This study offers a new perspective on the Arabian Nights, following recent trends in communication linguistics and performance studies. Schahrazade’s adventures frame the collection of stories but the manuscripts describe this character in various terms – only using it as a minimal fictional enunciative device in a few instances. Reassessing verbal practices of the manuscript texts can be a useful way to understand these variations. Precise effects are aimed at, and this consideration can account for Schahrazade’s varying characteristics as a fictional narrator and enunciative device. This investigation involves a methodological shift, from a literary or textual analysis of the Arabian Nights, to the idea that these texts are part of various verbal performances that need to be taken into consideration.