Thread by @hdernity

The DUNE 2 trailer. *Livid* abt the erasure.

In the bk, "Long live the fighters!" [lit. martyrs in Arabic] is "Ya hya chouhada" - from Algerian war for independence against France.

Film replaces it w (perhaps) gibberish. The audacity to parade this as the marketing tagline!

🧵

This is a bald erasure not only of Arabic & Islamic references (which I've written abt extensively elsewhere ), but, even more so, of the anti-colonial movements from which Frank Herbert, the author of DUNE, drew.tor.com/2021/10/18/the…

Another instance that shows the "jihad"/"crusade" erasure (, cf. my slightly different reading here https://t.co/YfG4pgNb4F) is one of a larger pattern to eliminate Islamic & Arab influences.aljazeera.com/opinions/2020/…
muse.jhu.edu/article/897704

As I've written @tordotcom () & @washingtonpost (https://t.co/37XEE4SR6a), the conlanger for the film, David J. Peterson, intentionally eliminated the bks' Arabic in his work on the films.

But let's dig a bit deeper into this pit of a pre-spice mass...tor.com/2021/10/18/the…
washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/1…

In an AMA, Peterson stated that the preservation of Arabic so far in the future was unrealistic.

This both (a) doesn't make sense in the context of the films & (b) misreads what Herbert was doing in the novels.

Allow me to elaborate...

(a) The films also use modern English & Mandarin (latter a big part of ads for the 1st film RE Yueh). There are also bagpipes which somehow represented the Atreides... even though... would bagpipes survive 20K yrs into the future?

So English & Mandarin are OK... but not Arabic?

(b) Herbert actually DID try to play w Arabic to imagine how it would change in the far future. My TOR piece () explored DUNE's speculative project to imagine how Islam, Arabs, & much else would change.

This included changes to the Arabic language.tor.com/2021/10/18/the…

I'm not going to go into much detail on how Herbert changed the Arabic, bc Professor Karin Christina Ryding, an Arabic linguist, has done a far better job of exploring this than I have in her article, "The Arabic of DUNE."

It's my fav article on DUNE.

benjamins.com/catalog/lal.37…

The article is paywalled, however. So if people want a thread on it, & if I have time, I could maybe do so.

For ex, Ryding shows how Herbert played w Hebrew & Arabic to alter words that shaped "Shai Hulud" & "Bene Gesserit," employing double meanings & changes to lang itself.

Onward. Another issue revealing Peterson's misunderstanding of the material.

In the same AMA, Peterson was asked abt Herbert's use of the Caucasus & replied, "there is nothing of the Caucasus in Dune"+"Herbert had absolutely no idea that 'Chakobsa' was used for a Caucasian lang"

Someone replied citing Will Collins's great essay showing Herbert was clearly aware of the subject, drawing extensively on Lesley Blanch's SABRES OF PARADISE on Caucasian Muslim struggles against Russian empire

lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-se…

Peterson's reply is basically a polite version of "Oh, my b!"

The issue here is: The bks refer to the lang of the Fremen (but also, IIRC, of many others, including some Bene Gesserit phrases/words) as "Chakobsa," which was used in the Caucasus.

BUT, many of the *actual* words & phrases in the novels are NOT Chakobsa. Instead...

The words/phrases that are *called* "Chakobsa" are actually directly from Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Turkish, & other languages (mostly Arabic).

In various instances, they are altered Arabic.

I've spoken w a few friends/colleagues who r native Arabic spkrs &/or in Islamic studies, &, acc'ding to them, many of the longer phrases in the bks seem to be playing w lang, as if Herbert is trying to change phrases -- perhaps to imagine how lang would change in the far future.

When Herbert translates some of these lines, he translates the Arabic correctly (or w twists that suggest his playfulness rather than igornace). So he clearly knows it's (modified) Arabic, & not the actual lang Chakobsa.

My sense is Herbert wanted to represent the Fremen as descendants of the Caucasian Muslims (among many others), & so described their lang this way. But he also wanted to use Arabic.

Make what u will of what that all means wrt worldbuilding/themes.

But Peterson is definitely wrong to say Herbert had no idea what he was doing when he called the lang Chakobsa & used Arabic(ish) lang instead.

This is similar to another bad take on DUNE, which is that Herbert's Arabic modifications were orientalist gobbledygook -- when the whole pt (as Ryding's essay shows) is linguistic playfulness. U can't play if u don't know what u r doing. Same goes for the Chakobsa/Arabic issue.

I've spoken to my native Arabic spkr/Islamic studies colleagues abt the lang Peterson created for the DUNE films: .

As far as they can tell, this bears absolutely no resemblance to Arabic at all. But others, plz chime in & correct me if wrong!dedalvs.com/work/dune/misc…

My guess is Peterson *might* have been trying to approximate actual Chakobsa. Which is great. But it would be nice to ALSO include Arabic (alongside the many other langs used) -- particularly in a way that's at least somewhat discernible to modern ears.

Herbert's Arabic mods arent so extreme Arabic spkrs cant sense familiarity.

Radically new lang, like Peterson wants, evacuates the pwr of Herbert's historical imagination. DUNE's brilliant bc we detect elements of the past that've changed. Not bc the future is entirely foreign.

Anyways. Complaints abt erasing "jihad" or "ya hya chouhada" might be taken as those of ornery bk purists who want total fidelity. But these arent isolated or small changes - they are big on their own, &, as I wrote for WashPo, pt of a larger erasure washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/1…

Erasing jihad eliminated DUNE's inspiration from anti-colonial jihad movements -- as ya hya chouhada eliminates its inspiration from a specific movement, the Algerian war for independence.

I mean, wtf? WHY?

Oc, we have at least 1 ans as to why.

As I've also written in TOR & WashPo, the Islamic & Arab (among other) influences were cut bc the filmmakers thought they were mere exotic set dressing to create a foreign-sounding future. My articles have already torn this rding to shreds.

This rationale is hilarious bc Hans Zimmer did w the music EXACTLY what they say Herbert did w lang - used wooden instmts, the duduk, & vaguely Arabic-sounding ululations to create "ethnic," "African" tones like his LION KING score. I ranted abt this b4:

https://twitter.com/hdernity/status/1506633013962018818

The other justification I've seen is that avoiding the Islamic & Arab influences is to avoid the "problematic" aspect of later portraying the Fremen as fanatics, etc.

But as Ive said in mult venues, u don't avoid a rept prob by erasing the reptn. You confront it & do the work.

This jstfcn also doesnt work bc the films still mostly show the Fremen as POC & offworlders as white, so it still risks the same "problem." That "irrational black rage" w the Jamis scene at the end performed exactly this prob (Jamis dream scenes are not a panacea here).

Regardless - as I've written elsewhere DUNE's Islamic & Arab influences extend BEYOND only the Fremen to offworlders, too.

Moreover, the jihad/fanatics narrative is far more complicated, as I discussed @GJIA_Online, (, transcript: https://t.co/YfG4pgNb4F)podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/har…
muse.jhu.edu/article/897704

Maybe these complexities are too much for a mainstream audience. That's not an excuse that satisfies me. Id rather have a project that fails but tries to do something int'ing than this blandness. No spice!

A writing maxim: Always assume your audience is smarter than you are.

Ppl say there'll b more Islamic & Arab elements in DUNE 2 bc of more Fremen scenes. Setting aside that this assumes an orientalist binary (not in bks) of Fremen as "POC/Muslimy"/offworlders as white, erasing ya hya chouhada indicates these hopes are narrow.

Remember when ppl thought the emperor/his family would be black? LOL.

What I'm learning from all of this is that they really, really do not care.

If u go to interviews w the artists who created the artwork, fashion, architecture, music, etc. for DUNE 1, none - NONE - make any ref to anything Islamic or Arab.

Some viewers say they see the influences. But what's there is the bare min (Lisan al-Gaib, Muad'Dib, etc).

As I said on @NPR, if u order an oreo milkshake & they give u a vanilla milkshake & sprinkle bits of 1 cookie on top, is that an oreo milkshake to u? It isnt to me. Im not happy w crumbs.

npr.org/2021/11/08/105…

I've addressed some of the other erasures here hdernity.medium.com/supplement-den…

In sum, Peterson & the filmmakers replaced Herbert's playful speculation w the Arabic lang & refs to anti-colonial mvmts... w gibberish.

I ranted to my mom. She said, "U should write something called 'The Gibberish of Dune.'"

Just now, @nhaider74 on our DUNE bk club chat: "I think they should all just say “jub jub” or “meep meep” (like in Mars Attacks)." 🤬

Herbert drew from the past to create a future. The filmmakers think abstractly abt the future, evacuating Islam & Muslims of cultural/historical specificity. Over 10 yrs ago, contrasting 21st-c scifi to DUNE, I called this "the failure of post-9/11 sci fi"
academia.edu/26694983/The_F…

This thread turned out way longer than anticipated.

Here is a meme that may serve as your bird site sparknotes so that you don't have to read any of it.

Bi-la kaifa! YA HYA CHOUHADA!

lol