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8/13/2019 CTC EALL Mauritania

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Encyclopedia of

Arabic Languageand Linguistics

General EditorKees Versteegh

Associate EditorsMushira EidAlaa ElgibaliManfred WoidichAndrzej Zaborski

Volume III

Lat-Pu

B R I LL

Rfrence de l'article publi :

Taine-Cheikh, Catherine (2008), "Arabic of Mauritania", vol. III (Lat-Pu), pp.

169-176, in K. Versteegh (editor-in-chief), Encyclopedia of Arabic Language

and Linguistics (EALL), Leiden : Brill.


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In 1960, Mauritania, a French colony alongthe Atlantic Coast in West Africa, achievedindependence under the name of the IslamicRepublic of Mauritania. The name Mauritania,once used as the name of the Roman colonies ofNorth Africa (Mauretania), was reintroducedby the colonial administration to designatethis western part of the Saharo-Sahelian zone,which was called in Arabic literature bildinqcountry of inq, trb al-b:n land ofthe Whites (Taine-Cheikh 1990), or bild as-

sayba country of anarchy.The borders of the country are as arbitraryas its name. Indeed, they do not follow at allthe territorial limits of the Moorish Arabic-speaking country, which extended far beyondthose borders, especially in the north, inthe region of the Rio de Oro and of theSagya el-amra, occupied by the Spanish.The Senegal River, chosen as the southernborder, is inhabited on either side by the sameblack African populations, which have Pulaar,Soninke, or Wolof as their mother tongue.

Originally, Mauritania was conceived asa transition country between arabity andafricanity (Baduel 1990), hence the situationof Arabic is particularly complex but also, as inother places, subject to ceaseless change.

1. H i s t o r i c a l b a c k g r o u n d : T h e

r e l i g i o u s A r a b i z a t i o n

A variety of Arabic (assniyya) is currently themother tongue of a majority (usually estimatedbetween 70 and 80 percent of a total of 2.9million people) of the Mauritanian population.

This is the consequence of the abandonmentof the Berber language (Zenaga), at the endof a very long process of Arabization, whichseems to have begun at the end of the 14th andbeginning of the 15th century but has not yetbeen completed even today. The first contactswith the Arabic language took place at theend of the 1st millennium, through the Islamicreligion, and concerned all the ethnic groups ofthe region.

For all societies concerned, Islamizationrepresented a global cultural phenomenon, but

its linguistic effects were variable. Althougha perfect command of Classical Arabic isstrongly recommended for every good Muslim,this perfect command was (and still is) oftenmuch more limited than expected. The ancientpopulations of Mauritania were no exceptionto this rule, although a relatively large numberof people apparently became literate. This isprobably due to the history of the region and thesocial organization of the different ethnic groups.

The Islamization of the Saharo-Sahelian part

of West Africa was linked with the Almoravidmovement, initiated in the 11th century bythe Berber tribes of the region, according tolocal traditions, somewhere between the Adrarand the Senegal delta. This movement wasto be very successful in Morocco and Spain(Norris 1972, 1986). The name Almoravid issupposed to have come, through the Spanishlanguage, from murbin; it probably doesnot signify those from the rib fortifiedmonastery, as has been supposed for a longtime, but rather those who wage a holy war(participle of the verb rbaa).

Nevertheless, the penetration of Islam doesnot begin with the armed fighters of Yayibn Ibrhm al-Gdal. In fact, conversions hadalready taken place since the middle of the 8thcentury, especially among the Lemtuna Berbersand the Sonink of the Ghana empire. Thispeaceful Islamization was linked with trade (inparticular with the Kharijite Mzab) but remainedquite superficial. The local sources do not alwaysdistinguish it from the traditions concerningthe Bafour, the mysterious population from theAdrar that is sometimes associated with the

breeding of dogs. The preaching of Ibn Ysn,spread by the Almoravid troops, was a messageof faith, but it also aimed at eradicating thestrong influence exerted until then by IbaditeKharijism in the Sahara and on its southern(and northern) borders. Henceforth, the aimwas to attain a deeper knowledge of the sacredtexts and a more orthodox practice of religion,in particular through the banishment of thepleasures of music and dance.

Apart from the Almoravid episode (and, later,some Peul Jihadist movements), the conquests

Mauritania

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did not play a very important role in thediffusion of Islam in sub-Saharan Africa. Yet, thenumerous conflicts, between the communitiesas much as between the tribes, and even within

the tribes, resulted among other things in socialfissure and tribal or lineage specializations.Some tribes chose to relinquish their arms anddedicate themselves entirely to the study andteaching of the religious sciences, particularlyat the end of the Surbubba war that in the17th century opposed two tribal coalitions insouthwest Mauritania. The learned tribes arethe zwyaamong the Arabic speakers and thegu:ayn (literally qadis) among the Zenagaspeakers. In addition, among the neighboringPulaar speakers, the influence of the Torobegroup, representing the majority, relies partiallyon its religious status.

In all ethnic groups (including the Soninkeand the Wolof), the learned men had at theirdisposal a unified corpus of reference, basedon the triad of Mlikism, Aarism, and Sufibrotherhood, and applied largely similarmethods to transmit knowledge. These methodsmade a strong demand on memory and used allpossible memorization techniques: repetitionsand recitations (supported by rhythmic move-ment of the body), poetry (even about abstracttopics such as grammar), and copying of texts.

Writing was at the center of learning, buttransmission took place from the masters voiceto the students ear. The performance wasless an oralization, corresponding to a realcommand of Classical Arabic as a languageof oral communication, than an auralization,meaning the recitation of literary Arabic (Taine-Cheikh 1998; Ould Cheikh 1998). Over theyears, however, teaching has diversified anddeepened thanks to a more frequent recourseto the mother tongue in order to explain themeaning of the text. Altogether, the level of

Arabo-Islamic culture was significant, especiallybut not exclusively in the traditional schools(ma:r) of the desert.

2 . T h e d i a l e c t a l A r a b i z a t i o n

The four major Mauritanian caravan cities ofthe 2nd millennium (Wadn, ingi, Tit, andWalta) were founded around the 12th and 13thcenturies, as the decline of wdust (probablyto be identified with modern Tgdwst, insoutheast Mauritania) was already sealed. At

that time, the Islamic religion had alreadyreached an important breakthrough in theregion, paving the way for a certain adaptation tothe Arabic language. The only Arabic-speaking

communities, though, still seem to have beenmade up by small groups of traders comingfrom the Maghreb. In all cities with a Berbermajority, whose destiny was unquestionablylinked to the road taken by the trans-Saharantrade, the Azer language probably a variety ofSoninke as spoken by Zenaga speakers mayhave played a key role as lingua franca, despitethe weakening and finally the disappearance ofthe Ghana empire.

The influence of Arabic-speaking groups onlybegan to be felt in the Sahara from the 15thcentury onward. At the end of the 14th century,Ibn Xaldn had pointed out the presence ofthe Banassn in the Dra wadi (wd dara)in the south of Morocco. In constant rivalrywith their cousins, the bant, they oppressedtheir neighboring Berber tribes (Ould Cheikh1995:43). Ibn Xaldn traced back the genealogyof their chief, assn, to a certain Maqil, buthe did not specify the relationship betweenthe latter and the Ban Hill. One should becareful not to take at face value a history ofthe BanMaqil, even if certain authors tend topresent them as a group distinct from both the

BanHill and the BanSulaym.The testimony of Arabic and Portuguese

travelers provides some information about themigration of the Ban assn to the southand their slow penetration into the Sahara.Nevertheless, there is, unfortunately, a lack ofdata for the reconstruction of the history of thisdark age, during which the dominance of theArabs over (part of) the local Berber populationswas established. Although the traditions andthe local denominations encourage simplisticequations warlike tribes = Arabs vs. mara-

boutic tribes = Berbers, or more recently,aristocratic = Arabs and those who paytribute = Berbers there is some evidencethat history has given rise to a complex societywhose culture probably achieved some kindof symbiosis between arabity and berberity,even though generally speaking, only the Arabicpart of the heritage is claimed.

As regards the language, the nameassniyya(or klm assnlit. the language of assn),assigned to the spoken Arabic of Mauritania,clearly suggests that this dialect is a legacy from



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mauritania 3the assn tribes. In view of what is knownabout Arabization in the Saharo-Sahelianzone, this identification is not surprising initself. Because all Arabic-speaking groups that

came to settle in this area claim to be ofthe same origin, it is not too far-fetched tothink that the fundamental characteristics ofthe Mauritanian dialect were already present inthe 15th century. This is all the more plausiblesince even today for assniyya speakersmutual comprehension seems to be easiest withthe Bedouin in the whole Arabic world, notonly from the Maghreb but also from theMiddle East (especially Jordanians). Besides,the assniyya language shows a remarkablehomogeneity from east to west and from northto south (and even beyond the Mauritanianborders). This fact would seem to supportthis theory, although it does not explain oneof the rare important regional differences, theocclusive or fricative pronunciation of //.

Of course, even if the assniyya languagehas retained many characteristics from thedialect once spoken by the Ban assn,this does not mean that it has gone throughthe centuries without changes. Even withoutmentioning the most recent evolutions, thenumerous borrowings from local dialects,especially Zenaga, show the lexical enrichment

produced by the contact with the Berbersubstrate language.

Various morphosyntactic innovations areparticularly characteristic of the assniyyalanguage, especially the passive voice, thediminutive, and the elative ( assniyyaArabic). Despite certain similarities withZenaga, the neologisms of the assniyyalanguage cannot be interpreted as a simplecalque but must be regarded as an internalevolution of the Arabic dialect. Althoughit is even harder to understand the general

uniformity of innovations than the permanencyof conservatisms, the successful innovationsmust have corresponded to particularlyimportant needs of expression for the Moorishsociety.

3. W r i t t e n l i t e r a t u r e i n t h e

c l a s s i c a l a g e

The dispersal of the Ban assn and theirsettlement in Saharan Mauritania led to newrelations between the Arabic speakers and the

(former) Berber speakers. Between the 17thcentury and the first half of the 18th century,four emirates (Trarza, Brakna, Adrar, andTagant) were established, which corresponded

to the early stages of political concentration,when a family of warriors (coming from theBanassn, except in the case of the Tagant)exerted their authority on the tribes of theregion. Starting at the end of the 18th centuryand flourishing above all in the 19th century, anera ensued that seems to have been propitiousfor the development of culture and literature.

Inscriptions in tifinacharacters seem to haveceased around the 15th/16th centuries. Betweenthe arrival of the Banassn and that of theEuropean colonizers, virtually all writing wasdone in Arabic characters, probably most of it inClassical Arabic because there are few traces inMauritania of Berber manuscripts writtenin Arabic characters (did they disappear?),although there did exist literary productions inSoninke and Pulaar, some of which, such as thebeytol, were written with an Arabic alphabet.

Broadly speaking, the concept of writtenliterature is applicable to all intellectualproductions recorded in the familial libraries.These were extremely numerous, even if theywere often limited to the contents of a trunk.In the case of the literate Moors, the trunk

was carried around on camels when the campwas moving. The assniyya speakers of thewestern Sahara take a lot of pride in the factthat they were one of the rare nomadic societiesin the Arab world to be strongly attached to thebook and to the study of Muslim Arabic culture(Bonte and Claudot-Hawad 1998).

In the last few decades, some collectionshave been institutionalized, for both materialand political reasons. The attention of theinstitutional power and the public was focusedon this small number of libraries, particularly in

the ancient cities of the Sahara. Such sedentaryestablishments may not have been the generalrule, but the inventory of their contents givesan idea of the texts that were bought or copiedmost frequently.

Between ingi and Wadn, for example,twelve family libraries can be counted. Thecontents are variable in size, from several pagesto hundreds of pages, and the 1,106 documentsare unequally shared between the libraries. Thelibrary of the Ahl abt from ingi alonecontains more than half of these documents,



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most of them purchased. Founded by SdiMuammad wll abt in 1845 upon hisreturn from his Mecca pilgrimage, the libraryis said to have contained up to three thousand

books. As in most libraries, the great majorityof the books date from the 19th century, but aconsiderable number date from the 17th and18th centuries. Some are even more ancient;indeed, five copies of manuscripts made priorto the end of the 15th century are listed, withten copies realized in the 16th century. Theoldest document kept in Mauritania can also befound here, a copy (made in 480/10871088)of a commentary on the Qurn written bythe Iraqi author AbHill al-Askar (d. 395/10041005).

The books contained in the libraries of ingiand Wadn are mainly about religion andjurisprudence: about 40 percent on theology(fiqh, ul, qawid, nawzil ) and almost 30percent on the Qurnic sciences (copies ofthe vulgate, the exegesis, the words of theProphet, and the hagiographical stories) andmysticism (taawwuf ). Among the remaining30 percent, mathematics (1.70%) and logic(2.78%) are relatively well represented, moreso than history, astronomy, and medicine. Butlinguistic topics (naw, arf, lua, and adab)are particularly popular (23.77%). The great

lexicographical corpus al-Qms al-mu,forinstance, gathered by the scholar from irz,Muammad ibn Yaqb al-Frzbd(d. 817/18351836), was written in calligraphy for thelibrary of the Ahl abt over the course ofseveral years (the copy of the two first volumesdating from 1251/18351836 and of the lasttwo from 1260/1844).

With regard to Mauritanian scholars, nowritings are known before the 18th century (al-Bartal1981; Ould Bah 1981; midun 1990;Rebstock 2001). With the apparent exception

of a Wadanian scholar of the 16th centurywho left a written commentary on the Qurn,the most ancient Moorish author known isthe great faqh of ingi, Muammad wllal-Muxtr wll Billama (16251695). Thismajor figure of the cultural history of thewestern Sahara wrote, among other things, acommentary on a book about the foundationsof the dogma and one on astronomy.

It is precisely because the Moorish books areso recent that the middle of the 18th centuryappears as the beginning of a new era. However,

in a strictly literary sense, Mauritanian culturalproduction was of variable value. Indeed, thereis not a lot of prose literature, and it is oftenbadly represented. Globally, works on adab

are rare. The only real prose writer seem tohave been a-ayx Sdi Muammd al-Kunt(d. 1826), who wrote a biography of his father(the great mystic a-ayx Sd al-Muxtr) and anumber of treatises.

On the other hand, poetry is both abundantand of high quality, as demonstrated by Amadibn al-Ayn a-ingi. In Cairo, he wrote frommemory a book on his country of origin, al-Wasftarjim udabinqthe best [book]on the work of poets and men of inq (Misk1970), including no fewer than 4,500 lines ofverse. This anthology brings together 82 poets,divided into 18 tribes (all maraboutic), most ofthem from the 19th century, testifying to thevitality of the classical qada of the Moorishliterate elite and of their high level in literaryArabic (Ould Bah 1971:2648; ulba 2000).

Since Classical Arabic poetry belongs to thedomain of written (or auralized) literature,presumably the entire oral literature in Arabicis expressed in dialect. Indeed, despite thenumerous isomorphisms between the writtenand the oral spheres, the separation betweenthe two fields coincides almost exactly, at least

until the 20th century, with the distinctionbetween the two varieties of Arabic in use inMauritania.

The first resemblance to note is the preemi-nence of poetry as literary genre (Martin-Granel a.o. 1992; Bariou a.o.1995). Eventhough Classical Arabic poetry is called ir,in assniyya it has the generic name of n.The metrical system of oral poetry (Taine-Cheikh 1985) presents many common pointswith the classical meters in its general principles(regularity of the number of syllables per meter,

quantitative distinction between short and longsyllables, constant presence of a rhyme). Moreprecisely, there may even be a fundamentalcommon opposition between ascending rhythms(with a metrical accent on the long secondsyllable of the watid majm rising foot: short+ long) and descending rhythms (with a metricalaccent on the long first syllable of the watidmafrq descending foot: long + short).

Despite the obvious resemblance betweenthe two metrical systems, there are importantdifferences as well. The first of these is the



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mauritania 5general tendency to simplify in then, througha reduction of the number of syllables per meterand through an increase of the proportion ofshort syllables compared to the long ones, the

latter tending to remain only in rhyme. Thesecond one is the adaptation of the principleof quantity to the vocalic system of the dialect.Open syllables of the CV type having almostdisappeared in assniyya, closed syllablesCVC or long vowels CV are counted as short incontrast with the extra-long syllables CVCC(twice closed) or CV:C (closed with a longvowel). The third difference concerns the useof rhyme in a verse unit that seems peculiar tothe dialect, even if it shows some similaritieswith other forms of poetry expressed in dialect.

On the one hand, the gav is made up offour hemistichs with alternating rhymes ab-ab, and on the other hand, the ala is madeup of six hemistichs (aa-ab-ab), differing fromthe quatrain through the two first identicalrhymes.

Until the 20th century, the great themes ofthe n (Taine-Cheikh 1994) were very closeto those of the ir, in spite of the differencein name. Put simply, one might say that therewere eulogies (mador anfor the ir, krfor then) and satire (atm or hijin ClassicalArabic, tm or ayb in assniyya), on the onehand, and elegies and love poems (respectivelynasb and azal, although these apply mostlyto ir), on the other. The last two themes, veryfrequent, were practiced by authors (mannyn)who belonged more or less to all social classes.Many anonymous poems belong to commonculture, even if they sing about a particularregion, the one of the poet (Sdi Brhm 1992).Others have well-known authors (Ould Zenagui1994), sometimes very famous, including, incertain cases, those known for their knowledgeor for their poetry in Classical Arabic. The

verses may be purely elegiac or only about love,but very often they are both simultaneously.The expression of feelings of love always respectthe laws of decency (Tauzin 1982, 1990) andoften are limited to mention of places formerlyfrequented by the loved one (always a woman,as the men traditionally kept for themselves theright to compose n, leaving to women onlythe minor, and historically more recent, formof the distich called tbr).

The writing of eulogies and criticism wassubject to even more constraints. If the recitation

of poetry took place in a context of rhymedexchanges between people of equivalent status,they assumed the form of sparring matches(theg, which imposed certain rules of meters

and rhymes). As these matches often played arole in the rivalries between the tribes, certainwarriors, including the chiefs, distinguishedthemselves in it. However, more generally (andwith the exception of the very particular caseof the madn-nbi the praise of the Prophet,which was composed and sung only by theformer slaves and the rn), eulogies as wellas satire were inseparable from the very closedsocial group of the musician-singers (Norris1968; Guignard 1975). It was their role notonly to sing the n (which is not necessarilysung, despite the meaning of its root -n-y),but to do and undo reputations. According tocertain local traditions (Ould Bah 1971:14),their ancestors, in the 18th century, wereresponsible for the most ancient verses knownin Moorish poetry. The long poems with epicaccents that some griots like Sddm wllNdyartu or Alwll Mnu composed in honorof their warrior chiefs constitute a particulargenre (thydn) of Moorish poetical heritage,quite esoteric but also highly regarded.

Nonpoetic genres exist, of course, but notall are represented. In the field of the narrative

forms, there are mainly fairy tales and stories.Of great variety, they are not limited to wisdomfairy tales and marvel stories intended forchildren (Tauzin 1993; Ould Mohamed Baba20002001; Ould Ebnou n.d.). In the discursivefield, mainly short forms can be noted. Amongthe dialogic, playful, and/or didactic forms,there is the one, quite common, of the riddle(ti) often around wordplay and the morespecific one of the pastoral enigma (Taine-Cheikh 1995) in which the playful rivalrybetween shepherds expresses itself (this is called

zrg,like the riddles students of Classical Arabicposed to one another). Finally, proverbs andsayings (aml) are also found in large numbers(Ould Ebnou n.d.), which demonstrates thestrong fondness of assniyya speakers forgnomic speech.

4. O r a l l i t e r a t u r e

Mauritanian Arabic literature peaked in the19th century, but the seeds of change werealready present before that time. The influence



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of France began to develop in the south in1857 and soon led to a tight control of thewhole Senegal River valley. The beginning ofthe colonial conquest itself took place at the

beginning of the 20th century. As of 1920,Mauritania was officially regarded as a Frenchcolony, governed from Saint-Louis in Senegal.The effects of colonization were felt for a longtime after the granting of independence.

For several decades, colonization, whichwas carried out essentially from the strategicperspective of pacifying the region, remainedsuperficial. Its impact was especially weak onthe nomadic world, which only experiencedindirect administration (enlistment in thegoums, particular groups of military nomads,taxes imposed on the tribes, etc.). Duringthat time, the sedentary black Africans of theearlier colonized valley were already subject toconscription and scheduled taxes. The Moorsoffered a particularly tenacious resistance tothe French education system, and the mostaristocratic people did not hesitate to send thechildren of their slaves or their dependents toschool instead of their own children, whenpressure became irresistible. As the back-wardness of assniyya speakers increased,the colonial authorities agreed to open specialschools, known as medersas, for the sons from

good Moorish families, in which Arabic wasgiven an important place. These schools wereabolished in the 1940s, but as compensationa few hours of Arabic were introduced in allschools attended by assniyya speakers. Thismeasure tended, however, to be withheld fromthe black Africans, under the pretext of makinga distinction between the Arabic language as alanguage of culture (reserved for speakers ofArabic) and as a language of religion (excludedfrom the French state school system).

One of the effects of the colonial policy was

that of modifying social relations, weakeningthe power of the warriors and supporting theposition of the marabouts (zwya). It is noaccident that the first president of Mauritania,Mokhtar Ould Daddah, and most of theMoorish executives of the young state belongedto the literate tribes, in particular those ofthe Southwest, who had been schooled beforethe others. However, the securing of thelatters loyalty was realized to the detrimentof traditional education, and, in the course ofthe 20th century, the influence of the ma:r

and the number of students attending themcontinued to diminish.

The nascent republic was qualified asIslamic, based on the idea that religion

was the common denominator of the entirepopulation of Mauritania, but the language ofadministration and the education system wereFrench, even if at the time this concerned onlya small minority of children. Very soon, thisofficial predominance of a foreign language wasdenounced by the Moorish community.

Ever since its creation, Mauritania hasbelonged to various organizations uniting theblack African countries formerly colonized byFrance. Its recognition by the other Arabiccountries and its entry into the Arab Leaguewere less immediate because of the oppositionvoiced by Morocco. Only by the end of the1960s did the Moroccan claims cease, openingthe possibility for a readjustment between Arabicand the black world, more in accordance withthe wishes of the Moorish community (OuldCheikh 1995:3233). However, the changeswere fought by the black African communitiesof Mauritania, who regarded them as harmfulto their vested benefits, inherited fromcolonization, and perceived them as contraryto their elementary political rights.

If one considers the education system of

Mauritania, which is usually the first stumblingblock in contacts between the ethnic groups, itbecomes clear that the country has never ceasedto Arabize since its independence. The firstmeasures were directed at the whole studentbody: Arabic was imposed on all secondaryschool students, at least as a second foreignlanguage, and before the primary cycle a firstyear was added, entirely in Arabic, under thepretext of introducing Qurnic Arabic. Soon,the influence of Arabic nationalist movements,affected by events in the Middle East, was

reinforced by the massive settlement ofnomadic people. Ruined by years of severedrought, Moorish cattle breeders were askingfor schools for their children and possibilitiesof employment in the administration for thosewho were educated in the ma:r. Under thesecircumstances the number of hours of Arabicwere increased considerably, facilitating theintegration into the state education system ofteachers coming from the traditional system.One of the two curricula put in place the onedominated by the Arabic language was then



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mauritania 7invaded by students who were total beginnersin the French language. In the 1980s, thecontrast deepened between the Arab course ofstudy, compulsory for all assniyya speakers

and with a minor place for French, and thebilingual one, leading generally only to amasters degree in French and attended by amajority of the black African population.

This system, which through two differentcourses of study was supposed to lead toArabic/French bilingualism, was finally aban-doned because of the costs involved and theinefficiency (Taine-Cheikh 2004). The balanceof power became extremely unfavorable tothe black Africans after the ethnic conflict of1989, the most violent since independence.Consequently, the government decided toabolish the bilingual course of study. Theeffect of the measure was softened by theexistence of a private educational system thatwas increasingly successful. Additionally, theFrench language was not removed entirely fromthe educational system, although the precedenceof the Arabic language was affirmed. This wasfacilitated by the adoption of Arabic as the onlyofficial language as early as 1991, one of theconsequences being a significant Arabizationof toponyms, often to the detriment of Frenchand Berber names, which had long been in use

(Ould Cheikh 1995:3334).The 21st century seems to have opened a

new era in which Arabization will once againexperience considerable progress, probablybeing marked as much by education as by theArabic media (in particular satellite television).The future will tell what the result will be forthe practice of literary Arabic, of the assniyyadialect, and of its modernized version, thelocal version of standard Arabic (Taine-Cheikh2002, 2004).

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Bariou, Jacques, Ousmane Moussa Diagana,Marie-Clotilde Jacquey, and Catherine Taine-Cheikh (eds). 1995. Notre Librairie (Littraturemauritanienne)120121.

Bartal, Muammad ibn Ab Bakr a-iddq al-.1981. Fata-akr fmarifat ayn ulam at-Takrr. Beirut: Dr al-arb al-Islm.

Bonte, Pierre and Hlne Claudot-Hawad (eds).1998. Nomadic Peoples (NS) 2:12. (Repr., LesCahiers de lIREMAM1314, 2000.)

Guignard, Michel. 1975. Musique, honneur et plaisirau Sahara.Paris: Geuthner.

midun (ibn), Muxtr. 1990. al-ayt a-aqfiyyafMrtniy. Tunis: ad-Dr al-Arabiyya li-l-Kitb.

Martin-Granel, Nicolas, Idoumou Ould Mohamed

Lemine, and Georges Voisset. 1992. Anthologie dela littrature mauritanienne contemporaine. Paris:LHarmattan.

Misk, Ahmed-Bba. 1970. Al Wast: Tableaude la Mauritanie au dbut du XX sicle. Paris:Klincksieck.

Norris, H.T. 1968. 'inqfolk literature and song.Oxford: Clarendon Press.

. 1972. Saharan myth and saga. Oxford:Clarendon Press.

. 1986. The Arab conquest of the western Sahara.Beirut: Librairie du Liban.

Ould Bah, Mohamd El-Moktr. 1971. Introduction la posie mauritanienne (16501900). Arabica18.148.

. 1981. Littrature juridique et volution du

malkisme en Mauritanie. Tunis: Universit deTunis.

Ould Cheikh, Abdel Wedoud. 1989. Elmentsdhistoire de la Mauritanie. Nouakchott: CentreCulturel Franais.

. 1995. La Mauritanie: Un pays qui descend?.Bariou a.o. (1995:2235).

. 1998. Cherche lite, dsesprment: volutiondu systme ducatif et (d)formation des litesdans la socit mauritanienne. Bonte and Claudot-Hawad (1998:235252).

Ould Ebnou, Moussa (ed.). N.d.(a). al-ikytwa-l-asr a-abiyya al-mrtniyya. 2 vols.Nouakchott: Commission Nationale pour laCollecte et la Publication de la Culture Populaire.

. (ed.). N.d.(b). al-Aml wa-l-ikya a-abiyya al-mrtniyya. Nouakchott: CommissionNationale pour la Collecte et la Publication de laCulture Populaire.

Ould Mohamed Baba, Ahmad-Salem. 20002001.Cuentos de los Wld Dymn: Sutil socarronera.Estudios de Dialectologa Norteafricana y Andalus5.253264.

Ould Zenagui, Cheikh El-Bou. 1994. La posiede Mohamed Ould Adebba. Nouakchott: InstitutMauritanien de Recherche Scientifique (ProjetTOTEM).

Rebstock, Ulrich. 2001. Maurische Literatur-geschichte. Wiesbaden: O. Harrassowitz.

Sdi Brhm (ibn), Muammadun. 1992. Tahbal-afkr f adab a-ir al-assn. Nouakchott:

Imprimerie Nouvelle.inq, Amad ibn al-Amn a-. 1329/1911. al-Was f tarjim udab inq. Cairo: al-Xnj.(Repr., Cairo and Casablanca: al-Xnj, 1958,1989.)

Taine-Cheikh, Catherine. 1985. Le pilier et lacorde: Recherches sur la posie maure. Bulletinof the School of Oriental and African Studies48.516535.

. 1990. La Mauritanie en noir et blanc: Petitepromenade linguistique en assniyya. Baduel(1990:90105).

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Catherine Taine-Cheikh(LACITO UMR 7017 of the CNRS)


ctc eall mauritania

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