Documenting "Traditional" Old Stories as Qatari Cultural Heritage for the Future Generations

The purpose of this project is to document the “Traditional” old stories, or folk tales, that are narrated in the Qatari dialect as pieces of Qatari cultural heritage. The purpose of this project is to be able to preserve the past for future generations. More specifically this work was designed to record the old Qatari dialect through the traditional stories as the old Qatari dialect is about to be extinct and will not be available in the coming generations. This project is based on interviewing eight people (with the age of 50-80 years old), and each person gave a famous old-story from his/her choice. I digitally recorded his/her narration of the story, for further transcription and analyzing. Also, I digitally transcribed (typed) the eight recorded old-stories into three sections: informal or traditional Qatari dialect, classical Arabic, and standard English. These recorded stories (audio & typed) allow me to preserve the nature of these stories which are told in a specific dialect and is specific to the Qatari culture and heritage, and also be able to translate these stories for those who are not familiar with the Qatari old dialect or the Arabic language in general. The aim of this project is to be able to record these stories before they are lost and before the older Qatari dialect is extinct, as a way to preserve pieces of the past for future generations.