Herbert’s intention was for these linguistic resonances to convey connections between our world and the world of his novels – that’s, our world some 20,000 years from now. “If you want to give the reader the solid impression that he is not here and now, but that something from the here and now has been transported to this distant place and time,” Herbert stated in a 1981 biography, in a passage quoting Ryding’s academic work: “What better way to tell our culture that this is so than to give it the language of this place.”
Critics yes questioned the decision of the filmmakers (including the Petersons) to not retain a few of the linguistic traces of latest cultures that the novel draws on. For example, in the novel, the Fremen rebel against their foreign rulers is known as a “jihad”; in the movie it is known as the “holy war”. Warner Bros., producer of the latest “Dune” movies, declined to comment.
The decision to not import more contemporary resonances “dilutes Herbert’s anti-imperialist vision”, Haris A. Durrani he wrote in The Washington Post after the release of “Dune: Part One”. Manvir Singh he argued last month in The New Yorker: “The world we see in ‘Dune’ was never intended to be completely separate from the one we know.”
David Peterson said that when constructing Chakobsa for “Dune: Part One” he tried to adapt to the book’s Fremen vocabulary while constructing a more complete, coherent language.
Beyond the pre-existing glossary, which was a set of words, Peterson said loyalty was about how the language actually functions and develops. He argued that the concept that a language 20,000 years in the future will retain essential elements of a contemporary language contradicts what we learn about linguistics.
“We have a very poor understanding,” Peterson said, referring to the general public, “that languages change over time, that every aspect of a language changes: the way it is pronounced, the meaning of the words, the grammar.”
He added: “The entire recorded history of the language is 6,000 years old.”
