A Shu Pamom Sociocultural Dataset

Archive structure

This dataset is distributed as a .tar.gz archive (A_Shu_Pamom_Sociocultural_Dataset.tar.gz) with the following contents:

A_Shu_Pamom_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 (65 items)
└── A_Shu_Pamom_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.

Community

Administratively recorded as Bamoun and self-designated pamɔm (“one who is shrewd, far-sighted and wise”), the group is integrated with Hausa, Fulbe, Mbororo, Bassa, Ewondo, Tupuri and Banso neighbours, and its speech is reported across the country. Oral tradition traces the kingdom's founding in 1394 by Nchare Yen at Rifoum (today Mbankim), with an intermediate stay at Njimom near Foumban; some 626 years of continuous occupation are described as having rendered the land sacred, even though the founder is said to have displaced an earlier population.

Location & Social Organization

The kingdom is led by the Mfon, supported by a notable class and royal servants in which women may also hold rank regardless of age; the palace and local chiefdoms both take binding decisions, and descent, formerly matrilineal, is now patrilineal under religious influence. Marriage proceeds through a formal visit (Léénəlmuə), a scheduling stage (Ka'laam), bridewealth (Too ndashi) and the marriage proper (laam), sealed with kola, oil and salt for the in-laws.

Religious & Symbolic Life

The la'wu funerary vigil, led by the head of family over three days, honours the ancestors. Pork, snake and rat are among the taboo foods, alongside a strict prohibition on incest.

Economic & Cultural Life

Men work as artisans and farmers; women trade, sew and embroider; couscous with njapshɛ vegetables and groundnut, pistachio and plantain dishes are staples, and livestock (fowls, goats, sheep, cattle) are reserved for ceremonial use. Music is performed on citare, xylophone (njṷṷ) and drum, and the group notes strong cultural affinity with other Bamileke chiefdoms in marriage, religion and justice.

Linguistic Note

The interview was conducted with the local expert speaking Shu Pamom. Rubrique 4 of the questionnaire elicited 157 common bilingual expressions (salutations, politeness formulas and everyday phrases), of which 153 have an endogenous-language form recorded to date; rubrique 5 elicited a 107-item numeral system, of which 0 have an endogenous-language form recorded to date. 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.

Source

The dataset was collected through a questionnaire designed to gather sociocultural and onomastic information about the Shu Pamom 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: SHPM_2020_001.

Domain

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.

Size

The dataset comprises 50 narrative question/answer entries (rubriques 2 and 3.1-3.6); 28 anthroponym entries, 4 ethnonym entries and 24 toponym entries (rubrique 3); 153 of 157 common expressions with an endogenous-language form recorded (rubrique 4); 0 of 107 numeral-system entries with an endogenous-language form recorded (rubrique 5); and a fixed 65-item reference table of NSM semantic primitives (annex).

Structure

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 this submission form:

• 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.

Sample

Anthroponyms (from 3_Onomastique.tsv):

Common expressions (from 4_Expressions_Usuelles.tsv):