Common Voice Scripted Speech 24.0 - Basaa

Basaa — Basaa (bas)

This datasheet is for version 24.0 of the the Mozilla Common Voice Scripted Speech dataset for Basaa (bas). The dataset contains 12499 clips representing 13.63 hours of recorded speech (12.15 hours validated) from 57 speakers.

Language

Basaa is a narrow Bantu language spoken across a geographical area spanning three administrative regions in Cameroon: the Centre, Littoral and South regions. It is estimated that there are currently around 600,000–700,000 speakers. This figure includes different varieties, as well as diasporic populations who identify as Basaa speakers.

The vitality of the Basaa language is stable (Ethnologue online). However, intergenerational transmission of Basaa is increasingly threatened among parents aged 50 and under, particularly in urban areas.

Although Basaa is taught in schools, this does not significantly impact the vitality of the language, mainly due to the current pedagogical approach, which relies on rule-based and descriptivist teaching methods.

The glossonym 'Basaa' is a generic term that encompasses a range of varieties, the speakers of which may identify with the 'Basaa' label to varying degrees, depending on a complex set of geographical, social, political, situational and pragmatic factors. Whether a language variant is considered Basaa depends greatly on the perspective of the person 'telling the story'. Some of the most commonly acknowledged varieties of Basaa include:

• Mbene

• Bikok

• Babimbi

• Basaa ba Omeng

• Basaa ba Yabasi Basaa ba Duala

• Ndog-Bikim

Other varieties, such as Ndonga, Mbaa (also known as Mbay-Bati) and Hijuk, may also be classified as Basaa. However, as previously mentioned, not everyone agrees on this classification.

Demographic information

The dataset includes the following distribution of age and gender.

Gender

Self-declared gender information, percentage refers to the number of clips annotated with this gender.

Age

Self-declared age information, percentage refers to the number of clips annotated with this age band.

Text corpus

Writing system

Basaa has several competing writing norms. The most widely used are the Catholic missionary orthography, the Prostestant missionary orthography, and a version of the General Alphabet of Cameroonian Languages that was adapted to Basaa.

This dataset is mostly based on the Protestant missionary's orthography, with minor alterations concerning, for example, the signaling of b as implosive [ɓ]. For example, m'bôñ "cassava" vs mbôñ "poison". Other alterations includes the signaling of the n- prefix followed by the y symbol, to distinguish it from the complex symbol ny. For example, nyo "mouth" vs a n'yo "he stole palm wine from the palm trunk".

Text domains

Get involved!

Community links

• Common Voice translators on Pontoon

• Original language request on GitHub

Contribute

• Contribute voice recordings

• Contribute sentences

• Validate recordings

• Review sentences

Acknowledgements

Datasheet authors

• Emmanuel Ngué Um ngueum@gmail.com

Licence

This dataset is released under the Creative Commons Zero (CC-0) licence. By downloading this data you agree to not determine the identity of speakers in the dataset.