Arsène Roux (February 5, 1893 in
Rochegude – July 19, 1971) was a French
Arabist
An Arabist is someone, often but not always from outside the Arab world, who specialises in the study of the Arabic language and culture (usually including Arabic literature).
Origins
Arabists began in medieval Muslim Spain, which lay on the ...
and Berberologist. He was born in Rochegude and emigrated to
Morocco
Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to ...
(then occupied by France) in his early twenties where he started studying Classical Arabic, Moroccan Arabic and the Moroccan
Berber languages
The Berber languages, also known as the Amazigh languages or Tamazight,, ber, label=Tuareg Tifinagh, ⵜⵎⵣⵗⵜ, ) are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They comprise a group of closely related languages spoken by Berber commun ...
. In the following years, he worked in various schools and universities as a professor and director; he also founded and presided over the
Collège Berbère d'Azrou.
During his time in Morocco he collected and studied an enormous amount of
Shilha and
Central Atlas Tamazight
Central Atlas Tamazight or Atlasic (also known as Central Morocco Tamazight, variant of tashelhit, Middle Atlas Tamazight, Tamazight, Central Shilha and, rarely, Beraber or Braber; native name: ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵜ ''Tamazight'' , ) is a Be ...
texts and manuscripts with the help of his Berber assistant
Si Ibrahim al-Kunki (b. 1905). Some of these texts were published by himself in
Rabat
Rabat (, also , ; ar, الرِّبَاط, er-Ribât; ber, ⵕⵕⴱⴰⵟ, ṛṛbaṭ) is the capital city of Morocco and the country's seventh largest city with an urban population of approximately 580,000 (2014) and a metropolitan populati ...
for use in his Shilha Berber courses (e.g. Roux 1942); the majority however was taken to France upon his return there in the middle of the 1950s, where he continued his studies and he set out to correct, index and translate his collection of texts. Somehow, nothing of his extensive scholarly work actually saw publication except for a two-page summary of a lecture (Roux, 1948). He also worked together with the egyptologist
Bruno Stricker on an edition and translation of ''Baḥr ad-dumu'' (Ocean of Tears), by
Muḥammad Awzal, which was published in 1960.
After his death in 1971 his descendants donated his library to the
Institut de Recherches méditerranéennes in
Aix-en-Provence
Aix-en-Provence (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Ais de Provença in classical norm, or in Mistralian norm, ; la, Aquae Sextiae), or simply Aix ( medieval Occitan: ''Aics''), is a city and commune in southern France, about north of Marseille. ...
, where the ''Fonds Arsène Roux'' is still administered today. It contains more than two hundred Sous Berber manuscript texts, some Arabic manuscripts and an extensive collection of riddles, proverbs, tales, and religious legends written down by Roux himself. A catalogue of the Arabic and Berber manuscripts has been prepared by van den Boogert (1995), while the other texts have been indexed in Stroomer &
Peyron (2003).
Bibliography and references
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Arsène Roux and
Michael Peyron, ''Poésies berbères de l’époque héroïque, Maroc central (1908–1932)'', Aix-en-Provence: Edisud 2002
*
External links
* (earliest 1990)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Roux, Arsene
1893 births
1971 deaths
People from Drôme
Linguists from France
Berberologists
French Arabists
20th-century linguists
French emigrants to Morocco