Verbal art, ethnohistorical performances and welcome rituals from Ngun and Ajumbu

This collection includes materials from two different languages spoken in Lower Fungom, a rural, semi-forested small area of northwest Cameroon: the Ngun variety of Mungbam and Ajumbu. The original project was entitled “Linguistic and ethnographic documentation aimed at identifying loci of cultural and linguistic reproduction in two communities speaking endangered Bantoid languages”. This reveals that the main goal of this collection is not only to provide material about two endangered languages but, rather, to advance our understanding of the socio-cultural and linguistic mechanisms that made it possible for them to be still spoken. From this perspective, it can be said that this collection aims to push the boundaries of language documentation to include anthropological issues. This has determined that most of the events being documented were selected on the basis of their relevance that, according to both existing ethnographic data (Di Carlo 2011) and participants’ insights, they had for the reproduction of the traditional culture and language.