Chakobsa

Did You Know?

• In the Dune universe, Chakobsa was a secretive language created by the Bhotani Assassins using mirabhasa principles during the first war of the assassins.
• It was later used in the eleventh millennium by the Bene Gesserit and used by the Fremen for rites and incantations.
• The Petersons also created a Chakobsa syllabary in addition to the romanization system.

Development

Herbert took the name from Chakobsa, a language spoken in the Caucasus, possibly learned from Lesley Blanch's The Sabres of Paradise (1960), which described it as a 'mysterious tongue'. His original language was strongly influenced by Arabic, with at least eighty terms derived from Arabic, many related to Islam, such as ayat, burhan, ijaz, ilm, istislah, and karama. For the films, David Peterson worked alone on the first film and with his wife Jessie on the second. They created a language that eschewed Arabic influence, arguing that the time depth of the Dune books made recognizable Arabic survival impossible. For example, Herbert's phrase Ya hya chouhada, derived from an Algerian war chant, became Addaam reshii a-zaanta in the film. This decision was criticized by a number of commentators.

Linguistic structure

Chakobsa has five short vowels, three long vowels, and twenty-three consonants. The consonants b, d, and g are unaspirated; in some environments, such as before t, v is devoiced to f. Consonant gemination occurs, indicated by doubling the consonant in romanization. Nouns have six cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, locative, allative, and ablative. Adjectives typically follow nouns, constituent order is verb–subject–object, and negation uses the particle so.