HBO and David Peterson De-Arabize Dune for the Screen
February 28, 2024 9:22 AM Subscribe
Writing for the New Yorker, Manvir Singh asks whether the removal of Arabic elements from the language of the Fremen by David Peterson (the creator of Dothraki and other constructed languages) has more to do with making the language "realistic" or with Hollywood's inability to portray Arabs—especially desert-dwelling Arab freedom fighters—as good guys, rather than as terrorists.
Peterson, in line with the original constructed language king, JRR Tolkien (who famously invented Sindarin and the rest of the languages of Middle Earth before creating their histories to justify them), insists on realism when he sets out to create a new "conlang."
In Peterson's mind, the survival of even scraps of currently-recognizable Arabic would be utterly unrealistic over the extremely long time-horizon of the Dune universe.
But two questions remain, for the Singh, the author of the article, and for the author of this post:
(1) When you're talking about people of the book, and especially the Fremen, who are explicitly descendants of Arab peoples, wouldn't the existence of written vernacular scripture counteract (or preserve in small part, where we see elements of dead Sanscrit in live Hindi or dead Latin in all the living Romance languages) the tendency of languages to morph? This especially in a universe where the Orange Catholic Bible preserves a whole lot of recognizable Catholicism and the Landsraad calls back to a German institution with a recognizably German name?
Although in the case of those previous two examples, those would be non-Arab holdovers.
And (2) what exactly does 'realism' mean in the sci-fi and fantasy context, where Tolkien's languages drew heavily on the older forms of European tongues and where the Arabic elements in Herbert's work were calling specifically back to Arabic struggles for freedom?
(Previously on Tolkienic Languages)
Peterson, in line with the original constructed language king, JRR Tolkien (who famously invented Sindarin and the rest of the languages of Middle Earth before creating their histories to justify them), insists on realism when he sets out to create a new "conlang."
In Peterson's mind, the survival of even scraps of currently-recognizable Arabic would be utterly unrealistic over the extremely long time-horizon of the Dune universe.
But two questions remain, for the Singh, the author of the article, and for the author of this post:
(1) When you're talking about people of the book, and especially the Fremen, who are explicitly descendants of Arab peoples, wouldn't the existence of written vernacular scripture counteract (or preserve in small part, where we see elements of dead Sanscrit in live Hindi or dead Latin in all the living Romance languages) the tendency of languages to morph? This especially in a universe where the Orange Catholic Bible preserves a whole lot of recognizable Catholicism and the Landsraad calls back to a German institution with a recognizably German name?
Although in the case of those previous two examples, those would be non-Arab holdovers.
And (2) what exactly does 'realism' mean in the sci-fi and fantasy context, where Tolkien's languages drew heavily on the older forms of European tongues and where the Arabic elements in Herbert's work were calling specifically back to Arabic struggles for freedom?
(Previously on Tolkienic Languages)
Ugh, mods, it's only for vanity but I have "for the Singh" up there where it should only be "for Singh"
posted by TheProfessor at 9:35 AM on February 28
posted by TheProfessor at 9:35 AM on February 28
If the actors are speaking more-or-less vernacular English, any linguistics "realism" justification this wanker trots out is a lie.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:43 AM on February 28 [26 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:43 AM on February 28 [26 favorites]
When you're talking about people of the book, and especially the Fremen, who are explicitly descendants of Arab peoples
Explicitly? As in, there is something in the books which describes them in this manner? (Not being sarcastic, it's been a long time since I've read the books.)
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 9:53 AM on February 28 [3 favorites]
Explicitly? As in, there is something in the books which describes them in this manner? (Not being sarcastic, it's been a long time since I've read the books.)
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 9:53 AM on February 28 [3 favorites]
On the one hand, I love discussions of constructed languages! Yay!
On the other hand, fuck this is depressing.
Hollywood really needs to create some hit movie or series set in the Ayyubid Dynasty or otherwise in the Golden Age of Islam, to get Westerners (particularly Americans) to get some different perspectives on Arabic history and culture. Right now the most "positive" popular depiction of Arabia in pop-culture is Aladdin. Which, you know, not great.
Constructed Languages are fascinating - one of my favorite facts (from Arika Okrent's In the Land of Constructed Languages, which I highly recommend) is that the most successful constructed language is Klingon, which wasn't created for widespread use, and was created in order to be intentionally difficult to speak. Petersen did a great job with Dothraki, so he knows what he's doing, which means that this really had to have been a choice made out of fear of how an Arabic-derived conlang would sound in the context, which is just straight-up chickenshit.
posted by Navelgazer at 9:56 AM on February 28 [5 favorites]
On the other hand, fuck this is depressing.
Hollywood really needs to create some hit movie or series set in the Ayyubid Dynasty or otherwise in the Golden Age of Islam, to get Westerners (particularly Americans) to get some different perspectives on Arabic history and culture. Right now the most "positive" popular depiction of Arabia in pop-culture is Aladdin. Which, you know, not great.
Constructed Languages are fascinating - one of my favorite facts (from Arika Okrent's In the Land of Constructed Languages, which I highly recommend) is that the most successful constructed language is Klingon, which wasn't created for widespread use, and was created in order to be intentionally difficult to speak. Petersen did a great job with Dothraki, so he knows what he's doing, which means that this really had to have been a choice made out of fear of how an Arabic-derived conlang would sound in the context, which is just straight-up chickenshit.
posted by Navelgazer at 9:56 AM on February 28 [5 favorites]
> When you're talking about people of the book, and especially the Fremen, who are explicitly descendants of Arab peoples
I don't know if they were arabs, exactly, but Dune takes places something like 10,000 years in the future, and the Fremen peoples came from the "Zensunni", a kind of syncretism between Sunni Islam and Buddhism
posted by dis_integration at 9:57 AM on February 28 [7 favorites]
I don't know if they were arabs, exactly, but Dune takes places something like 10,000 years in the future, and the Fremen peoples came from the "Zensunni", a kind of syncretism between Sunni Islam and Buddhism
posted by dis_integration at 9:57 AM on February 28 [7 favorites]
The Pluto Gangta (I'm not doing a RTFA thing, I just don't have the books on hand and he's got this quote):
The book explains these similarities. “We are the people of Misr,” says a Fremen wise woman, using the Arabic word for Egypt, elaborating that their “Sunni ancestors fled from Nilotic al-Ourouba,” or Nile of the Arabs. The intervening millennia fused their Sunni heritage with a variant of Buddhism, but that doesn’t change a basic fact: the Fremen are descendants of Muslim Arabs, and they wear that heritage in their speech.
Besides the Fremen's own attribution of their descent (questionable given all the societal manipulation/creation of the Bene Gesserit), by the far the most recognizable loan words in Chaksoba are Arabic or otherwise Semitic (e.g., Kwitsatz Haderach).
Beyond any particular anti-Arab animus Petersen might be harboring (less likely) or unaware of or uninterested in mitigating (more likely), it feels like missing the point of Dune. Of course Dothraki doesn't resemble any known language—it's from another world. But Tolkien's languages mirrored elements of our own because Middle Earth is ostensibly our Earth and Dune is ostensibly us, and part of what makes Dune's universe interesting is the way bits and pieces of us survive there, regardless of current notions of language drift over time.
posted by TheProfessor at 10:07 AM on February 28 [17 favorites]
The book explains these similarities. “We are the people of Misr,” says a Fremen wise woman, using the Arabic word for Egypt, elaborating that their “Sunni ancestors fled from Nilotic al-Ourouba,” or Nile of the Arabs. The intervening millennia fused their Sunni heritage with a variant of Buddhism, but that doesn’t change a basic fact: the Fremen are descendants of Muslim Arabs, and they wear that heritage in their speech.
Besides the Fremen's own attribution of their descent (questionable given all the societal manipulation/creation of the Bene Gesserit), by the far the most recognizable loan words in Chaksoba are Arabic or otherwise Semitic (e.g., Kwitsatz Haderach).
Beyond any particular anti-Arab animus Petersen might be harboring (less likely) or unaware of or uninterested in mitigating (more likely), it feels like missing the point of Dune. Of course Dothraki doesn't resemble any known language—it's from another world. But Tolkien's languages mirrored elements of our own because Middle Earth is ostensibly our Earth and Dune is ostensibly us, and part of what makes Dune's universe interesting is the way bits and pieces of us survive there, regardless of current notions of language drift over time.
posted by TheProfessor at 10:07 AM on February 28 [17 favorites]
[Spoilers]
Given that the Fremen follow their victory on Arrakis with a jihad that slaughters half the known universe, maybe editing out their Arabic connections is a good thing?
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:08 AM on February 28 [22 favorites]
Given that the Fremen follow their victory on Arrakis with a jihad that slaughters half the known universe, maybe editing out their Arabic connections is a good thing?
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:08 AM on February 28 [22 favorites]
Imaginary Worlds podcast did a very good episode of the Islamic aspects of Dune There's a transcript at the link too.
posted by Zumbador at 10:10 AM on February 28 [4 favorites]
posted by Zumbador at 10:10 AM on February 28 [4 favorites]
In Peterson's mind, the survival of even scraps of currently-recognizable Arabic would be utterly unrealistic over the extremely long time-horizon of the Dune universe.
I'm unclear why there wouldn't be Arabic words in this universe when one of the main characters is named Duncan Idaho.
posted by nushustu at 10:11 AM on February 28 [34 favorites]
I'm unclear why there wouldn't be Arabic words in this universe when one of the main characters is named Duncan Idaho.
posted by nushustu at 10:11 AM on February 28 [34 favorites]
It may be worth reading Khaldoun Khelil's essay, referenced in the above piece, as it goes into a little more detail about how excising the Arabic influences (and the jihad launched by Paul Atreides) rob the story of much of its meaning.
This is at the core of my problem with Villeneuve's DUNC, which is a visual feast that entirely flattens the complicated (and often problematic) aspects of Herbert's writing in favor of a much more easily-packaged "chosen one" narrative.
posted by Four String Riot at 10:11 AM on February 28 [8 favorites]
This is at the core of my problem with Villeneuve's DUNC, which is a visual feast that entirely flattens the complicated (and often problematic) aspects of Herbert's writing in favor of a much more easily-packaged "chosen one" narrative.
posted by Four String Riot at 10:11 AM on February 28 [8 favorites]
Given that the Fremen follow their victory on Arrakis with a jihad that slaughters half the known universe, maybe editing out their Arabic connections is a good thing?
i mean yes, but let's also remember that they're doing it while being led by someone often depicted as a white man savior with the name "atriedes", whose name hearkens back to classical greece of antiquity
also 'jihad' referenced in dune can also refer to the whole butlerian situation against machines with the likeness of a human mind
posted by i used to be someone else at 10:13 AM on February 28 [5 favorites]
i mean yes, but let's also remember that they're doing it while being led by someone often depicted as a white man savior with the name "atriedes", whose name hearkens back to classical greece of antiquity
also 'jihad' referenced in dune can also refer to the whole butlerian situation against machines with the likeness of a human mind
posted by i used to be someone else at 10:13 AM on February 28 [5 favorites]
Four String Riot - isn't it partially due to much of the messianic/failed messianic/hubris-related stuff coming either in the latter half of the story of the first book (which hasn't come out yet) or being in the later books?
posted by sagc at 10:18 AM on February 28 [1 favorite]
posted by sagc at 10:18 AM on February 28 [1 favorite]
don't know if they were arabs, exactly, but Dune takes places something like 10,000 years in the future, and the Fremen peoples came from the "Zensunni", a kind of syncretism between Sunni Islam and Buddhism
So Zionist claim to the land /s
posted by Christ, what an asshole at 10:18 AM on February 28 [1 favorite]
So Zionist claim to the land /s
posted by Christ, what an asshole at 10:18 AM on February 28 [1 favorite]
Is it appropriation/orientalism by the author or something that needs to be preserved and protected about the work?
posted by Selena777 at 10:21 AM on February 28 [2 favorites]
posted by Selena777 at 10:21 AM on February 28 [2 favorites]
Is it appropriation/orientalism by the author or something that needs to be preserved and protected about the work?
... yes?
posted by Saxon Kane at 10:23 AM on February 28 [13 favorites]
... yes?
posted by Saxon Kane at 10:23 AM on February 28 [13 favorites]
isn't it partially due to much of the messianic/failed messianic/hubris-related stuff coming either in the latter half of the story of the first book (which hasn't come out yet) or being in the later books?
Some of this may be a matter of personal taste, and who knows, the second movie may redeem it for me. But I think in the first film, you can already see where a lot of the weird ambiguous political intrigue is stripped out in favor of focusing almost entirely on Paul's ascent to messiah-hood. I understand that it would be hard to fit into the movie and keep it to a standard runtime (although, to be fair, they failed that already when they split it into two).
For example, I hate that we lose the dinner party when the Atreides first arrive on Arrakis and meet a set of local characters in this specific context, some of whom are smugglers, some are Fremen-aligned, and some are obvious catspaws for the Imperium. We lose everything around that side of things so that we can keep Paul being told repeatedly what a Special Boy he is. The closest we get to politics in the movie is when, partway through, Paul announces that his solution is going to be to blackmail the Emperor into a political marriage, somehow.
Is Herbert's work deeply intertwined with stuff that barely flew in the 70s, and would be tough to put in a theater now? Absolutely! It's built on load-bearing problematic elements, the most obvious of which is the Baron Harkonnen being a grab bag of fatphobic/homophobic tics. Which is why I think if you have to adapt it (and maybe we shouldn't!) you'd be better off going with someone who understands camp as a method of engaging and integrating those elements, as opposed to trying to sanitize them. I'd kill to have seen Dune tackled by the writing/direction team behind Hannibal, and I don't just say that because my answer to every adaptation is "but what if the Hannibal folks did it?"
posted by Four String Riot at 10:33 AM on February 28 [23 favorites]
Some of this may be a matter of personal taste, and who knows, the second movie may redeem it for me. But I think in the first film, you can already see where a lot of the weird ambiguous political intrigue is stripped out in favor of focusing almost entirely on Paul's ascent to messiah-hood. I understand that it would be hard to fit into the movie and keep it to a standard runtime (although, to be fair, they failed that already when they split it into two).
For example, I hate that we lose the dinner party when the Atreides first arrive on Arrakis and meet a set of local characters in this specific context, some of whom are smugglers, some are Fremen-aligned, and some are obvious catspaws for the Imperium. We lose everything around that side of things so that we can keep Paul being told repeatedly what a Special Boy he is. The closest we get to politics in the movie is when, partway through, Paul announces that his solution is going to be to blackmail the Emperor into a political marriage, somehow.
Is Herbert's work deeply intertwined with stuff that barely flew in the 70s, and would be tough to put in a theater now? Absolutely! It's built on load-bearing problematic elements, the most obvious of which is the Baron Harkonnen being a grab bag of fatphobic/homophobic tics. Which is why I think if you have to adapt it (and maybe we shouldn't!) you'd be better off going with someone who understands camp as a method of engaging and integrating those elements, as opposed to trying to sanitize them. I'd kill to have seen Dune tackled by the writing/direction team behind Hannibal, and I don't just say that because my answer to every adaptation is "but what if the Hannibal folks did it?"
posted by Four String Riot at 10:33 AM on February 28 [23 favorites]
I don't think the inclusion of words from a real language by itself rises to the level of appropriation. Particularly in a work set in a supposed future of the real world. I don't feel qualified to judge on the charge of orientalism.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 10:33 AM on February 28 [3 favorites]
posted by The Manwich Horror at 10:33 AM on February 28 [3 favorites]
I don't know if they were arabs, exactly, but Dune takes places something like 10,000 years in the future, and the Fremen peoples came from the "Zensunni", a kind of syncretism between Sunni Islam and Buddhism
According to the excellent “Erasing Arabs from ‘Dune’” essay linked above, the Fremen were "inspired by the culture of the Amazigh people of Algeria and Morocco, even taking their name from their language." The Amazigh people are also known as Berbers. ("While Berber is more widely known among English-speakers, its usage is a subject of debate, due to its historical background as an exonym and present equivalence with the Arabic word for "barbarian.")
According to the excellent “Erasing Arabs from ‘Dune’” essay linked above, the Fremen were "inspired by the culture of the Amazigh people of Algeria and Morocco, even taking their name from their language." The Amazigh people are also known as Berbers. ("While Berber is more widely known among English-speakers, its usage is a subject of debate, due to its historical background as an exonym and present equivalence with the Arabic word for "barbarian.")
In fact, one of the most famous lines from the 1984 movie adaptation is Paul’s rally cry of “Long live the fighters!” In the book, it is heard in the Fremen’s Arabic inspired language of Chakobsa as “YA HYA CHOUHADA.” The phrase comes directly from the Algerian war of Independence against the French.posted by kirkaracha at 10:35 AM on February 28 [14 favorites]
Manwich Horror I was referencing a variety of complaints from this and other articles about Dune not taking enough Middle Eastern elements to the film
adaptation and “what it means” about the times we live in without admission that those concerns are part of these times.
posted by Selena777 at 10:37 AM on February 28
adaptation and “what it means” about the times we live in without admission that those concerns are part of these times.
posted by Selena777 at 10:37 AM on February 28
the Fremen follow their victory on Arrakis with a jihad that slaughters half the known universe
بول، هل نحن الأشرار؟
posted by kirkaracha at 10:38 AM on February 28 [13 favorites]
بول، هل نحن الأشرار؟
posted by kirkaracha at 10:38 AM on February 28 [13 favorites]
I’m grumpy and dislike conlangs because there are many, many real languages that could use more study and exposure. The New York Times just did a big article about endangered languages spoken in New York City. I mean why learn High Valarian on Duolingo when Yiddish is right there?
Also, because it’s brought up several times in the article, the “bagpipes” in the movie are a crime against music.
posted by misterpatrick at 10:42 AM on February 28 [5 favorites]
Also, because it’s brought up several times in the article, the “bagpipes” in the movie are a crime against music.
posted by misterpatrick at 10:42 AM on February 28 [5 favorites]
I mean why learn High Valarian on Duolingo when Yiddish is right there?
Mostly conlangs are either really straightforward to learn or are part of the world building of a fictional reality you are already invested in. Learning them seems to be way less demanding than internalizing a living language with all its history and contradictions.
I don't pick up languages well at all, as they complete failure of five years of French classes to give me any comprehension of spoken French can attest. But if I did, I would be more likely to learn Quenya than Yiddish because I have an emotional investment in Quenya, and I am about as likely to meet a speaker of either in my daily life.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 10:52 AM on February 28 [2 favorites]
Mostly conlangs are either really straightforward to learn or are part of the world building of a fictional reality you are already invested in. Learning them seems to be way less demanding than internalizing a living language with all its history and contradictions.
I don't pick up languages well at all, as they complete failure of five years of French classes to give me any comprehension of spoken French can attest. But if I did, I would be more likely to learn Quenya than Yiddish because I have an emotional investment in Quenya, and I am about as likely to meet a speaker of either in my daily life.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 10:52 AM on February 28 [2 favorites]
I would say that a historically and religiously resonant phrase like "Ya hya chouhada" is something that might endure even as vernacular language evolved onwards. Those, like names (and most of the "important" names in Dune have clear Earth-language roots!), are most likely to get preserved as formula.
"Jihad" is a little trickier because of the present-day implications.
posted by praemunire at 10:53 AM on February 28 [1 favorite]
"Jihad" is a little trickier because of the present-day implications.
posted by praemunire at 10:53 AM on February 28 [1 favorite]
Is it appropriation/orientalism by the author or something that needs to be preserved and protected about the work?
I suspect this is a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't situation and, had the film kept in more of the Arabic/Islamic elements from the book, we'd have an FPP with thinkpieces and MeFi comments decrying its problematic cultural appropriation.
posted by star gentle uterus at 11:03 AM on February 28 [26 favorites]
I suspect this is a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't situation and, had the film kept in more of the Arabic/Islamic elements from the book, we'd have an FPP with thinkpieces and MeFi comments decrying its problematic cultural appropriation.
posted by star gentle uterus at 11:03 AM on February 28 [26 favorites]
(Also, I would very much expect someone like Paul, Bene Gesserit-trained and -advised, to be adept at identifying and using traditional elements of Fremen culture to legitimize his present-day leadership.)
posted by praemunire at 11:07 AM on February 28 [3 favorites]
posted by praemunire at 11:07 AM on February 28 [3 favorites]
had the film kept in more of the Arabic/Islamic elements from the book, we'd have an FPP with thinkpieces and MeFi comments decrying its problematic cultural appropriation.
Appropriation is not, to my mind, a useful lens here, but surely we would have had legitimate concern about using Arab linguistic elements to characterize a bloody, basically genocidal, holy war for a fake messiah.
posted by praemunire at 11:09 AM on February 28 [8 favorites]
Appropriation is not, to my mind, a useful lens here, but surely we would have had legitimate concern about using Arab linguistic elements to characterize a bloody, basically genocidal, holy war for a fake messiah.
posted by praemunire at 11:09 AM on February 28 [8 favorites]
(Also, I would very much expect someone like Paul, Bene Gesserit-trained and -advised, to be adept at identifying and using traditional elements of Fremen culture to legitimize his present-day leadership.)
This is another great point that I think is removed from the most recent adaptation--there's a bunch of stuff in the books about how deeply cynical Jessica and Paul are about using the Bene Gesserit cultural influence operations to exploit the Fremen, playing into myths and "secret knowledge" that was planted there in advance. Paul isn't a hero! He's (in some ways) a critique of white colonialism coming in to exploit people! If you make a movie where he's a good kid who "wins" and that's a good thing, it fundamentally misunderstands what Herbert was trying to do (with the obvious caveat that in many ways, the book he's writing is doing exactly what he thinks he's critiquing).
posted by Four String Riot at 11:15 AM on February 28 [17 favorites]
This is another great point that I think is removed from the most recent adaptation--there's a bunch of stuff in the books about how deeply cynical Jessica and Paul are about using the Bene Gesserit cultural influence operations to exploit the Fremen, playing into myths and "secret knowledge" that was planted there in advance. Paul isn't a hero! He's (in some ways) a critique of white colonialism coming in to exploit people! If you make a movie where he's a good kid who "wins" and that's a good thing, it fundamentally misunderstands what Herbert was trying to do (with the obvious caveat that in many ways, the book he's writing is doing exactly what he thinks he's critiquing).
posted by Four String Riot at 11:15 AM on February 28 [17 favorites]
> I don't know if they were arabs, exactly,
It constantly astounds me when people deny the clear and very much conscious Arab/MENA identity of Arakkis/the Fremen. Like. You all know that this "future" hasn't actually happened? That these books were written in our world? And as such contain references to our world? And, like, you read words like "lissan al ghaib" or "muad'dib" , and you read about sand dunes and a precious fuel that makes interstellar travel possible that is hid in those sands which a bunch of colonizers from other lands are all fighting each other over, and you STILL don't see the connection to Arabia? Come on.
Regardless of whether you're reading it on a Doylist level or Watsonian, whether you listen to the diagetic or non-diagetic music of this book, you c.a.n.n.o.t. escape the Arabness of it. It is astounding to encounter these denials.
posted by MiraK at 11:20 AM on February 28 [63 favorites]
It constantly astounds me when people deny the clear and very much conscious Arab/MENA identity of Arakkis/the Fremen. Like. You all know that this "future" hasn't actually happened? That these books were written in our world? And as such contain references to our world? And, like, you read words like "lissan al ghaib" or "muad'dib" , and you read about sand dunes and a precious fuel that makes interstellar travel possible that is hid in those sands which a bunch of colonizers from other lands are all fighting each other over, and you STILL don't see the connection to Arabia? Come on.
Regardless of whether you're reading it on a Doylist level or Watsonian, whether you listen to the diagetic or non-diagetic music of this book, you c.a.n.n.o.t. escape the Arabness of it. It is astounding to encounter these denials.
posted by MiraK at 11:20 AM on February 28 [63 favorites]
^^^
posted by j_curiouser at 11:22 AM on February 28 [2 favorites]
posted by j_curiouser at 11:22 AM on February 28 [2 favorites]
If you make a movie where he's a good kid who "wins" and that's a good thing, it fundamentally misunderstands what Herbert was trying to do (with the obvious caveat that in many ways, the book he's writing is doing exactly what he thinks he's critiquing).
I don't think it's yet clear that that's what Villeneuve is doing. I hope not. The trailer seems to suggest not (within the constraints of the book...it's been a long time since I read them, but IIRC the more explicitly critical commentary gets more emphatic in Messiah and Children). Chani gets a line of dialogue, "this prophecy is how they enslave us!", calling back to her line at the very beginning of the movie about "who will our next oppressors be?"
posted by praemunire at 11:22 AM on February 28 [6 favorites]
I don't think it's yet clear that that's what Villeneuve is doing. I hope not. The trailer seems to suggest not (within the constraints of the book...it's been a long time since I read them, but IIRC the more explicitly critical commentary gets more emphatic in Messiah and Children). Chani gets a line of dialogue, "this prophecy is how they enslave us!", calling back to her line at the very beginning of the movie about "who will our next oppressors be?"
posted by praemunire at 11:22 AM on February 28 [6 favorites]
it fundamentally misunderstands what Herbert was trying to do (with the obvious caveat that in many ways, the book he's writing is doing exactly what he thinks he's critiquing).And it falls prey to the Fight Club rule of media misunderstanding aka there's no such thing as an anti-war film. So many people skip right over the fact that Paul is deeply problematic (particularly post-Dune)
posted by drewbage1847 at 11:24 AM on February 28 [4 favorites]
> I don't know if they were arabs, exactly,
> It constantly astounds me when people deny the clear and very much conscious Arab
I just meant in the explicit mythology of the books, not the real world inspiration of the author. Although if he was inspired by the Berbers, Berbers are not Arabs.
posted by dis_integration at 11:27 AM on February 28 [5 favorites]
> It constantly astounds me when people deny the clear and very much conscious Arab
I just meant in the explicit mythology of the books, not the real world inspiration of the author. Although if he was inspired by the Berbers, Berbers are not Arabs.
posted by dis_integration at 11:27 AM on February 28 [5 favorites]
I suspect this is a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't situation and, had the film kept in more of the Arabic/Islamic elements from the book, we'd have an FPP with thinkpieces and MeFi comments decrying its problematic cultural appropriation.
Yeeees. If Villeneuve had made it super explicit, it would have been "everyone thinks Arabs just run around hoarding their oil and drinking their piss, this is racist." They probably cut out the words to avoid accusations of stereotyping and appropriation. However, the takes must flow!
posted by kingdead at 11:32 AM on February 28 [11 favorites]
Yeeees. If Villeneuve had made it super explicit, it would have been "everyone thinks Arabs just run around hoarding their oil and drinking their piss, this is racist." They probably cut out the words to avoid accusations of stereotyping and appropriation. However, the takes must flow!
posted by kingdead at 11:32 AM on February 28 [11 favorites]
>> It constantly astounds me when people deny the clear and very much conscious Arab
> Berbers are not Arabs
... you carefully truncated the quoted part of my sentence exactly before the "/MENA" that follows the word Arab, just so you could say this? Haha.
> "Jihad" is a little trickier because of the present-day implications.
> we would have had legitimate concern about using Arab linguistic elements to characterize a bloody, basically genocidal, holy war for a fake messiah.
Yeahh this is a great point. As much as I have prayed for a good new adaptation of Dune and as much as I freaking loved the first installment of the new adaptation, this is such a tricky issue and I wonder if there was ever a way to circumvent it well. I guess denying the Arab roots altogether is one way to do it. Sigh. I wish we could trust movies to lean in hard into the nuances that are made explicit in the book, which presents a complex enough storyline to side-step the most damaging stereotypes (imo, but I am not a MENA person)? But movies are simply not the medium which can show level of nuance and complexity in storytelling.
posted by MiraK at 11:36 AM on February 28 [9 favorites]
> Berbers are not Arabs
... you carefully truncated the quoted part of my sentence exactly before the "/MENA" that follows the word Arab, just so you could say this? Haha.
> "Jihad" is a little trickier because of the present-day implications.
> we would have had legitimate concern about using Arab linguistic elements to characterize a bloody, basically genocidal, holy war for a fake messiah.
Yeahh this is a great point. As much as I have prayed for a good new adaptation of Dune and as much as I freaking loved the first installment of the new adaptation, this is such a tricky issue and I wonder if there was ever a way to circumvent it well. I guess denying the Arab roots altogether is one way to do it. Sigh. I wish we could trust movies to lean in hard into the nuances that are made explicit in the book, which presents a complex enough storyline to side-step the most damaging stereotypes (imo, but I am not a MENA person)? But movies are simply not the medium which can show level of nuance and complexity in storytelling.
posted by MiraK at 11:36 AM on February 28 [9 favorites]
A key thing that the article misses is kind of a standard failure of mainstream press articles about SFF: it pretends that SFF does not change, and that the field somehow has not changed in nearly 70 years. Singh does a good job talking about various questions of language evolution, conlangs, de-Arabizing the Villeneuve version, etc., but applying that lens to Herbert is problematic. The book was written in a different time, with authors (Herbert included) using a range of then-new strategies to convey "realism" that stood in contrast to both some of the New Wave and much of the "today, but with jetpacks" that persisted from Golden Age SF well into the 1950s, which affected Herbert in all sorts of ways.
The rigorous, leaden consistency that occasionally characterizes recent decades' SFF is a reaction to the woolier era of Herbert and kin. Trying to quantify the level of Herbert's realism... I think you can do it in broad strokes, but I think we are expecting too much with some of our close readings of Herbert & his work. He was a complicated dude who absolutely does not align with current social or political alignments. The book is likewise problematic and wonderful for its lack of easy reading. Anyone who claims to have figured out Dune, particularly when it comes to mapping it to our 2024 understanding of nations, cultures, and appropriation, has misunderstood the work and will hopefully come to recognize their misunderstanding in time.
I do think any adaptation of Herbert was bound to offend or ring false. The same thing tends to happen with adaptations of Tarzan. That story could not exist without European colonialism and attitudes springing from and contributing to it. Some adaptations incorporate that, more or less successfully, but one alternative route is the Disney route, where there just... somehow aren't any Africans. It's one way to solve the problem, and it leads to an interesting movie that feels completely wrong. I don't know if Villeneuve's Dune is completely wrong, because I saw the first movie and thought it adapted somethings well, but we'll have to see what people think a decade or so down the road. It seems to be trying, as Singh notes, to remove a whole layer of that which makes Dune both meaningful and wildly infuriating to many readers, and it doesn't entirely get away with the project. I'm looking forward to watching Dune: Part Two.
posted by cupcakeninja at 11:38 AM on February 28 [15 favorites]
The rigorous, leaden consistency that occasionally characterizes recent decades' SFF is a reaction to the woolier era of Herbert and kin. Trying to quantify the level of Herbert's realism... I think you can do it in broad strokes, but I think we are expecting too much with some of our close readings of Herbert & his work. He was a complicated dude who absolutely does not align with current social or political alignments. The book is likewise problematic and wonderful for its lack of easy reading. Anyone who claims to have figured out Dune, particularly when it comes to mapping it to our 2024 understanding of nations, cultures, and appropriation, has misunderstood the work and will hopefully come to recognize their misunderstanding in time.
I do think any adaptation of Herbert was bound to offend or ring false. The same thing tends to happen with adaptations of Tarzan. That story could not exist without European colonialism and attitudes springing from and contributing to it. Some adaptations incorporate that, more or less successfully, but one alternative route is the Disney route, where there just... somehow aren't any Africans. It's one way to solve the problem, and it leads to an interesting movie that feels completely wrong. I don't know if Villeneuve's Dune is completely wrong, because I saw the first movie and thought it adapted somethings well, but we'll have to see what people think a decade or so down the road. It seems to be trying, as Singh notes, to remove a whole layer of that which makes Dune both meaningful and wildly infuriating to many readers, and it doesn't entirely get away with the project. I'm looking forward to watching Dune: Part Two.
posted by cupcakeninja at 11:38 AM on February 28 [15 favorites]
I wonder how many (native English-speaking) MeFites (who were grown up, or close to it) already knew the word jihad before 9/11/2001, because at some point in the previous 35 years they had read Dune. There's some problematic Orientalism in the story, but trying to sanitize it this way... IDK, maybe that's the kind of progress that has to happen one funeral at a time, with mine being one of them in this case.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 11:42 AM on February 28 [5 favorites]
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 11:42 AM on February 28 [5 favorites]
Aardvark, when I first read dune as a young teenager in Asia in the mid 1990s, I assumed without even pausing to really think it through, that "Frank Herbert" was a westernized pseudonym of a brown and probably Arab writer. It wasn't until 2007 (I think?) that I got into a conversation with some American friends who had just introduced me to the Dune TV series when I realized the guy was a white American. My flabber was quite gasted that day!
posted by MiraK at 11:46 AM on February 28 [18 favorites]
posted by MiraK at 11:46 AM on February 28 [18 favorites]
for any who may be interested. Here's a 1969 interview with Herbert. Pretty casual, just hanging out at home talking about this book he wrote and its surprising popularity.
Frank Herbert on the origins of Dune
a couple of immediately relevant quotes:
"You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain"
"The difference between a hero and an antihero is where you stop the story..."
posted by philip-random at 11:55 AM on February 28 [7 favorites]
Frank Herbert on the origins of Dune
a couple of immediately relevant quotes:
"You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain"
"The difference between a hero and an antihero is where you stop the story..."
posted by philip-random at 11:55 AM on February 28 [7 favorites]
If the actors are speaking more-or-less vernacular English, any linguistics "realism" justification this wanker trots out is a lie.
I don't think that's terribly fair. This is a genre convention that dates back to (at least) Tolkein: our protagonists are presented speaking English but that's (in the world of the fiction) a translation from some other language that they're actually speaking. Other languages within the world can be presented untranslated.
You can dislike the convention, but it doesn't connect from there that Peterson is lying when he talks about how he strives for realism in creating languages. There's also no chance that Peterson could talk the director or producers into letting him create a language to replace English in the movie, even if he wanted to.
At any rate, I think that Peterson is very good at what he does but he's also a person who is incredibly open about the process he uses for creating languages and has been for years now. This isn't a surprising result. I'm sympathetic to the author's vision for what language in Dune could be, and I think Peterson was plainly the wrong guy to hire for the job if that's what was wanted.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 12:06 PM on February 28 [3 favorites]
I don't think that's terribly fair. This is a genre convention that dates back to (at least) Tolkein: our protagonists are presented speaking English but that's (in the world of the fiction) a translation from some other language that they're actually speaking. Other languages within the world can be presented untranslated.
You can dislike the convention, but it doesn't connect from there that Peterson is lying when he talks about how he strives for realism in creating languages. There's also no chance that Peterson could talk the director or producers into letting him create a language to replace English in the movie, even if he wanted to.
At any rate, I think that Peterson is very good at what he does but he's also a person who is incredibly open about the process he uses for creating languages and has been for years now. This isn't a surprising result. I'm sympathetic to the author's vision for what language in Dune could be, and I think Peterson was plainly the wrong guy to hire for the job if that's what was wanted.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 12:06 PM on February 28 [3 favorites]
I don't know the proper terms but don't the Fremen version of the BG have a water of life ceremony and the ability to communicate with their ancestors? If that's the case would they also have access to the language of their ancestors? That would make it fairly trivial for them to keep the Arabic language even after 10,000 years assuming they actually were descended from Arabs, which with the ceremony they could also verify.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:12 PM on February 28 [5 favorites]
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:12 PM on February 28 [5 favorites]
The bit about it being unbelievable that there's any trace of Arabic language left in Fremen speech is pretty rich when Yueh apparently speaks Mandarin 10000 years from now? How did that nugget get passed over?
posted by Jobst at 12:20 PM on February 28 [12 favorites]
posted by Jobst at 12:20 PM on February 28 [12 favorites]
[tries to calculate how many non-Arabic speakers watching the film would even recognize words in the Fremen language as Arabic]
They probably just did the classic "let's make a small change to avoid controversy" --> "oh shit that created even more controversy", nothing more.
Also, if you're going to speak TO someone in Arabic, you have to put the particle "ya" before their name, so it's يا بول هل نحن الأشرار. The more you know.
And whoever said "The rigorous, leaden consistency that occasionally characterizes recent decades' SFF is a reaction to the woolier era of Herbert and kin." is absolutely correct.
But really, I'm just here because I want to bow deeply to the person who named themself The Manwich Horror. Kudos, ma'am/sir.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 12:29 PM on February 28 [6 favorites]
They probably just did the classic "let's make a small change to avoid controversy" --> "oh shit that created even more controversy", nothing more.
Also, if you're going to speak TO someone in Arabic, you have to put the particle "ya" before their name, so it's يا بول هل نحن الأشرار. The more you know.
And whoever said "The rigorous, leaden consistency that occasionally characterizes recent decades' SFF is a reaction to the woolier era of Herbert and kin." is absolutely correct.
But really, I'm just here because I want to bow deeply to the person who named themself The Manwich Horror. Kudos, ma'am/sir.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 12:29 PM on February 28 [6 favorites]
Whether or not the decision the filmmakers made was good, this bit is ridiculous:
Meanwhile, modern Icelanders can apparently read the Eddas pretty easily; Iceland was relatively culturally isolated and not subject to repeated waves of settlement by speakers of dramatically different languages. And while speakers of Spanish, French, Italian, and other modern Romance languages would have to study 2000-year-old Latin to understand it, "uninterpretable" would be going too far; the grammar has changed a lot, but a lot of etymological connections are very clear.
Twenty thousand years is much longer than one thousand, and it's been a long time since I read Dune and I don't know how culturally isolated the Fremen were supposed to have been over that time, or how how geographically dispersed they were, or whether they had common texts they all read or studied (standardized texts can play a part in slowing language change across time and geography). But to say that nothing at all would have remained is a claim that needs much stronger justification than the notoriously rapid transformation of English.
* It's also ridiculous that the New Yorker, of all places, doesn't care about providing links to source material where those links exist.
posted by trig at 12:35 PM on February 28 [14 favorites]
When a user asked him* to explain, he pointed to “Beowulf,” which was written around a thousand years ago and is uninterpretable to most modern English speakers. “And we’re talking about twenty thousand years?! Not a single shred of the language should be recognizable.”It's either ignorant or dishonest to use English, of all languages, as a comparison here. Beowulf was written in Old English, which was mostly a mix of Germanic/Norse dialects. It was written before the Norman Invasion, which from a linguistic perspective opened the floodgates to waves of French-dialect invasions that fundamentally transformed the language over a very short period of time. And even with the giant paradigm shift that English underwent, there are so many roots from Old English that remain in modern English that it's not entirely uninterpretable. Any reader today can understand "þæt wæs gód cyning", or at least think "oh, right!" when told what it means ("that was a good king"). And just knowing basic things like that "g" was often pronounced like "y" makes things like "in géardagum" suddenly intelligible (it means "in days of yore").
Meanwhile, modern Icelanders can apparently read the Eddas pretty easily; Iceland was relatively culturally isolated and not subject to repeated waves of settlement by speakers of dramatically different languages. And while speakers of Spanish, French, Italian, and other modern Romance languages would have to study 2000-year-old Latin to understand it, "uninterpretable" would be going too far; the grammar has changed a lot, but a lot of etymological connections are very clear.
Twenty thousand years is much longer than one thousand, and it's been a long time since I read Dune and I don't know how culturally isolated the Fremen were supposed to have been over that time, or how how geographically dispersed they were, or whether they had common texts they all read or studied (standardized texts can play a part in slowing language change across time and geography). But to say that nothing at all would have remained is a claim that needs much stronger justification than the notoriously rapid transformation of English.
* It's also ridiculous that the New Yorker, of all places, doesn't care about providing links to source material where those links exist.
posted by trig at 12:35 PM on February 28 [14 favorites]
It is extraordinary to claim that language will completely transform given 20000 years of future history, and therefore the most realistic conlang is one that doesn't make reference to any modern languages. Proto Indo European is five or six thousand years old, and has left traces in all its descendent languages. Written Arabic from a thousand years ago remains intelligible to modern speakers.
It is at least plausible that technologies like widespread literacy and access to mass media will slow the rate of change of language.
posted by surlyben at 12:36 PM on February 28 [11 favorites]
It is at least plausible that technologies like widespread literacy and access to mass media will slow the rate of change of language.
posted by surlyben at 12:36 PM on February 28 [11 favorites]
I wish we could trust movies to lean in hard into the nuances that are made explicit in the book
And of course to trust viewers to recognize those nuances.
But in this case I’m not sure it matters. Frank Herbert was merely echoing the prejudices of his time. Those prejudices haven’t an aged well.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 12:36 PM on February 28 [1 favorite]
And of course to trust viewers to recognize those nuances.
But in this case I’m not sure it matters. Frank Herbert was merely echoing the prejudices of his time. Those prejudices haven’t an aged well.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 12:36 PM on February 28 [1 favorite]
Not really a Dune fan, but I enjoyed Villeneuve's first movie. I feel like the linguist's (con-linguist's?) argument that Arabic words would not be recognizable after millennia of linguistic change is more convenient than necessarily true. Doesn't the Dune universe have a lot of political stability between the Butlerian Jihad and Paul Atreides? Like, there's a lot of people getting murdered or whatever, but the systems themselves don't change much. If you wanted to, you could just as easily rationalize having a ton of linguistic continuity.
Not Arab, but MENA-American. Do I have a problem with de-Orientalizing? No. These "heroic characters" are going to murderous zealots soon! So, you know, pass. I'm getting to the point where I don't like to see any MENA characters onscreen because even the well-meaning depictions are terrible. (There's a blue state CIA thriller genre getting made a lot now, where the heroic Western natsec character learns as a plot twist that the Obvious Terrorist is not actually a terrorist. I do think it's meant to be anti-Islamphobic, it just never works. They spend the majority of the plotline reciting the Islamophobic stuff as fact, and then the Obvious Terrorist turns out to be a noble chump who dies just in time to teach the natsec guy the lesson that He Was One of the Good Ones, and it doesn't undercut the film's awful worldview in any way. I don't know what this has to do with Dune, I guess I'm just saying that I'm looking forward to the film even more now.)
posted by grandiloquiet at 12:36 PM on February 28 [5 favorites]
Not Arab, but MENA-American. Do I have a problem with de-Orientalizing? No. These "heroic characters" are going to murderous zealots soon! So, you know, pass. I'm getting to the point where I don't like to see any MENA characters onscreen because even the well-meaning depictions are terrible. (There's a blue state CIA thriller genre getting made a lot now, where the heroic Western natsec character learns as a plot twist that the Obvious Terrorist is not actually a terrorist. I do think it's meant to be anti-Islamphobic, it just never works. They spend the majority of the plotline reciting the Islamophobic stuff as fact, and then the Obvious Terrorist turns out to be a noble chump who dies just in time to teach the natsec guy the lesson that He Was One of the Good Ones, and it doesn't undercut the film's awful worldview in any way. I don't know what this has to do with Dune, I guess I'm just saying that I'm looking forward to the film even more now.)
posted by grandiloquiet at 12:36 PM on February 28 [5 favorites]
Worth noting, on the movie derail, that Villenuve has explicitily said that a) he was focusing on Paul's story becasue Dune was too damn big to put in everything, and b) he intends to show Paul as the cynical manipulative warmongering genocidal bastard he is not as some white savior good guy.
posted by sotonohito at 12:37 PM on February 28 [6 favorites]
posted by sotonohito at 12:37 PM on February 28 [6 favorites]
b) he intends to show Paul as the cynical manipulative warmongering genocidal bastard he is not as some white savior good guy.
[braces for Starship Troopers levels of audience missing the point]
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 12:40 PM on February 28 [26 favorites]
[braces for Starship Troopers levels of audience missing the point]
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 12:40 PM on February 28 [26 favorites]
Anyway, this WaPo op-ed from 2021 addresses the same topics as the New Yorker one, but goes a little further:
posted by trig at 12:41 PM on February 28 [2 favorites]
There is no banquet in the movie; Kynes, played by a Black woman, dies in an act of triumphant defiance. The casting choice presented an incredible opportunity to explore how even subjugated people can participate in the oppression of others — a core theme of Herbert’s saga. Instead, the movie both inverts and reduces the ecologist’s character, simplifying Herbert’s critique of empire and cultural appropriation. It rests on an implicit premise: All dark-skinned people necessarily fit into an anti-colonial narrative, and racial identity easily deflects a character’s relationship to empire. The novel didn’t rely on such easy binaries: It interrogated the layered, particular ways that race, religion and empire can relate to each other.(I haven't seen the movies and wasn't impressed enough with the book to remember much of it, so I'm not making any claims of my own about either.)
posted by trig at 12:41 PM on February 28 [2 favorites]
As far as the conlang goes, it's clearly invoking "realism" to cover up for bigotry. Yes, linguisic drift is a real thing and yes after 10,000 years i'd expect languages to have changed so much it'd take a forensice linguist to spot the similarities.
But, again, the books clearly ignored that and included names from our time and several Arabic words and phrases that are, at most, just barely changed up a little and often aren't changed up at all.
Is he planning on making a Chakobsa that completely omits, ignores, or changes all the clearly Arabic words that Herbert put into the appendix?
And, let's bypass realism for a sec here and talk abotu being true to the material. Herbert very obviously intended the Fremen to be Arabs in space. He made their language Space Arabic. We can't say their religion is exactly Space Islam, but he even mentions the Islamic root of their relgion in the appendix too.
So if we're going to have a Chakobsa conlang that completely ignores, perverts, and disrespects the source material, why the hell are they bothering to do it at all? (I know the answer is money).
Point is, we're talking about fiction and more important than realism is being true to the source.
Realistically rings don't shrink and grow. Realistically worm shit doesn't make you prescient. Realistically there's no such thing as antigravity.
Don't talk to me about realism in reference to a book series where getting stoned on the right drugs lets you navigate hyperspace and Paul's kid turns himself in a flipping sand worm.
posted by sotonohito at 12:44 PM on February 28 [12 favorites]
But, again, the books clearly ignored that and included names from our time and several Arabic words and phrases that are, at most, just barely changed up a little and often aren't changed up at all.
Is he planning on making a Chakobsa that completely omits, ignores, or changes all the clearly Arabic words that Herbert put into the appendix?
And, let's bypass realism for a sec here and talk abotu being true to the material. Herbert very obviously intended the Fremen to be Arabs in space. He made their language Space Arabic. We can't say their religion is exactly Space Islam, but he even mentions the Islamic root of their relgion in the appendix too.
So if we're going to have a Chakobsa conlang that completely ignores, perverts, and disrespects the source material, why the hell are they bothering to do it at all? (I know the answer is money).
Point is, we're talking about fiction and more important than realism is being true to the source.
Realistically rings don't shrink and grow. Realistically worm shit doesn't make you prescient. Realistically there's no such thing as antigravity.
Don't talk to me about realism in reference to a book series where getting stoned on the right drugs lets you navigate hyperspace and Paul's kid turns himself in a flipping sand worm.
posted by sotonohito at 12:44 PM on February 28 [12 favorites]
Proto Indo European is five or six thousand years old, and has left traces in all its descendent languages.
*begins scheming on a PIE post*
posted by cupcakeninja at 12:52 PM on February 28 [7 favorites]
*begins scheming on a PIE post*
posted by cupcakeninja at 12:52 PM on February 28 [7 favorites]
And if you want to show that a language is a descendant of Arabic, using recognizable bits of Arabic is going to be the best way of doing that, "realism" doesn't really come into it.
posted by BungaDunga at 1:00 PM on February 28 [5 favorites]
posted by BungaDunga at 1:00 PM on February 28 [5 favorites]
The Beowulf example is kind of stupid because the Quran was revealed 1400 years ago and there are about 2 billion people that know some of the phrases from it and millions of people that don't speak Arabic otherwise but have the entire Quran memorized.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:04 PM on February 28 [4 favorites]
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:04 PM on February 28 [4 favorites]
sotonohito
As far as the conlang goes, it's clearly invoking "realism" to cover up for bigotry.
Nah. I'd put down money that the opposite is true and outgrown_hobnail is right above:
They probably just did the classic "let's make a small change to avoid controversy" --> "oh shit that created even more controversy", nothing more.
I'd wager that in the planning stages they had some of the same conversations we're having here and landed on "let's tone down the Arabic stuff to avoid any issues" side. This of course led to them stepping on the "hey, you stripped out all of the Arabic stuff!" mine we see here.
Don't talk to me about realism in reference to a book series where getting stoned on the right drugs lets you navigate hyperspace and Paul's kid turns himself in a flipping sand worm.
C'mon, surely you know better than this. Don't fall into this "this story features dragons therefore there are no rules" nonsense.
"Realism" in science fiction and fantasy means "given the premises and conceits of the world of this story, how would things develop and people act in a manner as if they were real". That's not saying Peterson is right, and personally I think his argument is silly, but what you're saying is just wrong when discussing these kind of stories.
posted by star gentle uterus at 1:17 PM on February 28 [11 favorites]
As far as the conlang goes, it's clearly invoking "realism" to cover up for bigotry.
Nah. I'd put down money that the opposite is true and outgrown_hobnail is right above:
They probably just did the classic "let's make a small change to avoid controversy" --> "oh shit that created even more controversy", nothing more.
I'd wager that in the planning stages they had some of the same conversations we're having here and landed on "let's tone down the Arabic stuff to avoid any issues" side. This of course led to them stepping on the "hey, you stripped out all of the Arabic stuff!" mine we see here.
Don't talk to me about realism in reference to a book series where getting stoned on the right drugs lets you navigate hyperspace and Paul's kid turns himself in a flipping sand worm.
C'mon, surely you know better than this. Don't fall into this "this story features dragons therefore there are no rules" nonsense.
"Realism" in science fiction and fantasy means "given the premises and conceits of the world of this story, how would things develop and people act in a manner as if they were real". That's not saying Peterson is right, and personally I think his argument is silly, but what you're saying is just wrong when discussing these kind of stories.
posted by star gentle uterus at 1:17 PM on February 28 [11 favorites]
Proto Indo European is five or six thousand years old, and has left traces in all its descendent languages.
*begins scheming on a PIE post*
posted by cupcakeninja at 2:52 PM on February 28 [+] [⚑]
Please do!
And, re: the Fremen's later galaxy-spanning crusade, on the one hand, pretty difficult to de-problematize what's described as basically genocide also being basically the work of this Arab-or-MENA-coded people.
On the other hand, I guess two points. First being that at least it's a subject people ripping apart an empire.
Second being that, for all that Paul foresees this possibility and professes to want to avert it, he's the progenitor.
And second of second, from the Fremen's perspective, their literal God has shown up with all the powers their literal God was supposed to possess and has encouraged, inadvertently or not, that same crusade. Which to me doesn't actually paint the Fremen in a poor light (but it does Paul).
I've only ever gotten halfway through the second book a few times, but as far as I remember, the perspective largely sticks to Arrakis and inter and intra Atredies and Fremen politics, which creates the interesting frame where all the action is happening in the 'colony' and concerning the people of the 'colony' while the faceless victims are all off-screen in the metropole. For once.
Anyway, I'm not sure any of that would, like I say, un-problematise things, but at least it would flip the normal order of business on its head.
posted by TheProfessor at 1:28 PM on February 28 [2 favorites]
*begins scheming on a PIE post*
posted by cupcakeninja at 2:52 PM on February 28 [+] [⚑]
Please do!
And, re: the Fremen's later galaxy-spanning crusade, on the one hand, pretty difficult to de-problematize what's described as basically genocide also being basically the work of this Arab-or-MENA-coded people.
On the other hand, I guess two points. First being that at least it's a subject people ripping apart an empire.
Second being that, for all that Paul foresees this possibility and professes to want to avert it, he's the progenitor.
And second of second, from the Fremen's perspective, their literal God has shown up with all the powers their literal God was supposed to possess and has encouraged, inadvertently or not, that same crusade. Which to me doesn't actually paint the Fremen in a poor light (but it does Paul).
I've only ever gotten halfway through the second book a few times, but as far as I remember, the perspective largely sticks to Arrakis and inter and intra Atredies and Fremen politics, which creates the interesting frame where all the action is happening in the 'colony' and concerning the people of the 'colony' while the faceless victims are all off-screen in the metropole. For once.
Anyway, I'm not sure any of that would, like I say, un-problematise things, but at least it would flip the normal order of business on its head.
posted by TheProfessor at 1:28 PM on February 28 [2 favorites]
C'mon, surely you know better than this. Don't fall into this "this story features dragons therefore there are no rules" nonsense.I think the argument is more like: "this story features dragons, therefore what constitutes 'realism' in your story is a choice you are making, and you are not immune from criticism".
posted by jomato at 1:41 PM on February 28 [8 favorites]
i feel like all of this could have been avoided if chani had just referred to paul as habibi once or twice
posted by i used to be someone else at 1:48 PM on February 28 [5 favorites]
posted by i used to be someone else at 1:48 PM on February 28 [5 favorites]
The Beowulf example is kind of stupid
It's so very stupid it makes me not take Peterson seriously. My nicest guess is he just really wanted to do his usual thing and preferred not to think too much about whether that was truly the only option.
posted by trig at 2:00 PM on February 28 [3 favorites]
It's so very stupid it makes me not take Peterson seriously. My nicest guess is he just really wanted to do his usual thing and preferred not to think too much about whether that was truly the only option.
posted by trig at 2:00 PM on February 28 [3 favorites]
I suspect this is a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't situation and, had the film kept in more of the Arabic/Islamic elements from the book, we'd have an FPP with thinkpieces and MeFi comments decrying its problematic cultural appropriation.
I mean, probably? But "how can we make it so no one is mad at us" is not actually a useful way to approach any kind of art, including an adaptation. Herbert's Dune is, unequivocally, orientalist and problematic in many, many ways (i mean, a lot of bits are cribbed from the life of T.E. Lawrence!) -- but actual, living Arabs and Amazigh have expressed that despite the problems, there is value to them in Dune.
But Hollywood is physically and emotionally incapable of doing good adaptations, and in the particular case of Dune literally everyone who's adapted it has honed in on the idea that it's a savior narrative, which i'm sure is making poor Frank Herbert roll over in his grave because the novel is actually a critique (albeit a very flawed one) of savior narratives and of the uses of political power.
To quote from a later book in the series: "All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted."
posted by adrienneleigh at 2:14 PM on February 28 [12 favorites]
I mean, probably? But "how can we make it so no one is mad at us" is not actually a useful way to approach any kind of art, including an adaptation. Herbert's Dune is, unequivocally, orientalist and problematic in many, many ways (i mean, a lot of bits are cribbed from the life of T.E. Lawrence!) -- but actual, living Arabs and Amazigh have expressed that despite the problems, there is value to them in Dune.
But Hollywood is physically and emotionally incapable of doing good adaptations, and in the particular case of Dune literally everyone who's adapted it has honed in on the idea that it's a savior narrative, which i'm sure is making poor Frank Herbert roll over in his grave because the novel is actually a critique (albeit a very flawed one) of savior narratives and of the uses of political power.
To quote from a later book in the series: "All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted."
posted by adrienneleigh at 2:14 PM on February 28 [12 favorites]
habibi
I do feel like they could have sort of gotten around the potentially problematic aspects of having the language sound like Arabic by using a dialect of Arabic as a seed and applying many layers of phonological, morphological, and syntactic transformations to it - the kind you generally see in language evolution and which Peterson apparently likes to apply, but to conlang seeds instead of real-world ones. You wind up with totally different sounds and somewhat different patterns, but some things still remain; for example he could have kept the Semitic-language feature of possessive suffixes like the "i" in habibi ("my habib"), or the Semitic root system, both of which are fairly stable across the Semitic language family. It's not like much of the proposed grammar or vocabulary of the Proto-Semitic of around 6000 years ago isn't recognizable to Arabic or Hebrew speakers today.
That would (potentially) let them both retain the Arabic basis and also make it clear that the Fremen of 20,000 years from now aren't identical to the Arabs of the 21st century.
posted by trig at 2:22 PM on February 28 [4 favorites]
I do feel like they could have sort of gotten around the potentially problematic aspects of having the language sound like Arabic by using a dialect of Arabic as a seed and applying many layers of phonological, morphological, and syntactic transformations to it - the kind you generally see in language evolution and which Peterson apparently likes to apply, but to conlang seeds instead of real-world ones. You wind up with totally different sounds and somewhat different patterns, but some things still remain; for example he could have kept the Semitic-language feature of possessive suffixes like the "i" in habibi ("my habib"), or the Semitic root system, both of which are fairly stable across the Semitic language family. It's not like much of the proposed grammar or vocabulary of the Proto-Semitic of around 6000 years ago isn't recognizable to Arabic or Hebrew speakers today.
That would (potentially) let them both retain the Arabic basis and also make it clear that the Fremen of 20,000 years from now aren't identical to the Arabs of the 21st century.
posted by trig at 2:22 PM on February 28 [4 favorites]
Hollywood really needs to create some hit movie or series set in the Ayyubid Dynasty or otherwise in the Golden Age of Islam, to get Westerners (particularly Americans) to get some different perspectives on Arabic history and culture.
I nominate the Daevabad Trilogy by S.A. Chakraborty - brilliant series, based on traditional west Asian myths, complex characters...
wait, maybe I don't want Hollywood involved at all.
posted by jb at 2:25 PM on February 28 [5 favorites]
I nominate the Daevabad Trilogy by S.A. Chakraborty - brilliant series, based on traditional west Asian myths, complex characters...
wait, maybe I don't want Hollywood involved at all.
posted by jb at 2:25 PM on February 28 [5 favorites]
So, I'm a conlanger, sometimes a professional one. It's nice that "conlang" is now used in the New Yorker. (Though, wow, their website is obnoxious even for a subscriber. Every single access, you have to log in through e-mail?!)
Linguistically, Peterson is right: 10,000 years will change a language out of all recognition.
If they had asked me (and I hasten to add, they didn't), I'd have made some form of mildly changed Arabic. Herbert was going for Space Arabic and I agree with Singh that it's silly to retain terms like "shai-hulud" but create new convoluted meanings for them out of his effectively a priori conlang.
There is a narrative value to making terms more recognizable. That's why Tolkien deliberately anglicized even his own conlangs, like Westron: instead of Maura Labingi going to Karningul, Frodo Baggins goes to Rivendell.
Times have changed, and now you can read a book about Mahit Dzmare from Lsel; and a Chinese novel now features Pan Jinlian rather than Golden Lotus. But Dune was written in 1965 and turning his Space Arabic into a conlanging opportunity doesn't seem like a great choice.
I'd also note that languages can consciously borrow from the past, just as English contains scads of direct Latin and Greek borrowings. It's not an error that both we and the Romans have "senators". And if the dictionaries are not lost, you could borrow the word 10,000 years in the future, too.
On linguistic change, I have to emphasize, 2000 years will make a language unintelligble (but similarities will be evident in writing); 5000 years will make it unrecognizable. No, Arabic is not a counter-example, that's why to understand what's spoken in the street you need to study the colloquial language. (But diglossia has a powerful psychological effect; people will swear up and down that they speak the ancient language with nothing colloquial.)
As just one example, here's a verse from the Dao De Jing in Old Chinese and in Mandarin:
(OC) Tsheʔ raŋʔ taʔ, dôŋ k-hlut nə ləkh miŋ, dôŋ wəts tə wîn.
(M) Cǐ liǎng zhě, tóng chū ér yì míng, tóng wèi zhī xuán
With a little study a Mandarin speaker can read the original... but that's because the syllabographic writing system hides the phonetic changes.
posted by zompist at 2:31 PM on February 28 [24 favorites]
Linguistically, Peterson is right: 10,000 years will change a language out of all recognition.
If they had asked me (and I hasten to add, they didn't), I'd have made some form of mildly changed Arabic. Herbert was going for Space Arabic and I agree with Singh that it's silly to retain terms like "shai-hulud" but create new convoluted meanings for them out of his effectively a priori conlang.
There is a narrative value to making terms more recognizable. That's why Tolkien deliberately anglicized even his own conlangs, like Westron: instead of Maura Labingi going to Karningul, Frodo Baggins goes to Rivendell.
Times have changed, and now you can read a book about Mahit Dzmare from Lsel; and a Chinese novel now features Pan Jinlian rather than Golden Lotus. But Dune was written in 1965 and turning his Space Arabic into a conlanging opportunity doesn't seem like a great choice.
I'd also note that languages can consciously borrow from the past, just as English contains scads of direct Latin and Greek borrowings. It's not an error that both we and the Romans have "senators". And if the dictionaries are not lost, you could borrow the word 10,000 years in the future, too.
On linguistic change, I have to emphasize, 2000 years will make a language unintelligble (but similarities will be evident in writing); 5000 years will make it unrecognizable. No, Arabic is not a counter-example, that's why to understand what's spoken in the street you need to study the colloquial language. (But diglossia has a powerful psychological effect; people will swear up and down that they speak the ancient language with nothing colloquial.)
As just one example, here's a verse from the Dao De Jing in Old Chinese and in Mandarin:
(OC) Tsheʔ raŋʔ taʔ, dôŋ k-hlut nə ləkh miŋ, dôŋ wəts tə wîn.
(M) Cǐ liǎng zhě, tóng chū ér yì míng, tóng wèi zhī xuán
With a little study a Mandarin speaker can read the original... but that's because the syllabographic writing system hides the phonetic changes.
posted by zompist at 2:31 PM on February 28 [24 favorites]
And if the dictionaries are not lost, you could borrow the word 10,000 years in the future, too.
Something of a tangent, but I'm wondering if the Dune civilization's emphasis on developing superhuman memory techniques post-Butlerian Jihad would slow down language change at all.
posted by praemunire at 2:55 PM on February 28 [6 favorites]
Something of a tangent, but I'm wondering if the Dune civilization's emphasis on developing superhuman memory techniques post-Butlerian Jihad would slow down language change at all.
posted by praemunire at 2:55 PM on February 28 [6 favorites]
Also i feel so bad for Frank Herbert that some rando conlang guy who isn't even very good (Dothraki sucks tbh) is fucking his corpse for money and erasing his actual contributions in the process, especially after his son has already spent years doing the same thing.
posted by adrienneleigh at 3:08 PM on February 28 [7 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 3:08 PM on February 28 [7 favorites]
5000 years will make it unrecognizable. No, Arabic is not a counter-example, that's why to understand what's spoken in the street you need to study the colloquial language. (But diglossia has a powerful psychological effect; people will swear up and down that they speak the ancient language with nothing colloquial.)
I guess part of the question is what "unrecognizable" means. Modern-day colloquial Arabic is pretty different than Classical, but (a) the degree of distance between Classical Arabic and modern dialects varies greatly by dialect (Yemeni dialects are supposedly much closer to Classical, for example, while Moroccan dialects are very distant), and (b) a huge number of roots, as well as basic grammatical features, absolutely remain. Even a Moroccan Arabic speaker who knows how to read (but, say, hasn't received any religious education) can look at the Quran and recognize various roots and structural patterns, even if they can't understand the text fully. And again, if you know any modern Semitic language, proto-Semitic is absolutely recognizable as being related, even though the spoken version might not be intelligible. Some fundamental things about the shape of the language are the same. Old words echo in the new ones, if you know how to listen.
Proto-Indo European was mentioned above, and the same is true there: maybe English and Farsi aren't mutually intelligible at all, but they still have a multitude of roots in common. Various features survive: in almost all IE languages, for example, at least one first person singular pronoun starts with "m" and 2nd person singular with "t", "d", or "th" sounds (English is mostly an exception, ever since it got rid of "thee"). Various cases and verb tenses exist, but there's nothing quite like the Semitic root system or dual conjugation or the Turkic agglutinative system or the thousands of other linguistic features you see in different families... So no, a Spanish speaker on the street might not recognize most things an Urdu speaker says, but linguists clearly did look at the two and recognize that they're related.
That's why I said that Peterson could have started with an Arabic dialect and applied historical transformations to it, winding up with something that would be unrecognizable as Arabic but still recognizable as deriving from it - something that retains at least part of the shape and has some echoes.
posted by trig at 3:13 PM on February 28 [4 favorites]
I guess part of the question is what "unrecognizable" means. Modern-day colloquial Arabic is pretty different than Classical, but (a) the degree of distance between Classical Arabic and modern dialects varies greatly by dialect (Yemeni dialects are supposedly much closer to Classical, for example, while Moroccan dialects are very distant), and (b) a huge number of roots, as well as basic grammatical features, absolutely remain. Even a Moroccan Arabic speaker who knows how to read (but, say, hasn't received any religious education) can look at the Quran and recognize various roots and structural patterns, even if they can't understand the text fully. And again, if you know any modern Semitic language, proto-Semitic is absolutely recognizable as being related, even though the spoken version might not be intelligible. Some fundamental things about the shape of the language are the same. Old words echo in the new ones, if you know how to listen.
Proto-Indo European was mentioned above, and the same is true there: maybe English and Farsi aren't mutually intelligible at all, but they still have a multitude of roots in common. Various features survive: in almost all IE languages, for example, at least one first person singular pronoun starts with "m" and 2nd person singular with "t", "d", or "th" sounds (English is mostly an exception, ever since it got rid of "thee"). Various cases and verb tenses exist, but there's nothing quite like the Semitic root system or dual conjugation or the Turkic agglutinative system or the thousands of other linguistic features you see in different families... So no, a Spanish speaker on the street might not recognize most things an Urdu speaker says, but linguists clearly did look at the two and recognize that they're related.
That's why I said that Peterson could have started with an Arabic dialect and applied historical transformations to it, winding up with something that would be unrecognizable as Arabic but still recognizable as deriving from it - something that retains at least part of the shape and has some echoes.
posted by trig at 3:13 PM on February 28 [4 favorites]
Four String Riot, good point with "Paul isn't a hero! He's (in some ways) a critique of white colonialism coming in to exploit people! " There is an element of T.E. Lawrence in Paul Atreides.
posted by Fizzy Kimchi at 3:45 PM on February 28
posted by Fizzy Kimchi at 3:45 PM on February 28
I wonder if the estimates of how much a language changes over time are still relevant. Mass literacy and more importantly the internet means that millions of people can speak the same dialect, something that was never possible until now.
I don't know if that will speed up or slow down drift, but it's definitely a way of mass interaction with language that is relatively new.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 3:45 PM on February 28 [4 favorites]
I don't know if that will speed up or slow down drift, but it's definitely a way of mass interaction with language that is relatively new.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 3:45 PM on February 28 [4 favorites]
Realistically worm shit doesn't make you prescient.
Man, I wish you'd told me that earlier.
posted by kirkaracha at 3:47 PM on February 28 [13 favorites]
Man, I wish you'd told me that earlier.
posted by kirkaracha at 3:47 PM on February 28 [13 favorites]
Proto Indo European is five or six thousand years old, and has left traces in all its descendent languages.
*begins scheming on a PIE post*
posted by cupcakeninja
Hold on for a couple weeks so you can post it on the 14th.
posted by cheshyre at 4:15 PM on February 28 [12 favorites]
*begins scheming on a PIE post*
posted by cupcakeninja
Hold on for a couple weeks so you can post it on the 14th.
posted by cheshyre at 4:15 PM on February 28 [12 favorites]
If David Peterson were to ever shake hands with Pete Davidson, the resulting explosion would rival the Tunguska event.
posted by Joey Michaels at 4:38 PM on February 28 [2 favorites]
posted by Joey Michaels at 4:38 PM on February 28 [2 favorites]
If David Peterson were to ever shake hands with Pete Davidson
And get Peter David to write it?
posted by cheshyre at 4:44 PM on February 28 [3 favorites]
And get Peter David to write it?
posted by cheshyre at 4:44 PM on February 28 [3 favorites]
The spoken dialects of modern Arabic are generally understood to have always existed alongside the formal language used in the Quran; while each spoken dialect began and has evolved separately, they didn't really evolve from the formal dialect, which in pre-Islamic times was the Poetry Voice of its world: a standard, more highly-inflected dialect that was used for the oral poetry slams that gradually replaced violence when tribes met as a means of competition for prestige; it was generally understood by everyone but too complex to use for everyday speech. If you can read a news website in Arabic, you can totally read the Quran, though understanding it is a different matter, because while it's lovely poetry, it's also missing a lot of context that has to generally be supplied by works of interpretation. It's kind of like a William Gibson novel, with as many of the words as possible removed before the whole thing falls apart like a Jenga tower.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 5:08 PM on February 28 [3 favorites]
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 5:08 PM on February 28 [3 favorites]
If the Fremen and their language were more explicitly Arabized for the film, it would make that fact that the none of actors playing major Fremen roles are Arabic or Middle Eastern stick out even more.
Shocking as it might seem, it took three adaptations before some (but still not ALL) Fremen portraying actors are PoC.
And even then, none of the major speaking roles for Fremen characters are played by someone with a Middle Eastern background
posted by thecjm at 5:18 PM on February 28 [5 favorites]
Shocking as it might seem, it took three adaptations before some (but still not ALL) Fremen portraying actors are PoC.
And even then, none of the major speaking roles for Fremen characters are played by someone with a Middle Eastern background
posted by thecjm at 5:18 PM on February 28 [5 favorites]
>> the Fremen follow their victory on Arrakis with a jihad that slaughters half the known universe
>>
> بول، هل نحن الأشرار؟
Yeah, with that vibe going on I suspect that people will soon be claiming that the Fremen are *too* obviously Arabic in the movie. Certainly if the second book gets adapted.
[meme reference]
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:01 PM on February 28 [1 favorite]
>>
> بول، هل نحن الأشرار؟
Yeah, with that vibe going on I suspect that people will soon be claiming that the Fremen are *too* obviously Arabic in the movie. Certainly if the second book gets adapted.
[meme reference]
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:01 PM on February 28 [1 favorite]
I just want to say that threads like this are why I love this place.
posted by signal at 6:10 PM on February 28 [3 favorites]
posted by signal at 6:10 PM on February 28 [3 favorites]
I'm wondering if the Dune civilization's emphasis on developing superhuman memory techniques post-Butlerian Jihad would slow down language change at all.
That seems like it would be a factor, and also you have the Bene Gesserit who can literally remember their ancestor's memories and so would retain knowledge of the spoken language as well, and who culturally have their claws into everything in the universe.
Chaksoba is a kind of a weird case, my memory of the books is that it is used as the "battle language" of the Atreides, totally independently from its use by the Fremen who mostly speak the common tongue of Galach, which is what the rest of the Imperium speaks, and that it's the ancestral Fremen language from which much of their specific vocabulary is derived but is mostly not used by them in day-to-day conversation.
posted by whir at 7:50 PM on February 28 [1 favorite]
That seems like it would be a factor, and also you have the Bene Gesserit who can literally remember their ancestor's memories and so would retain knowledge of the spoken language as well, and who culturally have their claws into everything in the universe.
Chaksoba is a kind of a weird case, my memory of the books is that it is used as the "battle language" of the Atreides, totally independently from its use by the Fremen who mostly speak the common tongue of Galach, which is what the rest of the Imperium speaks, and that it's the ancestral Fremen language from which much of their specific vocabulary is derived but is mostly not used by them in day-to-day conversation.
posted by whir at 7:50 PM on February 28 [1 favorite]
Any reader today can understand "þæt wæs gód cyning", or at least think "oh, right!" when told what it means ("that was a good king"). And just knowing basic things like that "g" was often pronounced like "y" makes things like "in géardagum" suddenly intelligible (it means "in days of yore").
Um, no, if it wasnt spoken aloud, there's no way I would be able to know that "þæt wæs gód cyning" meant "that was a good king" and even knowing the G is pronounced like y, I wouldn't get "in géardagum" means that. And I think I'm a pretty well-read person, but almost everything is 1800s or newer. I think this really has to do with how much old (or even just older) English you've read.
posted by LizBoBiz at 8:41 PM on February 28 [5 favorites]
Um, no, if it wasnt spoken aloud, there's no way I would be able to know that "þæt wæs gód cyning" meant "that was a good king" and even knowing the G is pronounced like y, I wouldn't get "in géardagum" means that. And I think I'm a pretty well-read person, but almost everything is 1800s or newer. I think this really has to do with how much old (or even just older) English you've read.
posted by LizBoBiz at 8:41 PM on February 28 [5 favorites]
How do you come back from your research with “look I just think it’s ridiculous for any Arabic to have recognizably survived” for a book with a character called Duncan Idaho ffs
posted by Jon Mitchell at 8:57 PM on February 28 [7 favorites]
posted by Jon Mitchell at 8:57 PM on February 28 [7 favorites]
>Duncan Idaho
Look, language changes and evolves over time but the B-52's music will live on forever at planetary parties.
Swordmaster of the Ginaz or not, he must have started out as a Private at some point.
posted by phigmov at 10:15 PM on February 28 [1 favorite]
Look, language changes and evolves over time but the B-52's music will live on forever at planetary parties.
Swordmaster of the Ginaz or not, he must have started out as a Private at some point.
posted by phigmov at 10:15 PM on February 28 [1 favorite]
Um, no, if it wasnt spoken aloud, there's no way I would be able to know that
When you saw the translation though did you think "oh yeah" or "I still don't recognize that as something related"?
(It's kind of funny that spelling is so different in Old English that the written form is possibly even more distant from Modern than the spoken form (which was pretty different itself). With a lot of languages it's totally the opposite.)
posted by trig at 11:44 PM on February 28
When you saw the translation though did you think "oh yeah" or "I still don't recognize that as something related"?
(It's kind of funny that spelling is so different in Old English that the written form is possibly even more distant from Modern than the spoken form (which was pretty different itself). With a lot of languages it's totally the opposite.)
posted by trig at 11:44 PM on February 28
I only have but one aside to make...
Fremen peoples came from the "Zensunni", a kind of syncretism between Sunni Islam and Buddhism
Oh hey, Southeast Asian Muslims!
🏃♀️🏃♀️🏃♀️
posted by cendawanita at 12:59 AM on February 29 [6 favorites]
Fremen peoples came from the "Zensunni", a kind of syncretism between Sunni Islam and Buddhism
Oh hey, Southeast Asian Muslims!
🏃♀️🏃♀️🏃♀️
posted by cendawanita at 12:59 AM on February 29 [6 favorites]
Languages aside, apparently 10,000 years in the future, no one even needs sunglasses on a place like Arrakis.
posted by SoberHighland at 5:09 AM on February 29 [3 favorites]
posted by SoberHighland at 5:09 AM on February 29 [3 favorites]
Which is why I think if you have to adapt it (and maybe we shouldn't!) you'd be better off going with someone who understands camp as a method of engaging and integrating those elements, as opposed to trying to sanitize them.
This made me think that if we're going to do more adaptations of Dune, they should be screen-written and directed by John Waters.
posted by ewok_academy at 5:26 AM on February 29 [1 favorite]
This made me think that if we're going to do more adaptations of Dune, they should be screen-written and directed by John Waters.
posted by ewok_academy at 5:26 AM on February 29 [1 favorite]
they should be screen-written and directed by John Waters.
No, no, too early. We've had Weirdo Fetish Dune and Lugubriously Faithful Dune, now we've got Tentpole Dune... but we at least have to get through Rotoscoped Dune, The Sandworms Are The Heroes, Actually Dune, The Dune Cinematic Universe By Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, and VR/Smellovision Dune before we get to Camp Dune.
posted by cupcakeninja at 5:39 AM on February 29
No, no, too early. We've had Weirdo Fetish Dune and Lugubriously Faithful Dune, now we've got Tentpole Dune... but we at least have to get through Rotoscoped Dune, The Sandworms Are The Heroes, Actually Dune, The Dune Cinematic Universe By Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, and VR/Smellovision Dune before we get to Camp Dune.
posted by cupcakeninja at 5:39 AM on February 29
There was cheap mockery Dune; it was called Doon and suffering from tryhard syndrome was sadly not even up to the not particularly high level of Bored of the Rings.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:43 AM on February 29 [2 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:43 AM on February 29 [2 favorites]
Ahhhhh, thank you, seanmpuckett! I have been a Dune reader/watcher for decades, and somehow I'd never heard of that!!! If it's not up to the level of Bored of the Rings, I can only imagine...
posted by cupcakeninja at 5:57 AM on February 29 [1 favorite]
posted by cupcakeninja at 5:57 AM on February 29 [1 favorite]
No, yeah, it's bad. Doon, "Dessert Planet." Paul is Pall, the Kumquatz Haagendasz. The sandworms are pretzel worms with giant chunks of salt. The planetary export is beer. The final showdown is a bake-off. It's one of those books you read that you might get a smile or two out of but afterward realize that you should have just taken a nap or had a walk instead.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:07 AM on February 29 [3 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:07 AM on February 29 [3 favorites]
Thinking on it I reckon it's hard to lampoon Dune because it's already a lampoon of T E Lawrence, it's just that Herbert didn't make it intentionally funny. (Whereas Doon has the intention of being funny, but isn't.) There is undoubtedly a MAD Magazine sendup of Dune that's actually amusing, but I haven't the spoons to search the archives.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:18 AM on February 29
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:18 AM on February 29
When I deconstruct Dune to it's simplest possible description, I get something like ....feudal warring aristocrat clans clash over control of the richest territory in all the land, with their king pulling strings in the background to increase his own wealth and power. Backstabbing and religious manipulation leads the 'winning' clan to utilize a massively addictive drug as a lever in this struggle. One of the side effects from the drug is turning people's eyes into a striking blue color. The primary population in this drug-producing arena, the 'free men' all have blue eyes and are used in a bid for total control, overthrowing the king, and which leads to pogroms and genocidal massacres of entire populations based on religious manipulation.
posted by diode at 6:43 AM on February 29
posted by diode at 6:43 AM on February 29
you'd be better off going with someone who understands camp as a method of engaging and integrating those elements
Ian McNeice in the 99/00 miniseries did Harkonnen sorta like that, even took to doing lots of his lines as rhyming couplets. I think he got the (correct) idea that Harkonnen really REALLY loves being exactly who he is and is having a GREAT time living in a giant party, right up until oops he isn't.
(not a defense of Herbert's "let's pile everything I think the reader will agree is disgusting, like homosexuality or a Finnish-ish surname, onto the baron until I get distracted and confused again by the idea that women exist" style)
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 6:44 AM on February 29 [3 favorites]
Ian McNeice in the 99/00 miniseries did Harkonnen sorta like that, even took to doing lots of his lines as rhyming couplets. I think he got the (correct) idea that Harkonnen really REALLY loves being exactly who he is and is having a GREAT time living in a giant party, right up until oops he isn't.
(not a defense of Herbert's "let's pile everything I think the reader will agree is disgusting, like homosexuality or a Finnish-ish surname, onto the baron until I get distracted and confused again by the idea that women exist" style)
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 6:44 AM on February 29 [3 favorites]
There was cheap mockery Dune; it was called Doon and suffering from tryhard syndrome was sadly not even up to the not particularly high level of Bored of the Rings.
It tried too hard, but it had a few brilliant moments.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 7:07 AM on February 29 [1 favorite]
It tried too hard, but it had a few brilliant moments.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 7:07 AM on February 29 [1 favorite]
also you have the Bene Gesserit who can literally remember their ancestor's memories and so would retain knowledge of the spoken language as well, and who culturally have their claws into everything in the universe
I was wondering about that, too. In the memories of my ancestors from a mere two thousand years ago, I wouldn't be able to understand a damn thing anyone is saying. I am actually among the small percentage of people which has some reading comprehension of an ancient language, but I have zero spoken-reception capability.
posted by praemunire at 8:30 AM on February 29
I was wondering about that, too. In the memories of my ancestors from a mere two thousand years ago, I wouldn't be able to understand a damn thing anyone is saying. I am actually among the small percentage of people which has some reading comprehension of an ancient language, but I have zero spoken-reception capability.
posted by praemunire at 8:30 AM on February 29
Some youtuber whose schtick mostly seems to be rating classical latin from movies did a thing where he spoke reconstructed classical latin at current-times Italians and mostly there were able to at least get the gist of simple my name is foo I live in bar stuff.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:35 AM on February 29 [3 favorites]
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:35 AM on February 29 [3 favorites]
I think it’s not just hearing the ancestors but knowing what they knew, understanding what they understood.
posted by LizBoBiz at 2:22 PM on February 29
posted by LizBoBiz at 2:22 PM on February 29
> also you have the Bene Gesserit who can literally remember their ancestor's memories and so would retain knowledge of the spoken language as well, and who culturally have their claws into everything in the universe
I was wondering about that, too. In the memories of my ancestors from a mere two thousand years ago, I wouldn't be able to understand a damn thing anyone is saying. I am actually among the small percentage of people which has some reading comprehension of an ancient language, but I have zero spoken-reception capability.
Okay, so, yes, sorry I'm late, traffic was awful at the shield wall.
So I think this may only be outlined in detail in the wonderful Dune Encyclopedia, which Herbert did not write but approved wholeheartedly of and probably provided lots of notes for, but part of the lore of the Fremen is that on discovering the spice and the Water of Life after they were moved to Arrakis (in the latest in a series of forced migrations by colonial forces in the Imperium over the course of thousands of years), the Fremen Reverend Mothers gained a capacity for ancestral memory similar to that employed by the Bene Gesserit. The ability to, fairly literally, converse with every female ancestor tracing back from mother to mother in an unbroken chain (plus the ability to, near expected death or under duress of crisis, transfer these memories to another RM).
And in doing so, those Fremen priestesses were able to see, to their shock, just how far the language of their people had shifted over the course of 10K+ years, despite their devotion to maintaining a throughline of language and cultural tradition as an isolated and subjugated and sometimes scattered and then re-congregated people. They had thought they had dotingly maintained it; instead it had shifted incrementally over millennia to something basically unrecognizable.
So it's simultaneously true, in this aspect of the story (or the meta-story of the Encyclopedia, though I believe this is all hinted at in the books and implied by the density of Arabic vocabulary ), that (1) the pre-Imperial Arabic of more than ten thousand years ago would not survive natural language evolution in the form it took in Herbert's mid-century world, and (2) the detailed ancestral memory brought on by spice agony made the Fremen uniquely capable of a cultural education initiative to restore and return to the ancient forms of language resonant of contemporary Earth.
And in fact they're more primed to accomplish this than even the Bene Gesserit, who have a similar capacity for ancestral memory but are culturally ecumenical-and-then-some and better thought of as a bureaucratic political organization than any kind of coherent self-identifying people. The BG are mining their past memories for future advantages, levers of soft power, control over the galaxy and the flow of events; the Fremen are mining their past memories out of a desire to uphold their traditions and their sense of themselves as a people. The two groups are driven in opposite directions by the same fantastical capacity for retrospective.
None of this seems likely to have ever gotten anywhere near the films, but at a certain point if your job is linguist on a Frank Herbert project then paying close attention to the details of the linguistics in the story world isn't the worst idea, even if your decision is to say "yes, but it's a bad/unworkable idea" after all that.
posted by cortex at 4:31 PM on March 1 [11 favorites]
I was wondering about that, too. In the memories of my ancestors from a mere two thousand years ago, I wouldn't be able to understand a damn thing anyone is saying. I am actually among the small percentage of people which has some reading comprehension of an ancient language, but I have zero spoken-reception capability.
Okay, so, yes, sorry I'm late, traffic was awful at the shield wall.
So I think this may only be outlined in detail in the wonderful Dune Encyclopedia, which Herbert did not write but approved wholeheartedly of and probably provided lots of notes for, but part of the lore of the Fremen is that on discovering the spice and the Water of Life after they were moved to Arrakis (in the latest in a series of forced migrations by colonial forces in the Imperium over the course of thousands of years), the Fremen Reverend Mothers gained a capacity for ancestral memory similar to that employed by the Bene Gesserit. The ability to, fairly literally, converse with every female ancestor tracing back from mother to mother in an unbroken chain (plus the ability to, near expected death or under duress of crisis, transfer these memories to another RM).
And in doing so, those Fremen priestesses were able to see, to their shock, just how far the language of their people had shifted over the course of 10K+ years, despite their devotion to maintaining a throughline of language and cultural tradition as an isolated and subjugated and sometimes scattered and then re-congregated people. They had thought they had dotingly maintained it; instead it had shifted incrementally over millennia to something basically unrecognizable.
So it's simultaneously true, in this aspect of the story (or the meta-story of the Encyclopedia, though I believe this is all hinted at in the books and implied by the density of Arabic vocabulary ), that (1) the pre-Imperial Arabic of more than ten thousand years ago would not survive natural language evolution in the form it took in Herbert's mid-century world, and (2) the detailed ancestral memory brought on by spice agony made the Fremen uniquely capable of a cultural education initiative to restore and return to the ancient forms of language resonant of contemporary Earth.
And in fact they're more primed to accomplish this than even the Bene Gesserit, who have a similar capacity for ancestral memory but are culturally ecumenical-and-then-some and better thought of as a bureaucratic political organization than any kind of coherent self-identifying people. The BG are mining their past memories for future advantages, levers of soft power, control over the galaxy and the flow of events; the Fremen are mining their past memories out of a desire to uphold their traditions and their sense of themselves as a people. The two groups are driven in opposite directions by the same fantastical capacity for retrospective.
None of this seems likely to have ever gotten anywhere near the films, but at a certain point if your job is linguist on a Frank Herbert project then paying close attention to the details of the linguistics in the story world isn't the worst idea, even if your decision is to say "yes, but it's a bad/unworkable idea" after all that.
posted by cortex at 4:31 PM on March 1 [11 favorites]
« Older Skewered Meat, Skewered | Officer-Involved Book Banning Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
Or, less snarkily and Mass Effect referency: I note the go to excuse people have for justifying putting their bigotry into fantasy and SF is realism, so when I hear that word I tend to automatically assume there's bigotry at play and the person saying it's all about realism is lying.
ESPECIALLY in this case, since Herbert explicitly said Chakobsa is derivitive of Arabic, Romani, and Croatian. He has flipping Arabic words right in his goddamn lexography at the end of Dune! Mostly not quite straight Arabic but slightly corrupted, but still obviously Arabic.
The bigotry against Arabs in Hollywood is even worse than Hollywood's racism against Black people.
posted by sotonohito at 9:33 AM on February 28 [26 favorites]