Translating Moroccan Folktales: Methodological and Intercultural Challenges

Abstract

The translation of Moroccan folktales constitutes a major challenge in preserving and disseminating an endangered oral heritage. This article offers a triadic analysis of this complex practice. It first traces its genealogy, from the early colonial collections driven by ethnographic purposes to contemporary initiatives aimed at cultural valorization, highlighting the evolution of motivations and production contexts. The study then focuses on the translational challenges inherent in this corpus, particularly the tension between linguistic explicitness and cultural implicitness, the issue of lexical untranslatables, and the transposition of indigenous conceptions of space and time. Finally, the article assesses the strategies of textual recreation employed by translators, ranging from editorial intervention and adaptation to the search for functional equivalence. It argues that this act of translation, far from being a mere linguistic operation, constitutes an ethical and poetic endeavor of intercultural mediation, essential to ensuring both the transmission and the international recognition of this narrative heritage.