Adamawa Fulfulde-French Parallel Corpus of Narratives 1.2

Adamawa Fulfulde (also referred to simply as Fulfulde) is one of several varieties of Fulfulde, or Puular, or Fula spoken troughout the Sahel region in Africa. Adamawa Fulfulde is native to a population located in the Adamawa, North and Far-North Regions of Cameroon.

Variants

The Adamawa Fulfulde language is often subdivided into three dialects, each representing a different main settlement area: Maroua, Garoua and Ngaoundéré. It is difficult to specify which dialect is represented in each text in the dataset, as this information was not recorded or preserved when the oral performances were recorded.

Writing System

1. Basic Latin letters

Consonants: b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, w, y
Vowels: a, e, i, o, u

2. Extended letters & diacritics

ɓ, ɗ, ƴ, ŋ, ñ, ŋg, ŋk, ’ (glottal stop/apostrophe), Ɓ, Ɗ, Ƴ

3. Common multigraphs

nd, ng, nj, ny, mb, cw, gw, hw, sh (less common)

4. Full alphabet

a, b, ɓ, c, d, ɗ, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, ñ, ŋ, o, p, r, s, t, u, w, y, ƴ

5. Notes

• ɓ, ɗ, ƴ = implosive and palatalized consonants central to Fulfulde phonology.

• ŋ, ñ mark nasal sounds [ŋ], [ɲ].

• Tone is not marked in standard orthography but is phonemic in speech.

• Glottal apostrophe (’) often indicates elision or morphological boundary.

• Orthography follows conventions of the Nigerian–Cameroon Adamawa Fulfulde standard

Source

The texts in this dataset were transcribed from orchestrated oral performances of literary experts from the Fulani community in the Adamawa Futa. The term 'Futa' refers to an area where the Fulani people settled. These performances were recorded in the 1970s by Catholic missionaries, who were seeking to understand the worldview of Fulani society and African societies more broadly. The transcription work was started by the Catholic missionaries and continued by the Fulfulde Language Academy, for which Hubert Fernand Nkoumou was consultant from 2003 to 2008. He was responsible for revising the transcriptions and disseminating the texts, either through publications or otherwise.. He was entrusted with valorizing this work further, either through publications or otherwise.

Domain

The texts in this dataset are orchestrated performances of oral literary genres, such as folktales, hymns, songs and riddles.

Size

112 KB

Structure

This dataset comprises 1,977 lines of Adamawa Fulfulde narratives alongside their French translations. A few lines are missing a corresponding text in either the source language (Bamun/Shupamem) or French. This is because, during the alignment process, some translations appeared to be incomplete and could therefore not be retained. However, we have chosen to retain the equivalent text from either the source or target languages to allow for the dataset to be further enriched. We intend to add the missing texts in future versions of the dataset.

Sample

1. mbarooga, ɓikkon e geeraaɗe foondu. | Les trois filles et les oeufs du pigeon.

2. Daage pure cuddammi haa nde daande. |. Des nattes de feuilles de palmier me recouvrent jusqu’au cou

3. O danyi mbulki nayi, jowaɓel maajum gaajiyel; | elle fut un bébé jarre, belle et bien formée.

4. Wayyoo! Weelo boo ɗon mbara yam, o wii : ayyee a fusataa duu? | Aie que je meurs de faim aussi; Tu ne la casses pas, n’est- ce pas?

5. Miin mi colel dammbaliyel Liiliyel laalayel | Moi je suis cet oiseau de noces qui a sa plume et sa coquille.

6. ayyee hunnde juunde ndee nii mi jooɗo haa nde saalodo mi dilla? | comment attendrais- je qu’une aussi longue chose qui ne finit de traverser?

7. mburaa, jawmu suudu waalaay ɗoo; Mbraa! | La maîtresse de la maison ne passe pas la nuit ici;

8. Kadi boo janngo mbaala yehi nyeɗgo ndiyam goo nii, suy tawi pobbi goo ɗon haa maayo. | Le lendemain, ce fut le tour du bệlier de puiser de l’eau; il retrouva les hyènes au mayo;

9. jigaaje nyaama kaara; leeronoya duule; | Les vautours mangèrent à satiété, planèrent dans les nuages

10. E no wutaandu waatori? | Et comment se remettrait- il?