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License:
NOODL-1.0
Steward:
Institute of African Digital HumanitiesDataset ID:
cmsgdht31001lmg072o4evjfl
Release Date: 8/5/2026
Format: TSV, PDF
Size: 357.46 KB
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A Chadian Arabic Sociocultural Dataset is a sociocultural and onomastic dataset documenting the Chadian Arabic community of Cameroon — known locally as *Arabe Choua*, and in Arabic as *Al-arabi al-Tachaadi* (العربية, العربية التشادية), self-designated simply as *arabe* — collected under the project "Projet de confection d'un didacticiel sur la composition des peuplements au Cameroun" (a didactic-software project on the composition of Cameroon's settled peoples), coordinated by Prof. Emmanuel Ngue Um for CERDOTOLA (the Inter-State Institution of scientific co-operation for the preservation, diffusion and valorization of the African cultural heritage) during the project's pilot data-collection phase in March-April 2020. Unlike a purely linguistic corpus, the dataset foregrounds the community itself as the unit of documentation: its history, social organisation, religious life and material culture, with onomastics, common expressions and a numeral system providing a linguistic component elicited in the community's own speech (recorded in the International Phonetic Alphabet, or in a Latin-based approximation where IPA was not available to the fieldworker). Self-designated *arabe* and widely known as *Arabe Choua* (Al-arabi al-Tachaadi / العربية التشادية), the Chadian Arabic community of Cameroon is integrated with Fali, Guiziga, Bata and Foulbe neighbours and its speech is represented across several regions: Logone-et-Chari, Diamaré, Mayo-Danay, Vina and Bénoué. Oral tradition traces the group's origin to the Wadaï region (Abéché) in Chad, with an intermediate stay at Mora in the Mayo-Sava, before settling in the Far North and Adamawa regions; the land has been occupied for some three centuries and is regarded as ancestral. A three-century-old mosque and the chieftaincy compound are significant historical landmarks. Authority rests on royalty and land tenure, with decisions reached by consensus among community members, though the chief's word is ultimately paramount. The dataset's primary added value lies in documenting the Chadian Arabic community's own self-description — its social organisation, kinship and marriage practices, religious and symbolic life, economy and material culture, and internal system of personal, ethnic and place names — rather than only its named language or dialect. This community-centred, ethnographic design distinguishes it from language-only documentation, while the accompanying onomastic, common-expression and numeral-system data still make the dataset usable for lexicographic and comparative linguistic work on the Chadian Arabic variety spoken in Cameroon.
Licensing
Nwulite Obodo Open Data Licence 1.0 (NOODL-1.0)
https://licensingafricandatasets.com/nwulite-obodo-licenseRestrictions/Special Constraints
By downloading this dataset, you agree: - To use it for research and scientific use only - that you will not re-host or re-share this dataset
Forbidden Usage
You agree not to use the data for: profiling, surveillance or any purpose prejudicial to the interests of the individuals or community described; caricaturing, stereotyping, or otherwise misrepresenting the community documented; Generative AI; reproduction; duplication; modification; augmentation; copying; distribution; transmission; display; sale; transfer; publication or creation of derivative works without the explicit permission of the legal owner of the dataset.
Intended Use
(a) Ethnographic and cultural documentation: - Sociocultural and anthropological research: The narrative responses (identity, residence and mobility, social and political organisation, kinship and marriage, religious and symbolic life, economy and material culture) support ethnographic, anthropological and sociolinguistic research on the Chadian Arabic community, and complement rather than replace existing ethnographic and anthropological scholarship. (b) Onomastic and toponymic research: - Personal-name, ethnonym and toponym documentation: The structured onomastic entries, each tagged with a semantic primitive and grammatical category, support onomastic and lexicographic research and comparative naming-practice studies across Cameroonian communities. (c) Linguistic and lexicographic tasks: - Lexicon documentation and comparative numeral typology: The common-expression and numeral-system tables, transcribed where possible in IPA, are useful for building basic lexical resources for the Chadian Arabic variety spoken in Cameroon and for comparative numeral-system typology across Cameroonian languages. (d) Pedagogical and educational-software use: - Didactic-software content: As part of the pilot phase of a project building educational ("didacticiel") material on the composition of Cameroon's settled peoples, the dataset supports the development of teaching content on the Chadian Arabic community's history, culture and onomastics. (e) Cultural modeling and intercultural dialogue: - Cultural modeling: The sociocultural, onomastic and linguistic data in this dataset can be used to build and enrich interactive network-based representations of cultural communities, modeling the relationships and affinities between Cameroonian communities across historical, linguistic, geographic, social and cognitive dimensions. An example of such cultural modeling in the African multicultural and multilingual context is the CamRhizome interactive visualization, accessible at https://ngue-um.github.io/Enseignement-Apprentissage-LN/#/reseau, which maps intercommunal connections among 20 Cameroonian language communities and can serve as a tool for enhancing intercultural dialogue in African multicultural and multilingual spaces.
This dataset is distributed as a .tar.gz archive (A_Chadian_Arabic_Sociocultural_Dataset.tar.gz) with the following contents:
A_Chadian_Arabic_Sociocultural_Dataset/
├── 1_Metadonnees_Enquete.tsv — administrative metadata (1 row)
├── 2_Reponses_Ouvertes.tsv — open-ended narrative Q&A responses
├── 3_Onomastique.tsv — onomastic entries (anthroponyms, ethnonyms, toponyms)
├── 4_Expressions_Usuelles.tsv — common bilingual expressions
├── 5_Systeme_Numeral.tsv — numeral system entries
├── 6_Annexe_Primitifs.tsv — NSM semantic primitives reference table (16 groups)
└── A_Chadian_Arabic_Sociocultural_Dataset.pdf — PDF version of the questionnaire
Note: The fieldwork interview audio recording is not yet included in this release. It will be added in a subsequent update. Recordings were collected on the fieldwork sites and document the interaction between the interviewer and the interviewee.
Self-designated arabe and widely known as Arabe Choua (Al-arabi al-Tachaadi / العربية التشادية), the community is integrated with Fali, Guiziga, Bata and Foulbe neighbours; its speech is represented across Logone-et-Chari, Diamaré, Mayo-Danay, Vina and Bénoué. Oral tradition traces the group's origin to the Wadaï region (Abéché) in Chad, with an intermediate stay at Mora in the Mayo-Sava, before settling in northern Cameroon. The land has been occupied for approximately three centuries and is regarded as ancestral, with a three-century-old mosque and the chieftaincy compound as significant landmarks.
Authority rests on royalty and communal land tenure; decisions are made by consensus among community members, with the chief's judgement ultimately paramount. Social organisation and governance follow traditional Islamic models adapted to the local setting in Garoua and the surrounding regions of the Far North and Adamawa.
Islam is central to community life. The naming ceremony for newborns is held one week after birth, following Islamic custom: the chosen name is announced publicly and the gathering acknowledges it. A child's name may exceptionally be changed for health reasons, in consultation with traditional healers. The three-century-old mosque is both a religious and historical landmark for the community.
Women engage primarily in small trade (selling doughnuts, baobab fruit, jujubes), run small restaurants and participate in savings associations (tontines). Staple foods include sohghoss (sorghum porridge) with baobab-leaf sauce, and fresh milk with couscous. The community describes itself as well-organised, with a way of life that has evolved over time while preserving its distinct identity.
The interview was conducted with the local expert speaking Chadian Arabic (Al-arabi al-Tachaadi / العربية التشادية), also known locally as Arabe Choua. Rubrique 4 of the questionnaire elicited common bilingual expressions (salutations, politeness formulas and everyday phrases); rubrique 5 elicited a numeral system. The tabular data files recording these items are included in this release as 4_Expressions_Usuelles.tsv and 5_Systeme_Numeral.tsv. Together with the anthroponyms, ethnonyms and toponyms in rubrique 3, these fields constitute the dataset's linguistic component and are transcribed, where possible, in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA/API), per the questionnaire's instructions; where a fieldworker was not proficient in IPA, a Latin-alphabet approximation was used instead. No audio recordings are included in this release, although the questionnaire's protocol called for the full interview to be captured on dictaphone.
The dataset was collected through a questionnaire designed to gather sociocultural and onomastic information about the Chadian Arabic community. This was done during the pilot data-collection phase (March-April 2020) of the "Projet de confection d'un didacticiel sur la composition des peuplements au Cameroun," coordinated by Prof. Emmanuel Ngue Um for CERDOTOLA (Centre International des Civilisations Bantu / Institution Inter-Etats de cooperation scientifique pour la preservation, la diffusion et la mise en valeur du patrimoine africain), in partnership with the Ecole normale superieure de Bertoua. Record identifier: ARAB_2020_001.
The dataset represents a sociocultural and onomastic questionnaire designed to elicit the identity, history, social organisation, religious life, economy and material culture of a named community in Cameroon, together with a structured record of its personal names, ethnic names and place names, common bilingual expressions, and numeral system. The questionnaire was developed for the pilot phase of a project building educational ("didacticiel") material on the composition of Cameroon's settled peoples; unlike a purely linguistic questionnaire, its entry point and primary unit of documentation is the community, not its language or dialect, although a linguistic component (onomastics, common expressions, numeral system) is elicited throughout in the community's own speech.
The dataset comprises narrative question/answer entries (rubriques 2 and 3.1-3.6); onomastic entries (anthroponyms, ethnonyms, toponyms) in rubrique 3; common bilingual expressions in rubrique 4; numeral system entries in rubrique 5; and a fixed reference table of NSM semantic primitives (annex).
This release comprises six related tables, distributed here as separate tab-separated-value (TSV) files (one per original spreadsheet sheet) alongside the PDF version of the questionnaire:
1_Metadonnees_Enquete.tsv: One row of administrative metadata for the questionnaire: record identifier, questionnaire title/version/author, the group's administrative and emic (self-given) names and their meaning, names given by/to neighbouring groups, location, fieldwork date, language(s) used, and consultant information.
2_Reponses_Ouvertes.tsv: Question/answer pairs for the open-ended narrative sub-sections of rubriques 2 (sociocultural profile: identity, residence and mobility, social and political organisation and kinship, religious life, socio-economic and sociocultural life) and 3.1.1-3.1.6 (general anthroponymic structure), with the original French question, the free-text answer, and the language(s) in which the answer was given.
3_Onomastique.tsv: One row per onomastic entry (anthroponym, ethnonym or toponym): orthographic form, IPA transcription where available, literal meaning/etymology, an associated NSM semantic primitive and grammatical category, and (for anthroponyms) the type of name.
4_Expressions_Usuelles.tsv: One row per common bilingual expression (greetings, politeness formulas and everyday phrases): the French prompt, the endogenous-language form where recorded, an IPA transcription where available, and a word-for-word gloss.
5_Systeme_Numeral.tsv: One row per numeral (1 upward): the French label, the endogenous-language form where recorded, an IPA transcription where available, and a compositional gloss (e.g. 7 = 6+1).
6_Annexe_Primitifs.tsv: The fixed reference table of Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) primitives (Goddard & Wierzbicka) used to tag onomastic entries in sheet 3.
Anthroponyms (from 3_Onomastique.tsv):
| Anthroponym | Meaning / notes | Gender |
|---|---|---|
| djoda | Assois-toi | Masc./fém. |
| Gabdo | Le bon | Masc. |
| Guidago | L'aîné | Masc. |
| moctar | L'élu | Masc. |
| djamdoudas | Cadette de paix | Fém. |
| bayane | Dieu est là | Fém. |
| Faigué | Dieu qui fait | Masc. |
Common expressions (from 4_Expressions_Usuelles.tsv):
| French | Chadian Arabic (Al-arabi al-Tachaadi) | Gloss |
|---|---|---|
| Salut (formule neutre, à toute heure) | sannou | Mot haoussa : salut |
| salutations du matin (une personne) | Awali djam nâ | |
| salutations du matin (plusieurs personnes) | Ein mbali djamna | |
| salutations du matin (en signe de déférence) | Djam mbaldone | |
| salutations de la mi-journée (une personne) | A gnalli djam nâ | |
| salutations de la mi-journée (plusieurs personnes) | One gnalli djam nâ | |
| salutation de la soirée (une personne) | tchonwé | en toupouri |
| salutation de la nuit (une personne) | One hirti djam nâe | En peul |
| Je m'appelle… | Indé am moctar |
Numeral system (from 5_Systeme_Numeral.tsv):
| French | Chadian Arabic (Al-arabi al-Tachaadi) | Gloss compositionnelle |
|---|---|---|
| Un | Go'o | |
| Deux | Didi | |
| Trois | Tati | |
| Quatre | Naye | |
| Cinq | Djoye | |
| Six | Djouwego | |
| Sept | Dje'didi | |
| Huit | Djouwe etati | |
| Neuf | Djouwe e naye | |
| Dix | Sappo | |
| Onze | Sappo ego'o | 10+1 |
| Douze | Sappo e didi | 10+2 |