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Mixed Canonicity

This article refers to elements from both
Original Dune & Expanded Dune

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Galach was the official language of the Imperium, and by far the most widely spoken language in the known universe.

It originated primarily from English and various Slavic tongues, along with numerous other ancient Earth languages. As with any language, over the millennia it evolved and adopted various cultural markers.

Galach was spoken in one form or other by the majority of conventional humans, as well as by some genetically altered humans, such as the futars and the Bene Tleilax. Written Galach was generally understood from one planet to another, despite regional dialects.

Several groups spoke Galach in addition to specialized languages (e.g. the Atreides Battle Language) and arcane variants (e.g. the native Fremen language). Other groups spoke Galach in addition to ancient Earth languages or older largely obsolete languages like Chakobsa. An example of this was the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood: Reverend Mothers periodically spoke old French.

Examples of Galach[]

  • baradit nehiidit beed gwarp tau nubukt - Atreidean Galach: "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."
  • bashar - in terms such as Colonel Bashar, literally Colonel-General. Possibly derived from or inspied by the Russian and Cold War Eastern Bloc military rank, but here expressed from the Turkish, pasha -- , i.e. "nobleman", "general".
  • Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles - The name of the CHOAM corporation has more of a Romance language sound, with English-based and French-based elements, and minor elements from Germanic languages. Suggested possible translations of the name include "Honourable/Honest Union/Combine for the Advancement of Increased/Greater Trade" (Combine - an economic or industrial union, a combine, orig. a Latin and French root; Honnete - Middle French and Late Latin root for "(The) Honourable" style honorifics (of persons or organizations/guilds); Ober - modern German for "upper" (adjective), and Old German for "upper", "very", "super", loosely "the heightening of"; Advancer - Old/Middle French and Late Latin, "(for) the advancement of"; Mercantiles - trade/commerce, or alternately, trade items, trade goods) [1]
  • Landsraad - a Germanic languages influenced term, based primarily on Scandinavian languages, but also similar to the equivalent German, Dutch, etc. terms. A composite word, based on lands- ("of the land", "of the realm") and raad ("council", "assembly council"). Compare with present day Dutch, Afrikaans and Danish Landsraad (the latter's more modern spelling is Landsråd, used in e.g. the Grønlands Landsråd, a Greenlandic provincial council [2]), or with the present day German term Rat, meaning "council", "conseil". The Landsraad of the Dune universe can thus be loosely translated as the "Council of the Land", or "Council of the Realm", which fits its description as the assembly/parliament of the Imperium's major and minor noble houses and various organizations. (Also compare with historical terms such as landsknecht, "armed servant of the realm", used for a type of mercenary in the late-medieval and early modern Holy Roman Empire. [3] Frank Herbert might have included terms like Landsraad to equate the Imperium to the medieval and early modern Holy Roman Empire, which used mostly German-derived and Latin-derived terms for its official governing terminology.) [4]

Appearances in the Dune series[]

Virtually all Dune works feature Galach, however the novels and short stories where it is mentioned by name are:

Behind the scenes[]

Frank Herbert's decision to note that Galach was, at its base, an "Inglo-Slavic hybrid", might slightly reflect the era in which he wrote the first Dune novel. In the early 1960s, the Cold War was in full swing, the Cuban Missile Crisis taking place only recently, in 1962. Between the late 1940s and the late 1980s, the world was divided into two competing power blocs, with English and Russian seen as the prestige languages in the politics and militaries of the West and East Bloc, respectively.

Though there had been regular predictions about the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the East Bloc, as late as the 1980s, it was generally considered possible that the Cold War could last decades or centuries. Science fiction literature written during the Cold War era often reflected these assumptions, sometimes to the extreme of predicting a Cold War lasting centuries or millennia. Geopolitical developments since the late 1980s have brought an end to the more wilder predictions, with English arguably even more in use internationally, but Russian diminished in global prestige, though still a sizable international language.

Frank Herbert's hint at the initial basis for Galach might suggest that the Dune universe might have had the use of English and Russian as major prestige languages at some point in its more ancient history. This is either due to a prolonged Cold War, unlike in our world, or due to entirely unrelated developments much further into the future. Herbert never specifies which Slavic language Galach might have borrowed from the most, and though Russian is a likely candidate, some old Zensunni phrases used by the Fremen point to languages like Serbo-Croatian. Needless to say, Galach and the other languages of the Dune universe are only very distant descendants of contemporary real world languages, and are likely almost unrecognizable after roughly 20,000 years of additional future development and mutual hybridization.

Portrayal in adaptations[]

In the live-action adaptations of the Dune series, most of the English-speaking characters are, in-universe, likely using mostly Galach for mutual communication. For the sake of the audience, the language is thus portrayed as contemporary English. The likelihood of English standing in for Galach increases in scenes where people of otherwise very different cultures meet and converse with each other. Though these conversations are fluent on both sides, the different accents and tempo of speaking seem to hint at somewhat differing levels of familiarity with the language.

The 2021 film adaptation seems to emphasize the widespread use of Galach by having characters from a wide array of cultures and groups speak English in a variety of accents, in a relatively consistent manner. Most of House Atreides and their retainers speak with a North American accent, though Jessica Atreides has a British accent (possibly a nod to her becoming a member of the Atreides family in more recent decades), and Dr. Yueh has his own distinct accent. House Harkonnen also features characters with both European-accented and North American-accented English. Dr. Liet Kynes, the half-Fremen descendant of an outworlder, speaks with a North American accent (though her actress is British) and Kynes' daughter Chani also sports a North American accent (her actress American herself). In contrast, the vast majority of the other Fremen, including Stilgar, have very distinct accents not associated with anglophone countries.

Linguist David J. Peterson, who developed the constructed languages and gesture-based battle language for the film, also coached Javier Bardem to give Stilgar a more distinct fictional accent (rather than just Bardem's own natural accent). The added accent for Stilgar was based on the phonetics Peterson developed for the Fremen dialect of the Chakobsa language. Since Chakobsa is the other lingua franca of the setting after Galach, and the Fremen have their own variety of Chakobsa, the actors portraying the non-Kynes Fremen were meant to have their own accent while speaking both Chakobsa (with other people who understand it) and Galach (with most people, especially outworlders). The conversations between Stilgar and duke Leto or the conversations between Stilgar, Jamis, Paul and Jessica are thus apparently in Galach, just with the different accents of the individual speakers. Jamis' accent, with its occasional elements that are similar to features in North American accents, might be an indication that he's a more regular speaker of Galach, or has tried to somewhat match the accents of outworlders he's met over the years.

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