Mvele_ALCAM-MultimodalDataset

• Other information

Language

Mvele (also written Mvelé) is a variety of the Beti macro-linguistic area belonging to the Narrow Bantu family. The are located primarily in the Centre Region of Cameroon, in the Mefou-et-Afamba and Nyong-et-Mfoumou Divisions, as well as in the Est Region, in the Lom-et-Djérem Division. The language is also referred to as bebele in some classifications.

Variants

It is difficult to determine the extent to which Mvele varies as a linguistic group. Not only is the group not recognised as a distinct language, it also shares close similarities with neighbouring groups such as Mbida-Mbani, Bene, Yengo, Moog-Nyenge and Tsinga.

Writing System

The writing system used for the transcription of Mvele in this dataset is the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), as reflected in lexical entries (Word) and sentence-level examples (LangEx) in the datasheet. The phonological inventory described below is derived directly from the attested forms in the LangEx and Word columns of 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. mə̀ndíp 'water', àɲù 'mouth', ǹló 'head', ngə́m 'tail').

2. Consonants

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

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

These consonants appear consistently across noun stems, verbal forms, derivational patterns, and noun-class alternations (e.g. ǹló 'head', ngə́m 'tail', dʒóé 'nose', àɲù 'mouth', mə̀ndíp 'water').

3. Tone system

The datasheet shows lexical and grammatical contrastive tones, marked directly on vowels and on the sonorants m and n. The following tonal categories are attested in the LangEx column:

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

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

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

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

• Falling-low contour tone: attested on consonant-final syllables in a small set of lexical items (e.g. àsup᷆, ì dɔ́k᷆, sò bók᷆)

Unmarked vowels represent tonally neutral or contextually determined syllables.

Source

The dataset was collected through a questionnaire designed to gather basic information about the Mvele lexicon and grammar. This was done as part of the Atlas Linguistique du Cameroun (ALCAM) project.

Domain

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

Size

Total size is approximately 14.48 MB (uncompressed).

Structure

The dataset comprises: 1) a datasheet (ALCAM_mvele_datasheet.tsv) with 990 lines and 20 columns; 2) 366 voice clips read by a single female native speaker; 3) a sentence-to-audio mapping file (audio_mapping.tsv) with 336 lines and 2 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)

• #Morf: morphological attribute (e.g. plural, singular)

• #Var: (na)

• #Word: lexical entry in Mvele

• #CrossRef: cross-referencing of lexical entry number

• #FrenchEx: example sentence in French

• #LangEx: example sentence in Mvele

• #LangExEdit: manual editing of #LangEx

• #FrenchExEdit: edited French equivalent of #FrenchEx

• #LangPars: word-for-word parsing in Mvele

• #LangParsEdit: editing of #LangPars

• #FrenchPars: French equivalent of #LangParsEdit

• #FrenchParsEdit: editing of #FrenchPars

Sample