What Frank Herbert told us about Galach (in the Dune books)

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What Frank Herbert told us about Galach (in the Dune books)

Post by SandChigger »

I get 25 hits for "Galach" in the original six books.

Dune: 5 occurrences

"... And I thought she meant they didn't speak Galach on Arrakis, but she said that wasn't it at all." (Paul speaking)

She recognized Galach words, read: ...

GALACH: official language of the Imperium. Hybrid Inglo-Slavic with strong traces of cultural-specialization terms adopted during the long chain of human migrations.

HOUSES MINOR: planet-bound entrepreneur class (Galach: "Richece").

OUT-FREYN: Galach for "immediately foreign," that is: not of your immediate community, not of the select.

Children: 1 occurrence

Through it all there were conversations in a hundred or more dialects of Galach interspersed with harsh gutturals and squeaks of outrine languages which were gathered under the Holy Imperium.

God Emperor: 4 occurrences

"There are twenty-eight different words for melange in common Galach. They describe it by its intended use, by its dilution, by its age, by whether it came through honest purchase, through theft or conquest, whether it was the dower gift for a male or for a female, and in many other ways is it named. What do you make of this, Moneo?"

Idaho recognized words in Galach and four other languages, including the rare transite tongue of Perth.

The Galach which I speak here imposes itself. It is an outside frame of reference, a particular system.

Leto translated into Galach as he quoted: "The nightingale nests in the plum tree, but what will she do with the wind?"

Heretics: 7 occurrences

Tamalane would say no more. She returned to laying out the next day's lessons. "We will continue tomorrow," she said, "teaching you to identify the sources of the various accents of spoken Galach."

Duncan glanced at the tiled floor. Words had been worked in the tile along the cubicle's splashboard. It was a script that one part of him identified as an ancient thing from the old Harkonnen times but that another part of him found to be an all-too-familiar Galach.

Teg hid his ability to read lips. Anyone trained by the Bene Gesserit could read lips from almost any angle where they were visible. This man spoke a version of Old Galach.

"I do not make excuses." His lips shaped the Old Galach words with care. "You know we will do our best but I recommend that we pursue with vigor all other means of intercepting the ghola."

He spoke Old Galach but with that guttural accent which Duncan had never heard before, an odd stress on adjacent vowels. Was Ambitorm from the Scattering or a Gammu native? There obviously had been many linguistic drifts since the Dune days of Muad'dib. For that matter, Duncan recognized that all of the people in the Gammu Keep, including Teg and Lucilla, spoke a Galach that had shifted from the one he had learned as a pre-ghola child.

It was an inset doorway marked by a blue awning with two words on it in modern Galach: "Personal Service."

Chapter House: 8 occurrences

As they passed under it, he looked up at the street name burned into the entrance arch. Galach in an elegant script with flowing lines, Bene Gesserit decorative. All streets and buildings were labeled in that same cursive.

She knew how threatened the Rabbi must have felt listening to the singsong ululations of the Navigator's voice with its simultaneous mechtranslation into impersonal Galach.

Half-memories formed in his mind: his body in warm fluid, fed by tubes, massaged by machines, probed and questioned by Tleilaxu observers. He sensed murmurous responses from semi-dormant selves. The words had no meaning. It was as though he listened to a foreign language coming from his own lips but he knew it was ordinary Galach.

"They speak but it's an abbreviated Galach. Word bursts, I thought them. 'When eat?' 'You nice lady.' 'Want head scratch.' 'Sit here?' They appeared immediately responsive to the Handlers but not fearful. Between Futars and Handlers I had the impression there was mutual respect and liking."

Voice equally low-key. Oddly inflected Galach and no jargon, yet you sensed it just behind her tongue. Linguistic tricks were there. Murbella's knowledge emphasized that.

Odrade paused beside the door to look at a map displayed there. Black on white, little lines of paths and irregular outlines with labels in Galach.

The accented Galach was not hard to understand. She obviously adjusted unconsciously for the listener.

Dama's voice relapsed into soft Galach that Odrade had difficulty understanding. "So they have been to you...and made their offer. What fools you are to trust the..."
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