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License:
NOODL-1.0
Steward:
Institute of African Digital HumanitiesDataset ID:
cmshk8mia004rnv0724nwy021
Release Date: 8/6/2026
Format: TSV, PDF
Size: 346.33 KB
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A Ghomala Sociocultural Dataset is a sociocultural and onomastic dataset documenting the Ghomala (self-designation pepa, "sentinelles de guèrre") of Cameroon, 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). The Ghomala (Bapa) are a majority community who trace their origin to Batie, as part of a network of sister chieftaincies. Both endogamy and exogamy are practised. Ancestor cults are maintained; the *kan* festival is held biennially. The founding ancestor is Youdom. The dataset's primary added value lies in documenting the Ghomala 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 Ghomala variety.
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 Ghomala 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 Ghomala variety 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 Ghomala 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_Ghomala_Sociocultural_Dataset.tar.gz) with the following contents:
A_Ghomala_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_Ghomala_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.
The Ghomala (Bapa) trace their origin to Batie, as part of a sister-chieftaincy network. Ancestor cults and the biennial kan festival are actively maintained. The founding ancestor is Youdom.
Social organization is centred on the chefferie, linked to a network of sister chieftaincies. Both endogamous and exogamous marriage alliances are practised.
Ancestor cults are actively maintained. The biennial kan festival is the principal communal and religious ceremony.
Staple foods include nkui and yellow sauce (sauce jaune). Raphia wine is the traditional drink.
The interview was conducted with the local expert speaking Ghomala. The questionnaire elicited common bilingual expressions (rubrique 4, approximately 294 rows) and a numeral system (rubrique 5, approximately 13 entries). Together with the onomastic entries in rubrique 3 (approximately 116 rows), these fields constitute the dataset's linguistic component. No tabular data files (TSV) are included in this release; they will be added when the dataset transcription is complete. No audio recording is included in this release; it will be added in a subsequent update.
The dataset was collected through a questionnaire designed to gather sociocultural and onomastic information about the Ghomala 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: GHOM_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 (rubrique 3, approximately 116 rows); common expressions (rubrique 4, approximately 294 rows); and numeral-system entries (rubrique 5, approximately 13 rows). Tabular data files will be added when transcription is complete.
This release comprises the PDF version of the filled questionnaire (A_Ghomala_Sociocultural_Dataset.pdf). When the dataset transcription is complete, the release will be updated to include six related tables as separate tab-separated-value (TSV) files:
1_Metadonnees_Enquete.tsv: Administrative metadata (one row).
2_Reponses_Ouvertes.tsv: Question/answer pairs for the open-ended narrative sub-sections.
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 (65 items).
Anthroponyms (from 3_Onomastique.tsv):
| Anthroponym | Meaning / notes |
|---|---|
| Noukimi | Toute chose a une fin |
| Mehem | Grandeur multiple |
| Gankem | Accompaganteur de notable |
| Metchee | Celui qui ne fait pas d’erreur |
| Tjombou | Chicote de l’innocent |
| Simeu | Le dieu de quelqu’un |
| Kenmoe | Barrière entre les jumeaux |
| Pouton | Celui qui a les main au cou |
Toponyms (from 3_Onomastique.tsv):
| Toponym | Meaning / notes |
|---|---|
| Ndjakwe | Coté du marigot |
| Njewen | Coté de wan |
| Top | |
| Tsela | Plus haut sommet du village |
| Hiala | chefferie |
| Tupé | En bas de champs du tarot |
Ethnonyms (from 3_Onomastique.tsv):
| Ethnonym | Meaning / notes |
|---|---|
| Ngwanom | Boucher |
| Sawantoo | Celui qui a la capacité d’avoir des richesses vite |
| Teenchem | marteleur |
| senken | |
| Nzete |
Common expressions (from 4_Expressions_Usuelles.tsv):
| French | Ghomala | Gloss |
|---|---|---|
| Salut (formule neutre, à toute heure) | U yoge ntazè | A ngèke |
| U liè | tu | |
| salutations du matin (en signe de déférence/respect) | Pu yogyele | |
| salutations de la mi-journée (plusieurs personnes) | Pu yogyele | |
| salutation de la soirée (une personne) | Kuonfe | |
| salutation de la soirée (plusieurs personnes) | Kuonfe | |
| salutation de la soirée (en signe de déférence/respect) | Kuongèkin | |
| salutation de la nuit (une personne) | Kuongèkin | |
| salutation de la nuit (plusieurs personnes) | Kuongèkin | |
| Je m’appelle (compléter avec un nom de personne) | Ngeme Gankem |
Numeral system (from 5_Systeme_Numeral.tsv):
| French | Ghomala | Compositional gloss |
|---|---|---|
| Un | tchu | |
| Deux | pwe | |
| Trois | Tan | |
| Quatre | kwe | |
| Cinq | Té/ yaté | |
| Six | tok | |
| Sept | sombwe | |
| Huit | hom | |
| Neuf | vou | |
| Dix | hem | |
| Onze | tchu hem | 1+10 |
| Douze | tchwe peu hem | 2+10 tchwe= parole 2+10 |