Sample Batanga-TTS-Dataset

Language

Batanga (ISO 639-3: bnm) is a Bantu language spoken along the Atlantic coast of Cameroon, primarily in the Ocean Division of the South Region. It belongs to the wider group of coastal Bantu languages of the Cameroonian littoral area. Despite its sociolinguistic significance within Cameroon, Batanga remains substantially underrepresented in language technology resources.

Variants

According to the Administrative Atlas of Cameroon's Languages (Breton & Bikia Fohtung 1991), Batanga encompasses two main speech varieties:

• Banoho (also spelt Banoo or Banɔɔ)

• Bapuku

The present dataset represents both varieties.

Writing System

The writing system used for the transcription of Batanga in this dataset is the General Alphabet of Cameroon's Languages (AGLC). The AGLC provides a phonologically motivated orthographic standard for Cameroonian national languages and serves as the reference framework for Batanga literacy materials. Note that the Batanga-ALCAM-MultimodalDataset, a companion resource, employs the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA); the present TTS dataset uses AGLC throughout.

1. Vowels

The vowel system attested in the dataset includes the following oral vowels:

a, e, i, o, u, ɛ, ɔ

Where:

• ɛ (epsilon): open-mid front unrounded vowel

• ɔ (open-o): open-mid back rounded vowel

Long vowels are represented by vowel doubling where attested.

2. Consonants

The consonant inventory reflected in the dataset includes simple, digraph, and prenasalised consonants:

b, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, mb, mp, mv, n, nd, nj, ng, ŋ, p, r, s, t, v, w, y

Special symbols:

• ŋ (eng): velar nasal consonant

• ny: palatalised nasal, used in sequences such as nyw

3. Nasal prefix markers

Batanga attests nasal prefixes that attach to consonant clusters. These are represented in the dataset using the apostrophe as a boundary marker between the nasal and the following consonant:

• nʼ: nasal alveolar prefix before consonants (e.g., nʼtindi, nʼkuta, nʼlesi, nʼtamwi)

• ŋʼ: nasal velar prefix before consonants (e.g., ŋʼhɔbɛ)

4. Tone system

Batanga is a tonal language with contrastive pitch levels. The dataset employs systematic tone marking on vowels in accordance with the AGLC convention. The following diacritics are attested in the dataset:

Level tones:

• High tone (H): acute accent — á, é, í, ó, ú, ɛ́, ɔ́

• Low tone (L): grave accent — à, è, ì, ò, ù, ɛ̀, ɔ̀

Unmarked vowels represent tonally neutral or contextually determined syllables.

Source

The dataset was compiled from scripted speech prompt lists read by a native speaker. Sentences were selected to provide broad phonological coverage of Batanga and to represent both the Bapuku and Banoho speech varieties. Sentences were transcribed in accordance with the AGLC orthographic standard.

Domain

The dataset represents scripted speech in Batanga, covering a broad range of everyday sentence types drawn from a general-purpose TTS/ASR prompt list. All utterances are scripted rather than spontaneous.

Size

Total audio duration: 5,231 seconds (01h 27m 11s), distributed across 1,023 MP3 audio clips in 11 recording sessions.

Structure

The dataset is organised into 11 recording sessions:

• Session tts_dataset_bnm_01: 100 clips (11m 25s)

• Session tts_dataset_bnm_02: 100 clips (8m 46s)

• Session tts_dataset_bnm_03: 100 clips (8m 03s)

• Session tts_dataset_bnm_04: 100 clips (6m 54s)

• Session tts_dataset_bnm_05: 100 clips (8m 28s)

• Session tts_dataset_bnm_06: 99 clips (8m 21s)

• Session tts_dataset_bnm_07: 100 clips (8m 29s)

• Session tts_dataset_bnm_08: 100 clips (7m 54s)

• Session tts_dataset_bnm_09: 100 clips (7m 36s)

• Session tts_dataset_bnm_10: 100 clips (8m 48s)

• Session tts_dataset_bnm_11: 24 clips (2m 22s)

Each session folder contains:

1. MP3 audio clips

2. One per-session sentence-to-audio mapping file (mapping.tsv), with 4 columns

Description of columns (mapping.tsv)

• #audio_filename: filename of the audio clip (MP3)

• #key: unique hash identifier of the recording

• #sentence: sentence text as read by the speaker, transcribed in AGLC orthography

• #attempts: number of recording attempts before acceptance

Sample