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Origins of the Dune houses/communities

Ellinas

By Ellinas
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Ellinas

Ellinas

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For what I conclude by myself:

House Atreides descend from the Greeks (The name Atreides, first names of the ancestors of Leto and Paul, Caladan has a Greece like climate etc.)

House Harkonnen descend from the Germans (The Harkonnen name, their appearance, their relation with industry etc.)

House Corrino descend from the Italians (Their name, they are the ones who rule the empire - bringing in mind the Roman empire. However many of the Corrino first names are Arab-like.

The Fremen descend from the Arabs (Their appearance, way of life, people and place names, their traditions have many Islamic elements.)

I would like to hear what the Dune experts know about that. Am I right? And who the other houses/communities descend from?

Dante

Dante

Posted
Posted

Well, one out of four isn't bad...  :P

House Atreides was said to draw its line directly back to the Greek hero Agamemnon, and indeed the word Atreides is of Greek origin (Atreides = 'son/s of Atreus, Agamemnon's father was Atreus). You could draw parallels between Caladan and Greece, although the similarity of the name to Caledonia, the latin for Scotland, might lead one to think twice. Personally, I think they are both coincidences and that Caladan has little or no implied relation to any modern country.

We believe Harkonnen to stem from either Finnish or Germanic roots; there are a few topics on the subject that you can search for. I would hesitate to link them to anything through industry. The Dune Encyclopaedia apparantly (I haven't checked) writes that they were descended from the Romanov line of Russia.

The Corrino took their name from Corrin, Battle of. So prior to that the family's name was not Corrino, and thus no connections using it can be made.

The Fremen were descended from zensunni travellers, and sunnis are muslims. Therefore one would imagine that their belief has some islamic roots. There are more details on this that I'm sure one of the others will explain, but it's not an area I find particularly interesting. However, these are a whole people, not a family. It would be highly unlikely that they all share a common genetic lineage. Their way of life is simply explain by their location. They live in a desert. It is therefore likely that they would adopt similar methods of living as those who have lived in deserts before, even if they have no connection.

Exact lineage has been debated before, and one important point to keep in mind is that ancestry is not precise. No family confines itself to those of a particular nationality tracable back however many generations (those that do tend to die out). Given the time involved, it would be not improbable that everyone in the Imperium would have at least one ancestor from every currently existing country.

Ellinas

Ellinas

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Well, one out of four isn't bad...  :P

House Atreides was said to draw its line directly back to the Greek hero Agamemnon, and indeed the word Atreides is of Greek origin (Atreides = 'son/s of Atreus, Agamemnon's father was Atreus). You could draw parallels between Caladan and Greece, although the similarity of the name to Caledonia, the latin for Scotland, might lead one to think twice. Personally, I think they are both coincidences and that Caladan has little or no implied relation to any modern country.

We believe Harkonnen to stem from either Finnish or Germanic roots; there are a few topics on the subject that you can search for. I would hesitate to link them to anything through industry. The Dune Encyclopaedia apparantly (I haven't checked) writes that they were descended from the Romanov line of Russia.

The Corrino took their name from Corrin, Battle of. So prior to that the family's name was not Corrino, and thus no connections using it can be made.

The Fremen were descended from zensunni travellers, and sunnis are muslims. Therefore one would imagine that their belief has some islamic roots. There are more details on this that I'm sure one of the others will explain, but it's not an area I find particularly interesting. However, these are a whole people, not a family. It would be highly unlikely that they all share a common genetic lineage. Their way of life is simply explain by their location. They live in a desert. It is therefore likely that they would adopt similar methods of living as those who have lived in deserts before, even if they have no connection.

Exact lineage has been debated before, and one important point to keep in mind is that ancestry is not precise. No family confines itself to those of a particular nationality tracable back however many generations (those that do tend to die out). Given the time involved, it would be not improbable that everyone in the Imperium would have at least one ancestor from every currently existing country.

Well it isn't bad don't be ironic  :D. I am not that old to Duniverse.

The name Harkonnen reminds more a Danish name, however your explanation is the most logical: that they are from Slavic and Germanic roots.

Caid Ivik

Caid Ivik

Posted
Posted

Dune Encyclopedia has much about such things. Altough not in style as ie Silmarillion is to Lord of the Rings or ahnlich. But about Harkonnens, once we had even a visitor from Finnland who had such name here, so I would look there for the roots  ;D

Davidu

Davidu

Posted
Posted

I was amused to see that the name of the Bene Gesserit planet was Wallach IX. During the middle ages romanians were called wallachians, and the name of one of the three middle age kindgoms was Wallachia.

The english translation is innacurate, as the original term was "vlah", "valah". The funny thing is that only the foreigners refferd to us with that name, in that time this "nickname" was quite offending for us.

One other name is Ordos, as I found out at one time is the name of a province in China.

Mihail

Mihail

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Posted

The Dune Encyclopaedia is hopelessly hard to find online, as Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson(Damn them! Damn them to 50,000 years in Hell!) have declared it non-canonical and have stopped it's printing. So your best bet to find it would be on Ebay(Although it costs a small fortune) or a good library. Sorry. I gave up looking for it some time ago.  :(

Mihail

Mihail

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Posted

I guess this may help:

*Sob!* Why do you hurt me so, MrFlibble?! WHY?! When I tried it, it gave me a 'Problem loading page' and said thus:

The connection has timed out

The server at www.thedune.ru is taking too long to respond.

Why?!Why, for the love of Frank, WHY?! I presume it works for you? If you could, could you send me the .pdf file?

Mihail

Mihail

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Posted

I takes a lifetime to attach on Yahoo. :(

Ah! Nevermind, it is working now. Now all I need is Dante, so I can grin smugly when he finds out that I got the Dune Encyclopaedia for free while he must have paid some outrageous sum of money to get his hands on it. Well, I didn't get it for free, I paid with my eyesight, but meh.  ;)

Dante

Dante

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Posted
True, but free > $$$, in most cases.
PDF = lack of demand on publishers for printing new copies of the Encyclopaedia = self-justifying prequel authors. Buy it.
Why is Dante so cheap with words?

Every so often I grow tired of my own circumlocution.

Ellinas

Ellinas

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Posted

I downloaded the encyclopedia and I found out that most of the Dune houses communities are based/originated in real historical groups/cultures. Frank Herbert had a very good historical knowledge.

After my search in Dune encyclopedia I found out the following:

Old Terran houses

House Steel: Russia

House Washington: USA

House Windsor: Britain

House Abraham: Israel

House Ur-Haq: Pakistan

House De Gaulle: France (??)

House Nippon: Japan

House Zedong: China

House Gandhi: India

Dune houses/communities and their Terran origin

House Atreides: Greek origin

House Harkonnen: Russian-Greek origin

The Fremen: Arab origin

House Medvedev: Russian origin

House Ginaz: Hispanic origin

|House Wikkheiser: Dutch origin

House Isfahan: Persian origin

House Andersson: Swedish origin (??)

House Ordos: Chinese/Mongol origin (??)

House Moritanni: Italian origin (??)

House Wallach: Vlach origin (??)

The Bene Gesserit originated from the area somewhere between Mesopotamia and India, I could not conclude the exact location.

I realized that Corinno is not exactly a house like the others, but the house which rules the empire takes the title Corrino. The generation of Elrood/Saddam must be of Middle Eastern origin.

Mihail

Mihail

Posted
Posted

PDF = lack of demand on publishers for printing new copies of the Encyclopaedia = self-justifying prequel authors. Buy it.

Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Andersen have declared the book non-canonical and have gotten the publisher to stop printing it, and I doubt they're going to reconsider their position. IE, no permission from BH and KJA= No more printings of Dune Encyclopaedia.  :-

Ellinas

Ellinas

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  • Author
Posted

I'm so amused you say Vlach and not Romanian  ;D

Is that how you commonly call us?

Well, from what I know the Vlachs seperated into too kinds: Romanians and Aromanians. The Romanians stayed in the Danube area where they are till today, but the Aromanians moved to the South in other Balkan countries. Many of them came in Greece also - Today we have about 100,000 of Aromanian descedants here.

The word Wallach reminds us all the Vlachs. Aromanians also, which are not considered Romanians. Please correct me if I am wrong, you know your country's history better  ;D.

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