Common Voice Scripted Speech 23.0 - Bankon

Ɓàŋkón — Bankon (`abb`)

This datasheet is for version 23.0 of the the Mozilla Common Voice Scripted Speech dataset for Bankon (abb). The dataset contains 12 hours of recorded speech (12 hours validated) from 22 speakers.

Language

Bankon, also known as Abo, is a Bantu language spoken in the Moungou Division of Cameroon's Littoral Region. Bakon is closely related to Barombi, also known as Lombi, Balombi, or Barumbi, which is spoken in the Meme Division of the Southwest Region of Cameroon. Therefore, a striking trait that distinguishes the two speech groups is not their intrinsic typological distance, but the colonial demarcation between the French-speaking and English-speaking parts of Cameroon. This is a direct consequence of the joint trusteeship that France and Great Britain held over Cameroon.

Variants

The language representatives who contributed to this dataset described Bankon and Barombi (also known as Lombi, Balombi, or Barumbi) as two closely related varieties. However, each is recognized as a distinct language in scientific and administrative nomenclatures. For example, the Administrative Atlas of Cameroon's Languages (Breton and Bikia Fohtung, 1991) recognizes them as such. These representatives added that there are two varieties of Bankon: South Bankon and North Bankon. According to the representatives, however, there are only minor lexical and phonetic differences between these two varieties. Speakers of each variety designate the other variety as Mwi Nwan, wich translates as "the other bank of thhe river". Additionnaly, speakers of South Bakon refer to North Bankon as Bankon Ba Ibom, or "Upper Bankon". Conversely, the speakers of North Bankon refer to South Bankon as Bankon Ba Nlon*, which translates as Lower Bankon. Other less common designations of North Bankon and South Bankon are Banaka and Bayeme, respectively.

Both the Southern and Northern dialects of Bankon are represented in the collection of sentence prompts, with a slight bias towards Southern Bankon.

Demographic information

The dataset includes the following distribution of age and gender.

Gender

Self-declared gender information, percentage refers to the number of clips annotated with this gender.

Gender	Pertentage
Undefined	100.0%

Age

Self-declared age information, percentage refers to the number of clips annotated with this age band.

Age Band	Percentage
Undefined	100.0%

Writing system

The collection of sentence prompts provided by the language representatives aligns with the General Alphabet of Cameroonian Languages

Sample

There follows a randomly selected sample of five sentences from the corpus.

Ǹsɔn mwɛ̄ŋ mu ndɛ̂m mu diŋā i ilòŋgɛ
Imbūs pɛpu mùt nik à kɔ̀la à kaā ifyē man myāŋgō
Mbèŋ i malɔ̀ ipɛ nì ŋ̀kòtòk mu mikɔŋgɔ
Ɔ̂ màlew ma mamàa i tāŋki, ɓè nɛsi malew
Kɛ̌, ɔ̀ yȏŋ bìkwɛm bi ŋgɔ̑n ɓaā i tȗŋ

Automatic random samples

Mbɔti ì pɔ᷇ŋla ndi àlà ì bute nyǔ .
Kìpèpa nik ki lòo ǹsiŋgà nì mbwà.
Sa fày ŋgɛŋ yitan yi ŋ̀yee.
Ŋ̀kɔ̀ŋ mu ni ɓɛ̂nɓɛ̀n nì ifā mu ni ndī kitum ki kilòmetà tɔ̀yaŋwɛ.
Mìtǔŋ mi ni itē ìna ndǎw jàm ɓɛɛ mitan.

Community links

Common Voice translators on Pontoon

Contribute

https://commonvoice.mozilla.org/abb

Acknowledgements

The compilation of this dataset occured during data camp organized in Yaoundé (Cameroon) in September-October 2024. Two main contributors were involved in the localization of the MCV interface for Bankon, gathering of the sentence prompts, reading sentence prompts, and validating recordings. They are :

Eyoum Ndando Thomas
Emmanuel Ndando
David Miyenga Miyenga

The organization of the data camp was conducted by a dynamic whose dedication is herewith acknowledged :

Eliette Emilie-Caroline Ngo Tjomb Assembe (Project Lead)
Dr. Florus Landry Dibenge
Blaise Mathieu Banoum Manguele
Blaise Abo Djoulde
Mathilde Nyambe A.
Brice Martial Atangana Eloundou
Jeff Sterling Ngami Kamagoua
José Mpuda Avom
Zacharie Nyobe
Emmanuel Giovanni Eloundou Eyenga
André Pascal Likwai

Datasheet authors

Emmanuel Ngue Um ngueum@gmail.com, Thomas Eyoum Ndando thomas.eyoum@ucac-icam.com, Emmanuel Ndando ndandoemmanuel@gmail.com, David Miyenga Miyenga dmiyenga@gmail.com

Citation guidelines

Ngué Um E, Ngo Tjomb EEC, Dibengue FL, Banum Manguele BM, Abo Djoulde B, Nyambe MA, Atangana Eloundou BM, Ngami Kamagoua JS, Mpouda Avom J, Nyobe Z, Eloundou Eyenga EG, Likwai AP (2025) Speech Technologies Datasets for African Under-Served Languages. Proceedings of the Eight Workshop on the Use of Computational Methods in the Study of Endangered Languages, edited by Lachler J, Agyapong G, Arppe A, Moeller S, Chaudhary A, Rijhwani S, Rosenblum D. URL Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL).

Funding

The organization of the data camp that led to the compilation of this dataset was made possible by a grant by the Mozilla Foundation under the Opem Multingual Speech Fund (OMSF)

Licence

This dataset is released under the Creative Commons Zero (CC-0) licence. By downloading this data you agree to not determine the identity of speakers in the dataset.