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License:
NOODL-1.0
Steward:
Institute of African Digital HumanitiesDataset ID:
cmu2nc9ec00v2o107i3r52xp6
Release Date: 9/15/2026
Format: TSV, PDF
Size: 383.39 KB
A Fondjenti Sociocultural Dataset is a sociocultural and onomastic dataset documenting the Fondjenti 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 Fondjenti ruling lineage — the princes of Fondonti — traces its origin to Bamwa and Fondjomokwet. The community is governed dynastically; historical practices of sister exchange sealed inter-community alliances. Ancestor cults are maintained through a skull house and a sacred forest. The palm tree holds high symbolic status. The founding ancestor is *fʉəwaŋ*. The dataset's primary added value lies in documenting the Fondjenti 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 Fondjenti 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 Fondjenti 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 Fondjenti 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 Fondjenti 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_Fondjenti_Sociocultural_Dataset.tar.gz) with the following contents:
A_Fondjenti_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_Fondjenti_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 Fondjenti ruling lineage (princes of Fondonti) traces its origin to Bamwa and Fondjomokwet. Dynastic governance structures social life. The founding ancestor is fʉəwaŋ.
Social organization is dynastic. Historical practices of sister exchange sealed inter-community alliances. The ruling family maintains ultimate authority over community decisions.
Ancestor cults are maintained through a skull house and a sacred forest. The palm tree is particularly revered and holds high symbolic status in ritual life.
Staple foods include kwa kuku, kɔki and pé. Palm wine is the traditional drink. The ndandzi bkuʼŋga is the principal musical form.
The interview was conducted with the local expert speaking Fondjenti. The questionnaire elicited common bilingual expressions (rubrique 4, approximately 314 rows) and a numeral system (rubrique 5, approximately 16 entries). Together with the onomastic entries in rubrique 3 (approximately 171 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 Fondjenti 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: FOND_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 171 rows); common expressions (rubrique 4, approximately 314 rows); and numeral-system entries (rubrique 5, approximately 16 rows). Tabular data files will be added when transcription is complete.
This release comprises the PDF version of the filled questionnaire (A_Fondjenti_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 | Type |
|---|---|---|
| Goudjo | (ɳgu’ndzo᷇) | Prédicat mental |
| Wounga | (wu᷅’ɳga’) | descripteur |
| Ngandeu | (ɳgan’ndʉ) | descripteur |
| Leuga | (lʉi’ɔga’) | Descripteur |
| Wendeu | (wɛ᷇ndʉ) | descripteur |
| Kamga | (ka᷇mga᷅) | |
| Siwe | (syéwɛ᷅) | Prédicat mental |
| Siani | (syani᷄) |
Toponyms (from 3_Onomastique.tsv):
| Toponym | Meaning / notes |
|---|---|
| Dwenʃʉ | “lautre côté de la rive” |
| ɢguenæk | “secteur des laves d’annetons” |
| Ndokovi᷄ | “collines des chèvres |
| LES COURS | D’EAU : |
| Tu᷇mʃʉ | “souche de cours d’eau” |
| Pi᷇læʔ |
Ethnonyms (from 3_Onomastique.tsv):
| Ethnonym | Meaning / notes |
|---|---|
| Bakou | (mbaʔku᷇) |
| Fondjenti | (fʉndza᷇nti) |
| Bakambe | (ba᷇kambé) |
| Fopwanga | (fʉpwaɳga) |
| Fotouni | (Fʉtu᷇ni) |
Common expressions (from 4_Expressions_Usuelles.tsv):
| French | Fondjenti | Gloss |
|---|---|---|
| Salut (formule neutre, à toute heure) | Tʃæ᷅ʔsi | |
| salutations du matin (en signe de déférence/respect) | ɳgə tʃæʔsi | |
| salutations de la mi-journée (plusieurs personnes) | Pɛ voe ji᷄ ? | |
| salutations de la mi-journée (en signe de déférence/respect) | Pæ pe si᷄ʔ pepɛ᷄ʔ lê | |
| salutation de la soirée (une personne) | Mbɛmbɛ mbwa ndzʉ | |
| salutation de la soirée (plusieurs personnes) | Mbɛmbɛ mbwa ndzʉ mbi᷇ pɛ᷅ | |
| salutation de la soirée (en signe de déférence/respect) | ɳgɛ siʔ pepɛ᷄ʔ lê | |
| salutation de la nuit (une personne) | Tʃʉə pepɛ᷄ʔ | |
| salutation de la nuit (plusieurs personnes) | Pɛ dzie pepɛʔ | |
| salutation de la nuit (en signe de déférence/respect) | ɳgɛ dzie pepɛ᷄ʔ |
Numeral system (from 5_Systeme_Numeral.tsv):
| French | Fondjenti | Compositional gloss |
|---|---|---|
| Un | Nohʉ | |
| Deux | Pʉæ | |
| Trois | taæ | |
| Quatre | Kwæ᷅ | |
| Cinq | tî | |
| Six | ɳtɔ᷅hɔ᷅ | |
| Sept | Sə᷅mby᷇o᷇e | |
| Huit | Hə᷅ | |
| Neuf | Vyʔy᷄ | |
| Dix | Gha᷄m | |
| Onze | ɳtʃɔ᷅ʃyʔ mæ᷅ gha᷇m | |
| Douze | ɳtʃɔ᷅py᷇o᷇e mæ᷅ gha᷇m |