trength emng mark" indicates a doubled consonant Note _______ marks the base line of the writing, to show letters with descenders The following passage of Fremen and the accompanying transcription and translation demonstrate the usage of the script as well as affermg an example of the actual language The passage is from a speech by Muad Dib, given in Arrakis Awakening by the Princess Irulan (Arrakis Studies 15 Grumman Unit ed Worlds) Transcription innama nishuf al asir tnayytt u hty ayish liana zaratha zarati u gawlha gawli u ttshuf halt al hudud alman albaxf aywa hbarr adam al rnalum tishuf ham Translation Though we deem the captive dead yei does she live For her seed is my seed and her voice is my voice And she sees unto the farthest FREMEN LANGUAGE 238 FREMEN LANGUAGE reaches of possibility Yea unto the vale of the unknowable does she see because of me The coming of the prophet Paul Muad Dtb raised Fremen language and culture from its humble Zensunm roots to a short-lived but brilliant eminence throughout the galaxy It served as the sacred language of Rod's Impen-um and theology as the language of philoso phy, law, and education It was a flowering that surprised everyone but the Fremen NOTES 'Many Fremen terms remain controversial The most famous Fremen linguist Defa 1-Fanini was quite dubious (in Vol ID of the Taaj I Fremen [Salusa Secundus Morgan and Sharafc}) about the ultimate Arabic etymons of al gaib, postulating in This case a Farsi substratum and hence a Kulturwort According to a commentary on this passage in the Taaj Farsi a major language of the Isfahan e nou area of Pontnn became extinct arouad 7500 B G Quite controversial as well is the long-running debate in all known commentaries on the Taaj over the Fremen greeting formula The school of Basrah has attracted the majority of supporters for its contention that ul fnthar derives from Arabic khayr (i e , /xayr/), "good * or 'goodness,' via metathesis and ablaut (apophony) The Kufa school still finds favor in some scholarly circles, with the minority viewpoint that ttl kuhar is a direct caique of hieroglyphic root khr meaning 'splendid view*' or view from, seiendip' * The traditional response an nor is an archaic biconsonaittal root about which chapter 8 of Vol m of the Taaj deals Its complexities are much too detailed for discussion here, but suffice it to say that nor can be viewed as a derivative of root nr which could also yield nor mr tier etc 2Some scholars are of UK opinion (for example '1-Kisaa u in his 'I Kitab l-baan' fit I tughah [Salusa Secundas Morgan and Sharak] trans IL Gnvtt, Kisaa'us Lexicon {Topaz Carolus Umv Press]) that tkhuteigk is related to an ancient Arabic root meaning "sibling ' The transition of "sibling" to 'water seller's cry" is unparal leled in l