child’s first words could come any moment now. Perhaps showrunner Jon Favreau isn’t the person who takes into consideration WebMD’s guidelines on child language development. Or maybe we can blow it off as Yoda-species development not being the same as humans, but now we’re just getting too technical.
Speaking of technical, when The Child learns to speak in full sentences, will it still be Yoda talk? “My dad, Mando is,” or “To eat frogs, I love.” That puts us on the whole nature versus nurture discussion that I definitely don’t think Jon Favreau has on his checklist of things he has to get right on this show. But the one thing that’s for sure on his checklist is giving this show heart, and it’s surely full of that. Season 1 was filled with so many beautiful moments that I’m sure no one really expected to see in the first place. And I can only imagine what’s in store for season 2.
The reality is, we may never really be ready for Baby Yoda to speak. We may want our little ones to stay children forever. But life happens, Father Time cruises by, and they grow up right in front of your eyes. So for the day when that does happen, and Baby Yoda starts to have a mind of his own, have your tissues at the ready. But just know that when he speaks, the world will probably hear the most charismatic, wisest child in all of the galaxy.