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 ...

(then occupied by France) in his early twenties where he started studying Classical Arabic, Moroccan Arabic and the Moroccan Berber languages. 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 In France, secondary education is in two stages: * ''Collèges'' () cater for the first four years of secondary education from the ages of 11 to 15. * ''Lycées'' () provide a three-year course of further secondary education for children between ...

. 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 The International System of Units, known by the international abbreviation SI in all languages and sometimes pleonastically as the SI system, is the modern form of the metric system and the world's most widely used system of measurement. ...

(b. 1905). Some of these texts were published by himself in Rabat 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