Why A Linguist Thinks They Suck
Posted: 08 Oct 2008 19:29
TOC: REASON #2 - REASON #3 - REASON #4 - REASON #5
REASON #1: GENERAL LINGUISTIC IGNORANCE & FAILURE TO DO (EVIDENTLY) ANY RESEARCH
Let's start with this connection they're trying to make now between their Muadru and Muad'Dib. (I'll try to get to interesting things like hrethgir someday as well.)
First off: Frank liked to "mix it up" a bit when playing with the Arabic (and other) words he used in his books. The name Muad'Dib is a perfect example. There is an actual Arabic word, mu'addib, a participle of the verb '-D-B (from which adab is also derived, btw), meaning "teacher" (lit. "one who imparts culture" or something like that; remember that Frank has Stilgar tell Paul that the muad'dib/kangaroo rat is also called the "instructor-of-boys").
In transliterations of Arabic, the apostrophe usually indicates alif, the glottal stop (the sound between the vowels in "uh-oh!" So you have to stop your breath between the "u" and the "a"; the Arabic word here would never become "mwa-" in other words). Frank moved the apostrophe to between the two "d"s...rendering it basically meaningless (it's unpronouncable there, between two other stops), but resulting in an exotic and memorable orthographic variant.
Returning to the original Arabic word, the alif, "d" and "b" are the triliteral root, the essential elements that bear the meaning. The mu- prefix, vowels "a" and "i" and doubling (gemmination) of the "d" are all added as part of the morphological process of forming a verbal participle in Arabic. (Aren't you glad that in English we usually just add "ing" or "ed"!) There are, as a result, literally thousands of Arabic words beginning with mu-.
Because Kevin and the other guy are obviously fairly ignorant when it comes to things language-related (and can't be bothered to do any actual research...it BLOCKS Kevin's creative juice flow, evidently), they probably thought they'd just coin some word that kinda looked/sounded like Muad'Dib and later try to say they were related.
Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that in the real world. Or more importantly, even in Frank's Duniverse. (Look at Muadru. They've obviously analyzed Muad'Dib into two elements, muad + dib, taken the first and added some suffix -ru [of GAWD knows what meaning] to it.) But I guess in the Hacked Duniverse, anything goes?
Something they're going to have to explain:
Why the main element of the name of a vanished people (muad) became part of the name given to a rodent that wasn't transplanted to Arrakis until Pardot Kynes began his terraforming efforts. (Were the Muadru teachers? We know they were gifted with prophetic abilities from the Legends books, right?
)
[2009.10.27 edit: added REASON header at top] [2010.11.09 edit: added ToC links at top]
REASON #1: GENERAL LINGUISTIC IGNORANCE & FAILURE TO DO (EVIDENTLY) ANY RESEARCH
Let's start with this connection they're trying to make now between their Muadru and Muad'Dib. (I'll try to get to interesting things like hrethgir someday as well.)
First off: Frank liked to "mix it up" a bit when playing with the Arabic (and other) words he used in his books. The name Muad'Dib is a perfect example. There is an actual Arabic word, mu'addib, a participle of the verb '-D-B (from which adab is also derived, btw), meaning "teacher" (lit. "one who imparts culture" or something like that; remember that Frank has Stilgar tell Paul that the muad'dib/kangaroo rat is also called the "instructor-of-boys").
In transliterations of Arabic, the apostrophe usually indicates alif, the glottal stop (the sound between the vowels in "uh-oh!" So you have to stop your breath between the "u" and the "a"; the Arabic word here would never become "mwa-" in other words). Frank moved the apostrophe to between the two "d"s...rendering it basically meaningless (it's unpronouncable there, between two other stops), but resulting in an exotic and memorable orthographic variant.
Returning to the original Arabic word, the alif, "d" and "b" are the triliteral root, the essential elements that bear the meaning. The mu- prefix, vowels "a" and "i" and doubling (gemmination) of the "d" are all added as part of the morphological process of forming a verbal participle in Arabic. (Aren't you glad that in English we usually just add "ing" or "ed"!) There are, as a result, literally thousands of Arabic words beginning with mu-.
Because Kevin and the other guy are obviously fairly ignorant when it comes to things language-related (and can't be bothered to do any actual research...it BLOCKS Kevin's creative juice flow, evidently), they probably thought they'd just coin some word that kinda looked/sounded like Muad'Dib and later try to say they were related.
Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that in the real world. Or more importantly, even in Frank's Duniverse. (Look at Muadru. They've obviously analyzed Muad'Dib into two elements, muad + dib, taken the first and added some suffix -ru [of GAWD knows what meaning] to it.) But I guess in the Hacked Duniverse, anything goes?
Something they're going to have to explain:
Why the main element of the name of a vanished people (muad) became part of the name given to a rodent that wasn't transplanted to Arrakis until Pardot Kynes began his terraforming efforts. (Were the Muadru teachers? We know they were gifted with prophetic abilities from the Legends books, right?
)[2009.10.27 edit: added REASON header at top] [2010.11.09 edit: added ToC links at top]
)
