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Types of the Folktale in the Arab World: A Demographically Oriented Tale-Type Index. By Hasan M. El-Shamy. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004. Pp. xxviii + 1255, bibliography, register of tale types, list of changed tale-type numbers, register of motifs, index of authors and sources, register of countries, taletype subject index, addendum.)
As Hasan El-Shamy notes, the classification scheme of Aarne and Thompson's tale-type index "is seldom adequate for identifying folk narratives outside [its] relatively select corpus of European dominated data; nor is it always successful in relating Middle Eastern and Arab tales to the proper tale type" (p. xxvii). This shortcoming of Aarne and Thompson's index has long been apparent to those who try to use it for regions, such as the Middle East, outside of the core area from which they selected their tales, and on that basis alone Hasan El-Shamy's Types of the Folktale in the Arab World: A Demographically Oriented Tale-Type...