Common Voice Spontaneous Speech 3.0 - Basaa

Basaa — Basaa (bas)

This datasheet is for sps-corpus-3.0-2026-03-09 of the Mozilla Common Voice Spontaneous Speech dataset for Basaa [Basaa - bas]. The dataset contains 773 clips representing 5.37 hours of recorded speech (5.06 hours validated) from 11 speakers.

Language

Basaa is a narrow Bantu language spoken across a geographical area spanning three administrative regions in Cameroon: the Centre, Littoral and South regions. It is estimated that there are currently around 600,000–700,000 speakers. This figure includes different varieties, as well as diasporic populations who identify as Basaa speakers.

The vitality of the Basaa language is stable (Ethnologue online). However, intergenerational transmission of Basaa is increasingly threatened among parents aged 50 and under, particularly in urban areas.

Although Basaa is taught in schools, this does not significantly impact the vitality of the language, mainly due to the current pedagogical approach, which relies on rule-based and descriptivist teaching methods.

The glossonym 'Basaa' is a generic term that encompasses a range of varieties, the speakers of which may identify with the 'Basaa' label to varying degrees, depending on a complex set of geographical, social, political, situational and pragmatic factors. Whether a language variant is considered Basaa depends greatly on the perspective of the person 'telling the story'. Some of the most commonly acknowledged varieties of Basaa include:

• Mbene

• Bikok

• Babimbi

• Basaa ba Omeng

• Basaa ba Yabasi Basaa ba Duala

• Ndog-Bikim

Other varieties, such as Ndonga, Mbaa (also known as Mbay-Bati) and Hijuk, may also be classified as Basaa. However, as previously mentioned, not everyone agrees on this classification.

Data splits for modelling

The dataset clips are categorised by transcription status and training-set assignment. The following tables summarise the distribution.

Audio clips

Training splits

Training split coverage: 734 of 734 transcribed & validated clips (100.0%)

Transcriptions

Transcription status

Writing system

Basaa has several competing writing norms. The most widely used are the Catholic missionary orthography, the Prostestant missionary orthography, and a version of the General Alphabet of Cameroonian Languages that was adapted to Basaa.

This dataset is mostly based on the Protestant missionary's orthography, with minor alterations concerning, for example, the signaling of b as implosive [ɓ]. For example, m'bôñ "cassava" vs mbôñ "poison". Other alterations includes the signaling of the n- prefix followed by the y symbol, to distinguish it from the complex symbol ny. For example, nyo "mouth" vs a n'yo "he stole palm wine from the palm trunk".

Samples

Questions

There follows a randomly selected sample of questions used in the corpus.

1. Ba mpom laa nkok ?

2. Inyu kii ba nkal le "mahôla ma mbôk bé bak" ?

3. Ibale mut a yé i Bôt-Makak, le a nsômbol ke i tison Buea, a mboñ laa i bol i Buea ?

4. Añle le bés majél ma ngond ma Mbog yés.

5. Sima le libim li bikila i Mbog yés.

Responses

There follows a randomly selected sample of transcribed responses from the corpus.

1. Man Basaa nyensô a nla saybana Mbombog, ndi téntén ibet ba yé i ndaye, i litén li Mbog. Bana bape ba nla ndigi was ntjep u Mbog.

2. Iba le me ntelep ñane Kamerun inyu 30 ma dilo ndigi, li bisu li yé le, me ntiimba kap minwaa mi matunga ma mbok ma Kamerun, inyu boñ le i bôt ba yé litunga jada, ba bak bôt ba ba yé le ba nnôgla, ba mbôñha mam ntôñ. I nyônôs iba, ma jo sañ le ikédé matunga ma momasôna, hiki litunga, li yik niñ I litunga lipe, inyu le mu nyen nsañ u nlôl.

3. Iba le u yé i mbay, lihep li bes we, ndi le u gwéé bé bie bi nkana, u nke nga u pom kôgmot, u téé yo, u hôô, u baa yo, u nyo imalép ma. Malép ma kôgmot ma ntibil lihep ngandak. Ndi yak lum i nla hôla. Doñ kôgmot ni lum bi nla hôla inyu itibla lihep. Bape ba nkal yak le yak binbe a hôla.

4. Iyem pes man Afrika a bikôs bé kunde. A yé ngi kôs kunde. Inyu le kunde i yé lana le, wemede u yi mpék woñ kiki u nkôble. Iba le bo mut nu a nlôl i mbégé nyen a gwéé we bot yoñ i moni, ndi a kakal we le u yé kunde, wee a nlembe we. Iloo ki la isukulu yosôna i n'nigil di n'nigil, bés i Afrika, i yé ndigi le i n'niiga bés kiki bakana ba yé iboñ le di tjôô libak jés yak di helba kiki bo. Ndi kunde bé i.

5. Iba le mut a yé i Makak le a nsômbôl ke i Bôt-Makak, a n'yoñ masin bikekela nu a ntéé nye i Séga. Indéé a ntéé nye i Séga, a kuli, a ke'e a yoñ matôa ha i Séga, ma ma n'yek nye i Boumnyébél. Indéé a m'bol i Boumnyébél, a yoñ ma matôs ha to le tôstôs nu a yék nye i Bôt-Makak.

Fields

Each row of a tsv file represents a single audio clip, and contains the following information:

• client_id - hashed UUID of a given user

• audio_id - numeric id for audio file

• audio_file - audio file name

• duration_ms - duration of audio in milliseconds

• prompt_id - numeric id for prompt

• prompt - question for user

• transcription - transcription of the audio response

• votes - number of people that who approved a given transcript

• age - age of the speaker1

• gender - gender of the speaker1

• language - language name

• split - for data modelling, which subset of the data does this clip pertain to

• char_per_sec - how many characters of transcription per second of audio

• quality_tags - some automated assessment of the transcription--audio pair, separated by |

  • transcription-length - character per second under 3 characters per second

  • speech-rate - characters per second over 30 characters per second

  • short-audio - audio length under 2 seconds

  • long-audio - audio length over 5 minutes

Get involved

Community links

• Common Voice translators on Pontoon

• Common Voice Communities

Discussions

• Common Voice on Matrix

• Common Voice on Discourse

• Common Voice on Discord

• Common Voice on Telegram

Contribute

• Contribute questions

• Validate questions

• Answer questions

• Transcribe recordings

• Validate transcriptions

Acknowledgements

Datasheet authors

• Emmanuel Ngue Um <ngueum@gmail.com>

Funding

The compilation of this dataset was made possible thanks to grant awarded by the Mozilla Foundation

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.

Footnotes

1. For a full list of age, gender, and accent options, see the demographics spec. These will only be reported if the speaker opted in to provide that information. ↩ ↩2