International Journal of English Linguistics; Vol. 9, No. 5; 2019 ISSN 1923-869X E-ISSN 1923-8703 Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education 307 A Comparative Study of Saraiki Animal Tales with the American Animal Tales Zahoor Hussain 1 & Saiqa Imtiaz Asif 2 1 Ph.D. Scholar, Department of English, Bahauddin Zakaryia University, Multan, Pakistan 2 Professor of English, Department of English, Bahauddin Zakaryia University, Multan, Pakistan Correspondence: Zahoor Hussain, Ph.D. Scholar, Department of English, Bahauddin Zakaryia University, Multan, Pakistan. E-mail: zahoor_linguist@bzu.edu.pk Received: May 21, 2019 Accepted: August 19, 2019 Online Published: September 6, 2019 doi:10.5539/ijel.v9n5p307 URL: https://doi.org/10.5539/ijel.v9n5p307 Abstract Recently, the researchers and scholars have developed a tradition of reviving past and fostering nationalism among the speakers through their past/history. Saraiki civilization has also its both tangible and intangible assets like other oldest rural civilizations of the world. There at international level, a lot of work has been done in the field of folktales so far as their classification according to their types structures and functions. In Pakistan, no significant work has been done. The study is aimed to compare the Saraiki animal tales with the American animal tales through the American model developed by Uther in 2004 popularly known as Aarne-Thompson-Uther model. The current study is the comparative structural analysis of the Saraiki folktales. The Saraiki folktales were collected through participant observation, observation and interviews. The study was conducted in the rural areas of Southern Punjab, Pakistan. The multistage approach was applied to collect the folktales from the research area on the principle of probability sampling through the informants from the study area. The researcher for this purpose used the purposive sampling technique to select the informants of his study Saraiki folktales. The researcher selected 09 animal tales were compared to the plots recorded in an international American Arne-Thompson-Uther (2004) model generally known as the ATU and traced similarities of plots between the Saraiki folktales and internationally recorded American animal tales. The Saraiki oral tradition may be collected and classified for the preservation of cultural heritage and for further research in this field. Keywords: Saraiki rural area, Saraiki culture, folktale, cultural heritage, Saraiki region, Geo-historic method, Aarne-Thompson-Uther ATU system of classification 1. Introduction The tradition of folktales started from centuries unknown when human beings started conceptualizing the universe, nature and the divine aspects of human life. For this purpose, the tool of narrative was adopted by the ancestors. So, in the narratives, the myths and legends along with the exponents of divine were formulated. The ancestors of the human beings portrayed and positioned themselves in the narratives of the past i.e., folktales through the help of their imagination in a way they wanted to see themselves. Their observations, experiences and epitomes of lives and what else they wanted and wished were presented in the construct of their narratives. With the passage of time, myths and legends took the forms of folktales (Zipes, 1983; 1996; 2001). According to Zipes (1996), these folktales were transferred by word of mouth from generation to generation into different forms such as animal tales, fairytales, parables, ballads and fables. This tradition was esteemed in the olden days and societies: Telling tales, using words and symbols, endowed the speaker with authority and power. A magic folktale did not only concern the miraculous turn of events in the story, but also the magic play of words by the teller as performer (p. 2). Furthermore, folktales also facilitate people to look deep at their own cultures (Alembi, 1999). Wakituki (1999) describes folktales as efficient teaching systems which frame one’s identity and foster creativity. He furthers his stance by saying that changing times and different contexts in which they are told have impact on folktales. The study of folklore has been established as a genre because of its differences: structural and typological. The word genre has been derived from the French language which stands for kind/type or class. This term has been used in