Deliberate Language Alternation in Northwest African Folk Tales and Its Origins

Folk tales told in a wide range of minority languages across much of Africa systematically shift into the dominant language at certain points in the narrative. The motivation for such shifts has rarely been examined in the literature. Based on folk tale corpora in Korandje, a Songhay language of Algeria, and Senhaja, a Berber language of Morocco, this article analyses the function and history of language alternation in such narratives, distinguishing performance errors and borrowed fixed phrases, reflecting normal practice throughout the speech community, from deliberate language alternation, reflecting storytellers’ stylistic skills and particularly preferred for formulaic chanted passages. Comparative evidence makes it possible to demonstrate that at least some cases reflect transmission of form from an Arabic original rather than – as is more typical in tale transmission – just of meaning.