Editing Shilha language (section)

== Literature ==
{{Main|Shilha literature}}Shilha has an extensive body of [[oral literature]] in a wide variety of genres (fairy tales, animal stories, taleb stories, poems, riddles, and tongue-twisters). A large number of oral texts and ethnographic texts on customs and traditions have been recorded and published since the end of the 19th century, mainly by European linguists.<ref>{{Cite book |title=An anthology of Tashelhiyt Berber folktales (South Morocco) |date=2001 |publisher=Köppe |isbn=978-3-89645-381-5 |editor-last=Stroomer |editor-first=Harry |series=Berber studies |location=Köln |pages=16 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Stroomer |first=Harry |date=2008 |title=Three Tashelhiyt Berber Texts from the Arsène Roux Archives |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40997575 |journal=Studies in Slavic and General Linguistics |volume=33 |pages=389–391 |jstor=40997575 |issn=0169-0124}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Dell |first1=François |title=Poetic meter and musical form in Tashlhiyt |last2=Medlaoui |first2=Mohamed El |date=2008 |publisher=Köppe |isbn=978-3-89645-398-3 |series=Berber studies |location=Köln}}</ref>

Shilha possesses an old literary tradition. Numerous texts written in Arabic script are preserved in manuscripts dating from the 16th century.<ref name=":2" /> The earliest datable text is a compendium of lectures on the "religious sciences" ({{Lang|shi-latn|lɛulum n ddin}}) composed in metrical verses by {{Lang|shi-latn|Brahim u Ɛbdllah Aẓnag|italic=no}}, who died in 1597. The best known writer in this tradition is [[Mohammed Awzal|Mḥmmd u Ɛli Awzal]], author of {{Lang|shi-latn|al-Ḥawḍ}} "The Cistern" (a handbook of [[Maliki]] law in verse), {{Lang|shi-latn|Baḥr al-Dumūʿ}} "The Ocean of Tears" (an adhortation, with a description of Judgment Day, in verse) and other texts.<ref>Van den Boogert (1997) offers a first exploration of Shilha manuscript literature, including an edition and translation of Awzal's work {{Transliteration|arb|Baḥr al-Dumūʿ}}. An older edition of this work, in the original Arabic script, is in Stricker (1960).</ref>

Modern Tashelhit literature has been developing since the end of the 20th century.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Chafii |first=Hamza |date=November 2015 |title=A Linguistic Investigation of the Main Concepts of Amazigh Poetry in Morocco and Algeria |journal=Transnational Literature |volume=8 |issue=1 |pages=2 |via=EBSCOhost}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |last=Merolla |first=Daniela |title=Amazigh/Berber Literature and "Literary Space" |date=2020-04-29 |work=Routledge Handbook of Minority Discourses in African Literature |pages=39–41 |editor-last=Ojaide |editor-first=Tanure |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781000053036/chapters/10.4324/9780429354229-5 |access-date=2024-04-23 |edition=1 |publisher=Routledge |language=en |doi=10.4324/9780429354229-5 |isbn=978-0-429-35422-9 |editor2-last=Ashuntantang |editor2-first=Joyce}}</ref>