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From Siwa to Goulmima: A Date Palm Lexicon

  Some time ago, while I was working on a previous blog entry devoted to date palm tree cultivation in Goulmima (from a text in the A. Roux archives) , I leafed through a number of dictionaries, looking for words relating to said tree. I found little that was specific to the date palm, compared to the doum palm ( Hyphaene thebaica ). Benamara’s Figuig dictionary could have offered more, but without knowing tifiyyeyt lexicon, I had no entry points. As for Amaniss’s unpublished dictionary, there is some date palm vocabulary, with some overlap with Goulmima’s, but sometimes with a different realization. I initially decided to build a spreadsheet, using the ar.wikipedia page for “ نخلة التمر ” as a source vocabulary list, search through Chafik, and map onto the bilingual list the vocabulary of my home region. Unfortunately, in Chafik, I found more doum than Phoenix dactylifera . The same goes for the IRCAM dictionary, as well.   With the recent publication of Valentina Schiattarella
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Abdellatif Laabi: "Nous ne sommes pas morts" [Tasuɣlt]

To anyone familiar with Moroccan francophone literature, A. Laabi (1942-) needs no introduction: poet, dramaturge, translator, co-founder of the seminal cultural magazine Souffles, and a former political prisoner (1972-80). The poem below is from Poèmes Oraux, self-published in 1983, (along with Le Règne de la barbarie, in the same volume). As poems go, it is not a polished or great poem, really, but it pulsates with an energy that makes one feel the urgency of it; the need the poet had to tear it out of his guts, like a piece of quivering flesh, still staticky from the electrical current that had ran through his body as he was being tortured. It is an embodiment of the "poem as a scream", visceral, angry and unapologetic. It asks to be shouted from a stage.

            ur nmmut
            han alln-nnġ
            ḥḍant igitn d imussutn nnun
            izbutn d ibrazn
            iznnirn ismdn d tmḍlin iccarn
            ur nmmut
            han ifassn-nnġ
            iḥrcawn, izurn, istuttuyn
            d ufaras ddġ war tigira
            ammas n tdiklt
            issmtr nwidd is aġ tzwarm s tmttant
            ur nmmut
            han tafgga-nnġ
            suln digs idrizn
            ilẓan n taġart n ifassn nnun
            d tartalla n tmnza n ismḍal nna tġzam
            ur nmmut
            han akyaḍ
            yuls taẓuni n idammn
            isikk aẓaṛuṛ i yzllumn
            isskrf tislmin
            iṛẓm i twngimt
            ismmctagn iġiln
            n iwdan
            winna yggarn tummizt tamzwarut n wakal
            aflla n tfkkiwin nnun
            id butiġrad
            inemḍaln nnun imadkatn 

The original in French:

            nous ne sommes pas morts
            voilà nos yeux
            braqués sur vos faits et gestes
            rapt et recel
            crimes parfaits et charniers publics
            nous ne sommes pas morts
            voilà nos mains
            rugueuses, carrées, terrassantes
            et là cette strie interminable
            sur la paume
            indique que nous vous survivrons
            nous ne sommes pas morts
            voilà nos corps
            portant encore béantes
            les empreintes de vos mutilations
            mais aussi
            les emplacements innombrables de vos tombes
            nous ne sommes pas morts
            voilà que la haine
            a redistribué le sang
            électrifié les nerfs
            crispé les muscles
            libéré les idées
            qui articulent déjà les bras
            des hommes
            ceux qui jetteront la première poignée de terre
            sur vos cadavres
            les travailleurs
            vos imperturbables fossoyeurs

                                                                "Poèmes Oraux" (1968–71)

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