Translatability of Tamazight songs into English:
A Case study: Famous Songs by the Moroccan Singer Mohamed Rouicha

Abdessamad Binaoui and Mohammed Moubtassime
Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University

Abstract: This study delves into the various techniques and procedures that could potentially be used in translating songs from Tamazight into English. The corpus for this study comprises translations of two famous songs by the renowned Moroccan singer and composer Mohamed Rouicha, whose artistic genre had a great influence on Moroccan as well as non-Moroccan audiences. In this article, we have addressed the translation of Rouicha’s songs in order to allow foreign readers to understand them and capture their beauty. Also, we hope that other translators will use the findings of the present study as a guide for future translations from Tamazight into English. The process of translating between Tamazight and English involves navigating a multitude of linguistic and cultural intricacies resulting from the grammatical differences between the two languages. While Tamazight often omits personal pronouns, English may require their addition for clarity. Moreover, the translator of Tamazight must possess a deep understanding of the cultural context to accurately convey nuanced meanings. Sometimes a literal translation suffices, but most often careful consideration is required, especially when it comes to metaphors, which can be particularly challenging. Structural differences, such as the sentence formation pattern and the usage of active and passive voices, also demand attention. Furthermore, the discrepancy in collocations often necessitates adaptation. In cases where cultural disparities are significant, explanations may be needed to ensure comprehension. Through techniques like modulation and transposition, translators strive to bridge these linguistic and cultural gaps effectively.

Keywords: Tamazight, English, Rouicha, Songs, Translation.

Introduction:

Amazigh culture, like most of its counterparts, has a significant heritage that includes traditions, lifestyle, types of dresses, celebration rituals, language preferences, and social conventions, to name a few. The Tamazight language is, accordingly, full of cultural and linguistic items that are very meaningful to native speakers but present challenges when the meaning is to be conveyed into other languages. Tamazight possesses emphasis-oriented structures, crucial in terms of conveying accurate meaning. As a result, the translation process and its outcome are worth investigating.

Amazigh songs are vehicles of Imazighen’s emotions, thoughts, and hopes. People interested in the study of Amazigh culture will find it worthwhile to inquire into the meanings of these songs. Yet translating Amazigh songs poses many challenges since Tamazight has a rich corpus of culture-specific items; therefore, it is necessary to identify the problems the translator encounters and suggest solutions to make the process smoother. Drawing on the songs of the famous artist Mohamed Rouicha, this article engages in these two processes to model a translation of songs from Tamazight into English. However, it is worth noting that despite our best efforts, the rhymes and the meters are sacrificed for the sake of maintaining accuracy. Although Rouicha’s musical legacy is very rich, this study only uses two of his songs.

The article provides the translation of two songs, “Inas Inas” and “Idda Zman,” followed by a reflection on the translation process. Mohamed Houari (1950–2012), mostly known by his stage name Mohamed Rouicha, was a Moroccan singer (both in Tamazight and Darija). His songs revolve around daily life and love, but his most famous songs are “Idda Zman” and “Inas Inas,” which have become iconic sounds in the Moroccan soundscapes.

This study is based on a descriptive model of translation (DTS). According to Theo Hermans (1999, as cited by the University of the Witwatersrand, n.d.), the descriptive and systemic approach to translation began in the 1960s and 1970s, gained popularity in the 1980s, and was refined in the 1990s. This approach was introduced to the broader academic community in 1985 as “a new paradigm” in translation studies (Hermans, 1999). Hermans notes that the descriptive model of translation integrates three general functions of language with three levels of narratological analysis. He attributes these functions to Halliday (1989, as cited by the University of the Witwatersrand, n.d.), asserting that they are inherent to all linguistic expressions, including narrative texts. The first function, termed the “interpersonal function,” refers to how communication between the speaker and listener is established (Halliday, 1989 in Hermans 1999: 60). The second, the “ideational function,” pertains to how information about the fictional world is conveyed, shaping the image presented to the reader (Hermans, as cited by the University of the Witwatersrand, n.d.). The third function, the “textual function,” relates to how information is structured and organized in language (Hermans 1999, as cited by the University of the Witwatersrand, n.d.). In this study, we will focus on the descriptive aspect of the translation techniques used to convey the original meaning of Tamazight into English. We seek to answer several questions, including the nature of the problems the translator encounters in translating Tamazight songs into English, whether Amazigh words and expressions are translatable into English, whether it is preferable to use a domesticating or foreignizing approach or a combination thereof, and the extent to which English translations convey the original meaning in Tamazight. This article is guided by the premise that there are ample difficulties in translating some words and expressions, especially culture-specific items, and that domestication (as well as modulation, adaptation, and transposition) will probably be mostly appropriate for this kind of translation. Accordingly, some expressions could be untranslatable. Finally, a communicative translation of the source text will also be used since we are dealing with texts that possess a poetic function.

Analysis of data will involve identifying all the problems encountered in translating and the preferable translation methods and techniques used to deal with each category. Finally, we will suggest some solutions associated with each category. The analysis will be mainly qualitative. In other words, it will consist of commenting on the strategies and techniques used in translating the culture-specific items by examining some samples excerpted from the translated songs. More precisely, the focus will not only be on the translator’s choice of strategies and techniques, but also on the grammatical and structural conventions on which meaning heavily depends.

Amazigh Language and Culture

Imazighen (Amazigh people), mostly known in the literature as Berbers, are the Indigenous inhabitants of North Africa. Imazighen have had a continuous presence in Tamazgha as the Indigenous populations of the area since antiquity (as El Aissati, 2005:59). El Aissati (2005:60) has identified the borders of the land of Imazighen, which covers the area between the Siwa oasis near the Egyptian and Libyan borders to the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean and from the southern coast of the Mediterranean to the Northern areas of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso. Amazigh activists have named this area Tamazgha (see the Tamazgha Studies issue on Tamazgha). While this territory is traversed by different Amazigh languages and cultures, this article focuses on the Middle Atlas in Morocco and the variation of spoken Tamazight in which Rouicha’s songs were composed.

Even though there is a very rich Amazigh heritage and Amazigh language and culture are of the indigenous people of North Africa, they have been marginalized for decadesdespite Imazighen’s sacrifices in their fight and resistance against French and Spanish colonization. This marginalization led to the emergence of a community of activists known as the Amazigh Cultural Movement, which engaged in debates and demonstrations to call for the recognition of their integral identity within Moroccan culture. The recognition of the Amazigh language as a constitutional language alongside Arabic was one of the movement’s important demands. The situation of Tamazight improved significantly in 2001 when King Mohamed VI, in a speech he gave in Ajdir, announced the creation of the Royal Institute of Amazigh Culture in Morocco (RIACM or IRCAM in French). The Institute provides consultations on measures aimed at safeguarding and promoting Amazigh culture in all its expressions at the national, regional, and local levels. It collaborates with relevant institutions to strengthen Morocco’s cultural diplomacy by highlighting the Moroccan model of managing cultural and linguistic diversity,to implement policies that facilitate the introduction of Amazigh into the educational system and to ensure its visibility in the social, cultural, and media spheres (Institut Royal de La Culture Amazighe | Missions de l’IRCAM)    The task of institutionalizing the teaching of Tamazight was not easy due to its oral nature and its multiple variations. The same language is called Tashlihit in the Suss, Tamazight in the Middle Atlas, and Tarifit in northeastern Morocco. El Aissati (2005:61) notes that the Amazigh language has been classified as a descendant of the Afro-Asiatic branch, which includes Semitic languages, Ancient Egyptian and its “descendant” Modern Coptic, the Kushitic language, etc. The language is written in an old alphabet called Tifinagh, which, according to Chaker (2004) has “enabled Berbers to no longer be characterized among barbarians and other undermining labels”, indicating that being able to write a language gives it a tangible existence. It thereby enjoys a stronger status than if it were to have remained oral. IRCAM has adopted the solution of forging a common language by deriving vocabularies and structures of these variations and by adopting the standardized Tifinagh script. IRCAM has also published pedagogical and lexical materials that are needed for teaching and conducting academic research in Tamazight.

Translation and its Genre-specific Questions
Translation of poetry and songs

It is often believed that each text type requires a certain type of translation in terms of procedures and techniques that reflect the same text functions, etc. In the case of song translations, the target text must render the aesthetic value of the source text as Low (2005:185) suggests: rhythms, note values, harmonies, durations, phrasings, and stresses are examples of features within music that cannot be ignored when translating lyrics. The target text should be in the form of a song, with alliterations, rhymes, and chorus. As demonstrated by Low (2005:190), the song must be singable, and the text must sound as if it had been made for the music. The cultural dimension of the target audience must be taken into consideration so as to be culturally sensitive and to avoid conveying meaningless target texts. Eco (2001:17) argued that a translator should account for rules that extend beyond language and that encompass broader cultural factors. Eco’s statement highlights that translation goes beyond simply converting words and grammatical structures from one language to another; it involves a deep understanding of cultural context.

Translation of Culture-specific Items

Culture-specific items or culture-bound terms are items that can be spotted in their proper culture. Palumbo (2009) suggested that various techniques are employed for the translation of such elements, depending on whether the audience is already familiar with the term or concept, or if there exists the possibility of finding functional equivalents in the target language (TL), that is, terms that refer to analogous concepts in the TL culture. The borrowing of terms like “Weltanschauung” from German or “samovar,” which is transliterated from Russian, are examples of this practice discussed by Palumbo. Others are translated by means of a calque, such as “Prime Minister” (English) and “Primo Ministro” (Italian). In other cases, a functional equivalent may be provided, as in the case of “Abitur” in German for “A-levels” in British English, or the SL (source language) item may be retained and a short explanation added, e.g. the Daily Telegraph translated into Italian as El quotidiano (where “quotidiano” is a “daily newspaper”). In Tamazight-English translation, similar techniques can be used to address terms that lack direct equivalents or carry distinct cultural meanings. For instance, a calque, translating a term literally, may be used when Tamazight and English concepts align closely. If a specific political or administrative title in Tamazight has a straightforward English equivalent, like "Prime Minister," it can be translated literally to ensure clarity for English-speaking readers. In cases where concepts are culturally specific to Tamazight-speaking regions and lack a direct English equivalent, translators might use a functional equivalent, adapting the term to something similar in English that captures its purpose. Alternatively, for uniquely Tamazight items, translators might retain the original term and add a brief explanation in English. This approach balances fidelity to Tamazight culture while providing clarity, allowing readers to understand culturally unique references without losing their original significance.

Palumbo suggested that strategies, such as domestication (see next paragraph for definition), can be used to deal with such items where equivalent items are used in the target culture to render the same effect of the translation at the same time as making the text more accessible to the target audience. In contrast to this technique, using foreignization means keeping the foreignness of these items and thus transliterating them or perhaps explaining them between parentheses.

Translation studies scholars have distinguished between two distinct procedures in translation: domestication and foreignization. These two translation strategies provide both linguistic and cultural guidance (Yang, 2010). Domestication, according to Palumbo (2009: 38), entails translating in a transparent form felt as capable of giving access to the source text author’s precise meaning, which is a definition derived from Lawrence Venuti who has analyzed this concept thoroughly. At the other extreme, Palumbo (2009:48) suggests that foreignization refers to a translation strategy aimed at rendering the source text conspicuous in the target text or, in other words, at avoiding the fluency that would mask its being a translation. According to Palumbo (2009,48), the term is mostly associated with the name of Lawrence Venuti, who sees TL (target language) fluency as a prevailing ideal that suppresses the otherness of the source text and minimizes the role of the translator. Foreignizing translation is thus seen by Venuti as a form of resistant translation opposing the prevailing ethnocentric modes of transfer.

The two concepts of domestication and foreignization must be seen as showing contingent variability, meaning that their definition always depends on the specific historical and cultural situation in which a translation is made (Venuti 2008). Venuti (1995) suggests that a translator could choose the now-traditional domesticating method, an ethnocentric reduction of the foreign text to dominant cultural values in English; or a translator could choose a foreignizing method, which exerts an ethnic-deviant pressure on those values to register the linguistic and cultural differences of the foreign text, as a way of favoring foreignization over domestication, given that he considers domestication as a falsification of the source text culture (Venuti, 1988:242). Regardless of the translator’s choices or the requirements of the target audience, and of whether a foreignizing approach is used to ensure cultural understanding while translating culture-specific items, cultural factors are among the major issues which dominate the process of translation, (Venuti 1988).

In Tamazight-English translation, domestication is favored over foreignization, as it adapts cultural references and idioms into familiar terms for English-speaking audiences, thereby reducing cultural distance. While foreignization is selectively used to preserve unique Tamazight expressions, domestication offers a smoother reading experience and addresses the complexities of translating Tamazight’s linguistic features into English.

Translation of metaphors

In translating Amazigh songs, particularly those by Mohammed Rouicha, the metaphor presents distinct challenges due to its central role in conveying deep cultural meanings. Shuttleworth (2011) notes the similarity in etymology for both metaphor and translation, as both involve a “transfer” of meaning; translation carries content across languages, while metaphor shifts understanding within a single language in a rich, eloquent way. Newmark (1985) classifies techniques for translating metaphors to help maintain this depth, such as reproducing the same image in the target language (TL), using culturally equivalent images, converting metaphors into similes, or adding explanatory notes. These approaches ensure that metaphorical expressions resonate within the TL without losing their original impact. Techniques like modulation, transposition, and adaptation further support this process, allowing translators to adjust perspective and grammar while respecting cultural specificity (Vinay & Darbelnet, 1995; Munday, 2016). Translating Rouicha’s work effectively requires this nuanced handling of metaphor to preserve the emotive and cultural essence of Amazigh songs in English.

First song “Inass Inass”

In this section, the song “Inas Inas” shall be divided into segments, transliterated into the Latin alphabet, translated into English, and analyzed in terms of the techniques and strategies used in order for it to be accurately translated. It must be noted that the repeated segments will not be repeated in the translation.

First segment: