derived from q or gh (-y), the uvulars q kh (x) and gh (-y) the liquids / and r the glides w and > and the laryngeal h Absent from Fremen are the Arabic em phahc (pharyngcalized-vclaraized) consonants 4' $> / Pmb ^e PUK pharyngeals h and Ihe glottal stop (') has also disappeared Geminate or doubled consonants are still FREMEN LANGUAGE 235 FREMEN LANGl AGE evident as are the five vowels of ancient colloquial Arabic-a e i o u however distinctions in vocalic length as a phonologi cal feature have disappeared in Fremen Morphology Most words of Arabic den vation are based on a triconsonantal root eg k t b which when combined with van ous patterns of vowels generates different but semantically related words and parts of speech Thus from the root k t b are derived fata* (book) fconfc (writer) katab (he wrote) yiktitb (he writes) etc While the most an cient form of Terran Arabic showed such morphological complexities as grammatical gender dual and plural numbers in addition to singular plurals formed by consonant and vowel mutation as wel! as by suffixes noun cases and verbal moods later Arabic be came more simplified morphologically Fremen continued this trend drastically reducing the number of verb paradigms noun declensions plural forms and gender agreement rules This simplification is perhaps due to the large influx of foreign words into the lan guage during the Zensunm migrations, few of which fit the standard tnconsonantal root mold As an increasingly greater number of such words entered the language, new pat terns of declension conjugation, phvaltzation etc primarily in die form of standardized suffixes superseded the old Arabic conso nant/vowel mutation patterns For example old Arabic usually formed plurals via any of a number of different mutation patterns, e g htab (book), kutub (books), bob (door) abwab (doors) But Fremen with the exception of certain isolated archaisms, e g , ibar (tears) in Kitab al Ibar from abra (tear) employs one of three regular suffixes depending on the dialect -at (from Arabic -at a feminine plural marker) -an (probably adopted from the Tailara language of Gamma Vertis VII spoken by other transporter GO Beta Tegeuse) or u (probably the plural marker uw from the Blue Hill speech of the ditaubite miners of Rima, largest satellite of Ate V large numbers of these miners worked side by side with the Bremen on Rossak) Other simplifications include the loss of the dual and of gender distinction m adjectives, both disappearing by the end of the Zensunni s long stay on Salusa Secundus as noted in the ancient grammar written during their stay there by Ibin Manzuur Qur aan al nahw Syntax Fremen due to the morphologi cal simphf cations described above became a syntactically isolating (or root isolating) language dependent on word order and prepositions to indicate word to word rela tiomhips within sentences The language was verb medial i e the main verb of a sen tence followed the subject noun phrase or clause and preceded the object noun phrase or clause Fremen was relatively free m its use of syntactic transformations as compared to Arabic allowing for example the dele tion of relative pronouns and various other deletions It had expanded the Arabic con struct case (the so called idafa) to allow full verbal clauses to act as the complement of the head noun and had expanded the pat terns of negation Lexicon The original word stock of Fremen was of course primarily Arabic in derivation however it had been supplemented and in many cases superseded by infusions of words from the many languages' with which the Zensunm had come in contact Of certain Arabic etymology are such word and expressions as adab ^_,li1 insistent memory alam pjjl gnefs cares bakka Lfr^, The Weeper (Fremen legend) baklawa |? \)-4A_, dessert pastry bled ^jj*-> flat open desert el sayal J[sl_ J the rain of sand figh jtfi-" law jurisprudence (esp religious law) ghaflaty<-9 , distractedness negligence ghantma 'p