{"id":83,"date":"2025-10-11T17:58:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T21:58:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/?p=83"},"modified":"2025-10-11T17:58:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T21:58:06","slug":"fantasy-of-fantasy-a-comparison-of-language-in-queen-of-the-desert-and-dune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/fantasy-of-fantasy-a-comparison-of-language-in-queen-of-the-desert-and-dune\/","title":{"rendered":"Fantasy of Fantasy: A Comparison of Language in Queen of the Desert and Dune"},"content":{"rendered":"

In class, I briefly made a point about the use of language in <\/span>Queen of the Desert<\/span><\/i> (in which most of the dialogue is in English, with only certain buzzwords, names, and greetings in Arabic or relevant Middle Eastern languages) and the use of Arabic in made-up languages in fantastical films based off the Middle East, such as <\/span>Dune.<\/span><\/i> Where does one draw the line between accessibility, exoticization, and authenticity? When Herzog\u2019s Iran is as much a fantasy as Director Villeneuve\u2019s Arrakis, what lends one white-made artistic vision credibility and the other condemnation?<\/span><\/p>\n

After a bit of sleuthing, I found a New Yorker article, \u2018\u201cDune\u201d and the Delicate Art of Making Fictional Languages\u2019 (<\/span>https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/culture\/cultural-comment\/dune-and-the-delicate-art-of-making-fictional-languages?_sp=7e36c459-8134-41bc-9eee-8d6d99565401.1760207334616<\/span><\/a>), which ruminates adjacently on this topic. In Dune, <\/em>Arabic is the \u201clanguage of greatest influence\u2026[where the fantasy language] uses at least eighty terms with clear Arabic origins, many of them tied to Islam.\u201d Amongst these words are, most notably, <\/span>istislah<\/span><\/i> (\u201cnatural law\u201d), <\/span>ijaz<\/span><\/i> (\u201cprophecy\u201d), and names, such as <\/span>shai-hulud<\/span><\/i> (\u201cthing of eternity\u201d) and <\/span>mu\u2019addib <\/span><\/i>(teacher). Strikingly, the word <\/span>jihad<\/span><\/i>, while present in the books, is excluded purposefully in the films, as not to perpetuate modern negative associations. The reasoning for these inclusions is unique; of course, the filmmakers thought it apt to pay tribute to the Middle East, but they also reason that <\/span>Dune<\/span><\/i> takes place so far in the future the language must have evolved beyond recognition, just as how English has evolved dramatically since <\/span>Beowolf. <\/span><\/i>There are some other stand-out lines from the article; particularly, when addressing the white-washing of certain characters, scholar Khaldoun Kheli states that \u201cArabs can\u2019t be heroes\u2026we must be erased.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

These two films hold an interesting dichotomy; <\/span>Queen of the Desert <\/span><\/i>is a fantasy of a Middle Eastern past, while <\/span>Dune <\/span><\/i>is essentially a fantasy of a Middle Eastern future. With a shared inspiration, the similarities and differences are fascinating. Both films deal with the colonization of the Middle East (perhaps subconsciously suggesting, though this may be a bit of a long shot, that a place only becomes accessible and relevant after a white man has stepped into it). Herzog\u2019s film seems obviously fetishistic, while <\/span>Villeneuve <\/span>executes with more taste and tact. Both films suffer from White Hero Syndrome: Timothee Chalamet plays the world\u2019s legendary prophet <\/span>Lisan al-Gaib, <\/span><\/i>and Gertrude Bell is bestowed the title of Umm al-Mu’minin (wife of the prophet) by King Faisal (how interesting that these are both Islamic epithets of the highest honor, which the narrative and history has bestowed upon white characters).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This projects onto a greater point of Orientalism, which characterizes the East as essentially a colonial fantasy. There is quite a depressing argument to be made here, which is that in the past, present, and future, the Middle East is imprisoned within the exaggerated imaginations of white creators. However, that may be too reductionist of a generalization to make in such short a post, as camel races did exist, Gertrude Bell was in fact named Umm al-Mu’minin, and the argument about <\/span>Beowulf<\/span><\/i> does make quite a lot of sense. Rather, the key definer seems to be about framing, rather than content. However, I am\u00a0 unfortunately running out of space \u2014 hopefully a commentator can take it from here. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In class, I briefly made a point about the use of language in Queen of the Desert (in which most of the dialogue is in English, with only certain buzzwords, names, and greetings in Arabic or relevant Middle Eastern languages) and the use of Arabic in made-up languages in fantastical films based off the Middle … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Fantasy of Fantasy: A Comparison of Language in Queen of the Desert and Dune”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6527,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,15,14,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-colonial-fantasies","category-contemporary-manifestations","category-imperialism","category-race"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6527"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83\/revisions\/84"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}