The story of the Prophet Joseph

Sherif Bougdoura narrated this account of the life of the prophet Joseph (Yūsuf, Yusəf) to Lameen Souag on 3 May 2008, sitting at his electric goods repair stall by the road in Siwa Town. This took place during Lameen Souag's PhD fieldwork. The story was recorded digitally in stereo at 48 kHz, in 6 files, consecutively named file0246.wav - file0251.wav; a concatenated version has been created for convenience. The ends of files are marked with the character ░ in the transcription. The narrative essentially retells the account found in Sūrat Yūsuf in the Qur'ān, interrupted by occasional greetings or pauses for explanation, and a few false starts towards the end. Almost all of it is in Siwi, but some side remarks are in dialectal Arabic, and one quote (Qur'ān 12:55) is in Standard Arabic. An earlier edition of the transcription, including morpheme-by-morpheme glosses, was published in Souag 2013:238-264 (_Berber and Arabic in Siwa (Egypt): A Study in Linguistic Contact_. Berber Studies Vol. 37. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe.). If all goes well, a corrected version will be published, along with a discussion of the story's context, within Vermondo Brugnatelli, Annachiara Raia, Harry Stroomer (eds.), _The story of Sidna Yusuf in the Berber tradition_.