Abundant theories exist regarding Yoda’s mysterious manner of speaking. Given the character’s iconography, the creators of the small but mighty Jedi master are no strangers to getting asked this question and have their own reasons for the unique creative decision.
According to an interview with George Lucas in the Paul Duncan book “Star Wars Archives. 1977-1983,” the filmmaker created the quirky speech pattern as a way of keeping Yoda’s bizarre alien origins intact while having the audience in mind. “I didn’t want to go through a whole movie where everybody’s reading subtitles, he had a lot of dialogue,” Lucas explained. “So I had to come up with a language that was alien but still understandable, so I reversed everything around. The language was designed to make you focus on the boring philosophical lessons.” It’s safe to say that this tactic worked, as Yoda’s many moments of enlightenment remain ingrained into the minds of viewers who grew up watching the original “Star Wars” trilogy.
This key characteristic was brought into discussion when Dave Filoni and company were preparing to give Yaddle her speaking debut in “Tales of the Jedi,” where she is voiced by Bryce Dallas Howard. However, in an interview with Nerdist, Filoni recalled a conversation he had with Yoda’s original voice actor and puppeteer, Frank Oz, whose reasoning behind Yoda’s speech isn’t far off from the aforementioned fan theory. “Frank Oz told me once that Yoda speaks that way specifically in honor of his own master,” Filoni shared. “That was what he had thought about it. I try to keep moving forward [with] these thoughts.” Yoda may be a Jedi, but few can argue that Oz is the master when it comes to official word on the character’s backstory.
