In one of those deep discussions at the office, we were wondering, how does Yoda speak in Japanese? he probably can't get away with rearranging verbs and nouns, since Japanese has a more strict sentence structure.

So, Internets, what can you say about this?

Japanese Star Wars Language Question: How does Yoda speak in Japanese?

In English, Yoda usually uses inverted syntax. Flexible, English is. Strict syntax rules, it need follow not.

Japanese to me seems to be a different story. The sentences seem to always have the verb at the end. Most sentences seem to follow pretty strict patterns. Interestingly enough, Yoda often speaks English with word order quite similar to Japanese.

So my question here is two-fold. One, since Yoda speaks inverted English, is his Japanese also inverted? If so, given the strict SOV (subject object verb) word order of Japanese, how do the dubs/subs achieve such a dialect?

I've seen snippets of Yoda's parts in the Japanese dub, and unfortunately, he speaks perfectly well formed Japanese. I can't find a video, so no direct cite.

It seems that this quirk has an interesting explanation, here