A text on bees from James Bynon’s Ayt Hdiddu Berber archives

Authors

  • Harry Stroomer University of Leiden
  • Simone Mauri No academic affiliation

Abstract

This paper contributes to advancing the knowledge of Moroccan Berber varieties from the Southern Middle Atlas. It focuses on one such variety, namely the one spoken by the Ayt Hdiddu people. It broadens the corpus of Ayt Hdiddu literature available to English-language readers by providing the translation and analysis of a text first appeared in its original Berber version in Bynon (2015). Centred on local beliefs about bees, the text offers ethnographic insights into the Ayt Hdiddu culture, including the notion of bees having a king rather than a queen. The paper also emphasises the value of Bynon’s archives for both linguistic and cultural studies and contributes to the study of Berber ethnolinguistics, particularly within the Southern Middle Atlas region.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biographies

Harry Stroomer, University of Leiden

Prof. Harry Stroomer (1946) is emeritus professor of Afroasiatic, in particular Berber and the South Semitic languages at the University of Leiden. His research focuses are linguistic description, documentary linguistics and oral literature. He did fieldwork in Egypt, Kenya, Somalia, Yemen, Malta and Morocco. From 1977 to 1985 he did linguistic research on the Oromo dialects in Kenya. Since 1985 he works on Berber languages and cultures of Morocco. He introduced the study of Berber languages at the University of Leiden in 1986. He is founder and editor-in-chief of Berber Studies, an international monograph series created in 2001 and currently encompassing 57 volumes.

Harry can be contacted at: H.J.Stroomer@hum.leidenuniv.nl

Simone Mauri, No academic affiliation

Dr. Simone Mauri conducted extensive research on Ayt Atta Tamazight, a variety of Moroccan Berber, as part of his PhD in Linguistics at the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London, 2015). He investigated the demonstrative system of Ayt Atta Tamazight during his time as a Postdoctoral Researcher at Universiteit Leiden (2018). His academic interests and publications span Berber and Afroasiatic linguistics, Berber literature, linguistic typology, clause linking, and demonstrative systems. In recent years, he has acted as a linguistic consultant for several tech companies. He currently serves as an analyst for an international IT company operating in the educational sector.

Simone can be contacted at: maurisimone01@gmail.com

Downloads

Published

2025-01-20

Issue

Vol. 28 No. 2 (2024): Kervan 28/2

Section

Articles

License

Gli autori che pubblicano su Kervan accettano le seguenti condizioni:

  1. Gli autori mantengono i diritti sulla loro opera e cedono alla rivista il diritto di prima pubblicazione dell'opera, contemporaneamente licenziata sotto una Licenza Creative Commons - Attribuzione che permette ad altri di condividere l'opera indicando la paternità intellettuale e la prima pubblicazione su questa rivista.
  2. Gli autori possono aderire ad altri accordi di licenza non esclusiva per la distribuzione della versione dell'opera pubblicata (es. depositarla in un archivio istituzionale o pubblicarla in una monografia), a patto di indicare che la prima pubblicazione è avvenuta su questa rivista.