The wolf and the hen

As most of you know, Tashelhit (Berber) is not a written language. For someone like me, who has only studied written languages like German and French, this makes learning the language much more difficult. I had no idea how much I relied on dictionaries and stories to learn a new language. Lucky for me, my tutor found a few websites with stories written in tashelhit. I’ve been working on translating them with my tutor. Its really helping my vocabulary and I enjoy learning the Berber folktales. One of my favorites is called “The Wolf and the Hen”

It goes as follows:

A hungry wolf went walking in the forest until he came up next to a small tree, in which a hen was sunning herself. He said to her, “ Peace to you” to which she replied “And peace to you.”

The wolf said, “Did you hear what the town crier announced? Its no longer allowed for the lion to eat the gazelle or the tiger to eat the mountain goat. Also, the eagle can no longer hunt the hare. To top it all off, democracy will spread in the forest! So come down from the tree!” The hen wanted to come down out of the tree but she was afraid. The wolf said, “ Come down! The era of dictatorship is over! Come down!”

Meanwhile, the hen saw two hungry hunting dogs coming towards where she and the wolf were standing. When the wolf saw the hunting dogs, he wanted to run away. The hen said, “Hey Wolf! You just said all that about what the town crier announced!”

He replied, “It seems these jokers didn’t hear the announcement!”

Pretty funny, huh? I love folktales. And translating this one meant I got to learn how to say “to top it all off” in tashelhit (Its “awal n ufella” for those of you who wanted to know.)

My language is progressing slowly but surely, but I wish it were faster. I’m very lucky in that I get tashelhit “lessons” when I tutor some local women in English. We speak in a mixture of Tashelhit and English, so its improving all of our language skills in both languages.