Ewondo_Fong_ALCAM-MultimodalDataset

Language

Fong is considered as a dialect of Ewondo a Narrow Bantu language which is indigenous to a population mainly located in the Centre Region of Cameroon, with pockets of settlements in the South, and East Regions. Ewondo is vehicular to populations in the South and East Regions of Cameroon, and has also developed into a creole known as Mongo Ewondo;

Variants

The Fong are a small group scattered across several settlements in the Centre and South regions of present-day Cameroon. In the southern region, they are located in and around Mvoutessi in the Zoetele sub-division of the Dja-and-Lobo division, and in the villages of Ngoazip 1 and Ngoazip 2 in the Biwong-Bane sub-division of the Mvilla division. Social media posts also suggest that the Fong population may be found in the Mefou-and-Afamba Division in the Centre Region, around an area known as Nkoabang, as well as in Ngoulemekong in the Nyong-and-Mfoumou Division in the Centre Region of Cameroon.

Writing System

The writing system used for the transcription of the Fong variety in this dataset is the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), as reflected in lexical entries (Word) and sentence-level examples (LangEx) in the datasheet.

1. Vowels

The vowel system attested in the dataset is as follows:

i, e, ɛ, a, ɔ, o, u, ə

These vowels occur both with and without tone marking in lexical items and running text (e.g. mə̀ndím ‘water’, àlú ‘night’, èbɔ̀g ‘hip’, ngə́m ‘tail’).

2. Consonants

The consonant inventory reflected in the dataset includes the following simple and prenasalized consonants:

b, d, dz, f, g, ɣ, h, k, l, m, mb, mf, mv, n, nd, ndz, ɲ, ŋ, ŋg, ŋk, p, r, s, t, ts, v, w, y, z

These consonants appear consistently across noun stems, verbal forms, derivational patterns, and noun-class alternations (e.g. ǹló ‘head’, ŋgə́m ‘tail’, dzóé ‘name’, bə̀mvú ‘people’).

3. Tone system

The datasheet shows lexical and grammatical contrastive tones, marked directly on vowels and sonorants:

• High tone (H): á, é, í, ó, ú, ɛ́, ɔ́, ń

• Low tone (L): à, è, ì, ò, ù, ɛ̀, ɔ̀, ǹ

• Falling contour tone (HL): â, ê, î, ô, û, ɛ̂, ɔ̂

• Rising contour tone (LH): ǎ, ě, ǒ, ǔ, ɛ̌, ɔ̌

• Mid / level tone: ā, ē, ī, ō, ū, ɛ̄, ɔ̄

Source

The dataset was collected through a questionnaire that was designed to gather basic information about the Ewondo lexicon and grammar. This was done as part of the Atlas Linguistique du Cameroun (ALCAM) project. This dataset contains specific linguistic data collected in an area called inhabited by a group that identifies as Fong, located southeast of Yaoundé and primarily spanning the Nyong-et-Mfoumou and Nyong-et-So'o divisions (around Akonolinga/Endom and Mbalmayo/Dzeng).

Domain

The dataset represents a linguistic questionnaire designed to elicit the basic lexicon and grammatical information.

Size

Total size is 16,80 MB

Structure

The dataset comprises: 1) a datasheet with 494 lines and 19 columns; 2) 438 voice clips read by a single female native speaker; 3) sentence-to-audio mapping with 438 lines and three columns.

Description of columns

• #OrigID: original number of lexical entry on paper questionnaire

• #EditID: modification of #OrigID

• #FrenchRef: reference entry (originally provided in French)

• #FrenchComm: Original comments about reference entry (#FrenchRef)

• #French: Lexical entry in French (overlaps with #FrenchRef)

• #Note: note of researcher on the lexical entry

• #POS: part of speech

• #Class: noun class (where applicable)

• #Morph: morphological attribute (ex. plural, singular)

• #Var: (na)

• #Word: Lexical entry in Ewondo, Fong variety

• #CrossRef: Cross-referencing of lexical entry number

• #FrenchEx: Example sentence in French

• #LangEx: Example sentence in Ewondo

• #LangExEdit: manual editing of #LangEx

• #LangPars: word for word parsing in Ewondo

• #LangParsEdit: editing of #LangPars

• #FrenchPars: French equivalent of #LangParsEdit -#FrenchParsdit: editing of #FrenchPars

Sample