A Documentation of Bati Language and Oral Traditions

The collection comprises multimedia documents for five distinct languoids (we use the term ‘languoid’ instead of ‘language’ because according to us, the latter does not reflect the fluidity with which language resources circulate from one named language entity to the other).

These languoids are: Kelleng, Mbougue (which is also referred to as Mpaage), Nyambat, Mbaa, and Ndog Bikim. In most recordings, Basaa is used as a vehicular between the informants and the researchers. Bisoo also features in recordings made in Kelleng village as a result of inter-ethnic marriages between the Bisoo and the Kelleng communities.

The corpus which makes up the collection comprises video and audio recordings of various speech genres: lexical elicitation, grammatical elicitation, interviews, rituals, naturally occurring speech, and child language.