The Travels of Sindbad the Sailor – Text in Tashelhiyt Berber (South Morocco) with a Translation in English

Including a CD-ROM with the original Tashelhiyt Berber Text in Arabic Script

Author: Harry Stroomer. Series edited by: Harry Stroomer.

Series: BS Berber Studies Volume 59

2023
16 pp. Roman, 149 pp.
CD-ROM with the complete text (searchable pdf file) and with the original Tashelhiyt Berber Text in Arabic Script (157 pages in facsimile)
Text language(s): English
Format: 170 x 240 mm
380 g
Paperback
€ 49.80

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In December 1994, the author found a document containing the Travels of Sindbad the Sailor written in a modest school exercise book (cahier d’écolier). It was a text translated from Arabic into Tashelhiyt Berber, written in Arabic script by Ibrahim al-Kunki, a prominent language assistant of Arsène Roux, a renowned French berberologist.

Al-Kunki, an expert in the Tashelhiyt Berber literary tradition wrote his translation in his own mother tongue, the Ashtuken dialect of Tashelhiyt Berber (south-east of Agadir). His translation has 157 pages (1,555 text lines). When al-Kunki started his translation is unknown, but he must have finished it in or some time before 1955, because of Roux’s handwritten note on the cover of the document saying that he (Roux) finished checking the document for words and phrases in 1955. The document has the archival number 34.3.1 on page 40 of the Fonds Roux Catalogue by Stroomer & Peyron 2003 (Berber Studies volume 6).

Some pages of the manuscript have explanatory glosses or remarks in the margins and at the bottom made by al-Kunki. As said earlier, the whole document is written in in Arabic script, in the characteristic hand of al-Kunki ubiquitously present in the documents of the Fonds Roux. While reading the first pages of al-Kunki’s translation in 1994, the author was fascinated by his translation skills and the fluency of his style. He considered and still considers the work as a very interesting Tashelhiyt Berber literary document and, at the same time, as an important linguistic document made by a highly educated traditional scholar who was an extraordinary competent speaker of Tashelhiyt Berber.

Following the links below you will find further text editions with transcriptions and translations in English or French, partly from the archive of Arsène Roux:

Accompanying material:

• An Anthology of Tashelhiyt Berber Folktales (South Morocco) (ISBN 978-3-89645-381-5)
• Catalogue des archives berbères du « Fonds Arsène Roux » (ISBN 978-3-89645-385-3)
• Contes berbères chaouis de l’Aurès, d’après Gustave Mercier (ISBN 978-3-89645-382-2)
• Contes berbères de Figuig (Sud-est marocain) (ISBN 978-3-89645-934-3)
• Poésie berbère de Figuig (ancienne et moderne) (ISBN 978-3-89645-948-0)
• Tashelhiyt Berber Folktales from Tazerwalt (South Morocco) (ISBN 978-3-89645-383-9)
• Tashelhiyt Berber Texts from Ida u Tanan (South Morocco) (ISBN 978-3-89645-388-4)
• Tashelhiyt Berber Texts from the Ayt Brayyim, Lakhsas and Guedmioua Region (South Morocco) (ISBN 978-3-89645-384-6)
• Textes berbères des Ait Izdeg (Moyen Atlas marocain) – Textes originaux en fac-similé avec traductions (ISBN 978-3-89645-939-8)

Cross-reference:

• Berber Texts from Siwa (Egypt) (ISBN 978-3-89645-946-6)
• Poetic Meter and Musical Form in Tashlhiyt Berber Songs (ISBN 978-3-89645-398-3)
• Tradition orale et résistance amazighe dans l’Atlas marocain (1912-1936) (ISBN 978-3-89645-952-7)
• Tuareg Elementary Course (Tahaggart) (ISBN 978-3-89645-929-9)

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