Re: Dune Conlang

Steg Belsky <draqonfayir@...> wrote:

> I just started reading the classic science fiction book _Dune_ for my
> english class ("epics"), and i immediately noticed (of course) all of the
> conlangish terms - there's even an entire sentence or two in one of the
> languages of the book's universe.
>
> Many of the terms are based on Semitic, such as _qwisatz haderach_, from
> Hebrew _qfitzat haderekh_, _shaitan_ from Arabic...  Those are the ones
> that i can remember at the moment, i don't have the book with me.
Oh yes, there's something that is supposed to be Fremen language,
which looks pretty Arabic ("Ibn qirtaiba..."). Some words and
expressions I found (besides the ones already mentioned) are
Lisan al-Gaib (meaning?), Mahdi (which I seem to recall as being
an actual Arabic title), _al-Lat_ 'the Sun', etc. Plus there's
a lot of a language called Chakobsa, including a long sentence
and a couple of verses:

        Duy yakha hin mange 'I have two eyes'
        Duy punra hin mange 'I have two feet'

        Ima trava okolo! 'Those are the ashes!'
        I korenja okolo! 'And those are the roots!'

The Fremen even celebrate the Ramadhan (sp?), and the vision of
Paul-Muad'Dib is about a _jihad_. I don't know what Herbert was
trying to suggest -- probably more than just a 'desert feeling'.

What does _qfitzat haderekh_ mean? In the book it was 'the shortest
path' (or 'way'... I'm back-translating from Spanish).


--Pablo Flores
  http://draseleq.conlang.org/pablo-david/