  We show that under certain general conditions, short sums of $\ell$-adic
trace functions over finite fields follow a normal distribution asymptotically
when the origin varies, generalizing results of Erd\H{o}s-Davenport,
Mak-Zaharescu and Lamzouri. In particular, this applies to exponential sums
arising from Fourier transforms such as Kloosterman sums or Birch sums, as we
can deduce from the works of Katz. By approximating the moments of traces of
random matrices in monodromy groups, a quantitative version can be given as in
Lamzouri's article, exhibiting a different phenomenon than the averaging from
the central limit theorem.
