pronunciation

[Viq]

Atreides is from the Greek, meaning son of Petreus, (therefore Agammemnon and/or Menelaos), and since i know Leto is also from Greek, isn't it OK to assume that most of the words FH uses are from the Greek??

[nemafakei]

"Atreides is from the Greek, meaning son of Petreus"

That is a hell of a typo... P seems the furthest letter from A possible!

"isn't it OK to assume that most of the words FH uses are from the Greek"

No!

We know that Harkonnen is Finnish, that a lot of the Chakbosa words are arabic, so why on earth should we assume the rest is greek?!

[Dante]

"Atreides is from the Greek, meaning son of Petreus"

That is a hell of a typo... P seems the furthest letter from A possible!

In other words, it's Atreus, not Petreus, Viq. Just thought a bit of clarification was needed...

[Viq]

Yeah, sorry about that

[nemafakei]

I've just found something...

scytale - σκυτάλη [skyt̪alɛː] A cylinder, a snake

[Sober]

Hmmm how does Fedaykin go; I take the EFBD way even before Emperor.

The EBFD way: FED-A-KIN

Miniseries: FE-DIE-KIN

and how the heck did they come to how to prononce Bene in BG or BT?

Lynch's movie says: BENNIE

I think the miniseries says BEN-E (short E)

[Dante]

FEH-DA-KINN. I didn't like the Miniseries pronounciation. Would be like pronouncing 'Kay' as 'Kai,' grr...

BENN-AE Gesserit. As in Ben

[nemafakei]

Fedaykin is arabic. It seems to have quite a few letters (written in abjad) for an arabic word, but nevetheless, it's presumably not just a lexical root.

Here are what I consider the two main possibilities for its spelling - and so pronunciation.

f_ed_ayk_in (فدكن)

f_ed_ayk_iyn (فدكين)

In either case, the e would be short, the ay similar to BrE 'eye' - [αι], and the f, d, k, n as the English consonants. In the former case, the i would be a short i [ι] and in the latter, iy is the arabic long vowel with BrE value 'ee' [i:]

Bene Gesserit is bad Latin. "As in Ben

[Dante]

A hard G? No, no.... *Sob*

[nemafakei]

Sorry, but there's no evidence for a 'j' sound.

[Sober]

Sorry, but there's no evidence for a 'j' sound.

What about words like "Genius"? There's a J (like JELLO) sound there. and Geletin.

[nemafakei]

Well, that's more to do with english spelling rules. Words fully assimilated into the language, such as genius, were subject to sound changes such as [g] > [dʒ]. I'm just giving the Latin pronunciation, which should be preferred in this case.

[Tako]

Well, that's more to do with english spelling rules. Words fully assimilated into the language, such as genius, were subject to sound changes such as [g] > [dʒ]. I'm just giving the Latin pronunciation, which should be preferred in this case.

maybe I'm not paying attention but why was it again that we should prefer the latin pronunciation?

[Khan]

Bene Gesserit is bad Latin. "As in Ben

[nemafakei]

Well, I'm just giving the rules for the pronunciation of nonnative words. When addressing someone as monsieur, you don't pronounce it as an english word, but a French one. Only when a word is actually converted into a native word do native spelling rules apply: and Bene Gesserit is definitely not of such a form.

On the other hand, I can't tell you how FH intended it (I suspect that has a lot to do with his association of the Jesuits with the BG). I can only tell you the way you would expect it be pronounced.