Spreadsheets (xlsx and csv) with flora-fauna terms for groups of native languages of interior West Africa, chiefly east-central Mali (including Dogon) and SW Burkina Faso, compiled over the years on the margins of general fieldwork on these languages. Each language has a column. and For resources including images of Mali flora, see also collection "Mali flora images" - https://doi.org/10.7302/aef4-fk26
These images of plants, in nature or as fresh or dried specimens, were made in conjunction with research on languages of the Dogon and Bozo families, along with the isolated language Bangime, in Central Mali between 2006 and 2023. (See also the work "Dogon and Bangime flora terms from central Mali (2023)" in Deep Blue Data: https://doi.org/10.7302/34vf-jk03. The late Pierre Poilecot of CNRS (Montpellier, France) provided invaluable help in the early days. However, I am responsible for the determinations (including taxonomic updates), and I am not a professional botanist. The images range from poor to excellent technical quality. They may be of use for two purposes: a) acquiring a basic knowledge of the flora of the area, for newcomers; b) as vouchers for the determinations in my lexical spreadsheets on the various languages. While the main burst of taxonomic changes due to molecular studies has probably leveled off as of 2023, some revisions at all levels (family, genus, species) will occur over time. The African Flowering Plant Database at url https://africanplantdatabase.ch is especially useful for updates/synonymies at the species level, but tends to lag behind on revisions at the family level. You can also consult the Practical identification guide to plants of northern and east-central Mali, compiled from the literature, in Deep Blue Documents at https://dx.doi.org/10.7302/8631., Each "work" for flowering plants in this collection has the title "Mali flora images X" where X is the name of a botanical family. Users who enter at the collection level should search by family (from Acanthacaceae to Zypɣophyllaceae). Large families Poaceae, Malvaceae, and Fabaceae are divided into two or more works, but they will all show up in search results for the family. There is one work for non-flowering plants with title "Mali aa fern fungus lichen images"., Within each work, the individual images have file names like these:
fl_Amaranthaceae_Celosia_trigyna_Beni_10_2011_fl_50035_JH.JPG
fl_Lamiaceae_Hoslundia_opposita_Barato_09_2021_piripirinaw_03_fol_fr_JH.JPG
fl_Zygophyllaceae_Tribulus_terrestris_Sevare_patch_50672_JH.tif
fl_Fabaceae_Caesalpinioideae_mimosoid_Vachellia_(or_Acacia)_nilotica fuwON_1_Barato_09_2021_entire_JH.JPG
They begin with "fl" for flora, the family, the genus, and the species epithet. For Fabaceae, the subfamily and if relevant "mimosoid" (part of subfamily Caesalpinioideae) precedes the genus. These items are separated by underlines (important to note if searching for a genus-species binomial). The remaining items were mostly for my own use. They may include a location (on which see the following paragraph), the date, a crude representation (without IPA symbols or diacritics) of a native name, a five-digit code for my use, a photo number like "2" for the same plant, "JH" to indicate that the image was taken by me or by a member of a project I directed, jpg or occasionally tif for forrmat, and an indicator of what part of the plant is shown: entire, bark, fl[ower], fol[iage], lf (leaf), fr[uit], tr[unk], br[anch], th[orn].
File names can be quite long especially for Fabaceae because of the subfamily names. In lists of files under such works, the file name may be shown in abbreviated form (with ellipsis ...) so that the genus and species terms may not be visible. The only way to find files for a particular species is by searching for that species. Alternatively, all of the files in a work can be downloaded in zip form and users can then see complete file names. The readme's for each work list the included species. , Most of the locations indicated are in the Dogon-speaking area, which includes cliffs, high plateaus, inselbergs, sandy plains, seasonal rivers, and small ponds. Dogon locations include Beni, Tupere, Ségué, Bendiely, Dianwely, Anda, Walo, and Tongo Tongo, among others. The inselbergs and adjoining plains of the montane Songhay are represented mainly by Hombori and Kikara. The Niger and Bani river zone from Mopti to Segou, a mainly Bozo-speaking area that features seasonal floodplains, is represented mainly by Djenne, Barato, and Kolongo. , Some of these plants are featured in documentary-style videos. There are two collections of such videos from Mali in Deep Blue Data:
Mali documentary videos from 2023 - https://doi.org/10.7302/4851-2c52
Central Mali documentary videos - https://doi.org/10.7302/4jg9-j095
Additional flora-related videos from Mali may be archived at a later date. Some fauna images may also be archived at a later date.
The various Mali collections (flora, videos) will be paralleled in time by comparable collections for southwestern Burkina Faso, and small collections for north-central Côte d'Ivoire, all in Deep Blue Data., and Terminology resources can be found in the collection "Native flora-fauna term spreadsheets from interior West Africa" - https://doi.org/10.7302/5a0d-gq20
lexicon in spreadsheet form. xlsx version has six sheets, each of which corresponds to a csv file: nouns, adjectives, numerals, other, verbs, and places. See the "readme" file for details.
lexicon of Kelenga, a Bozo language of Mali. French and English glosses are used. The xlsx version has separate sheets for nouns, adjectives, numerals, verbs, and other. Each of these sheets corresponds to a separate csv file. Each sheet is customized with data relevant to the indicated stem-class, e.g. singular and plural for nouns and perfective and imperfective stems for verbs. The files are also available on Zenodo, as files associated with "A grammar of Kelenga" ( https://zenodo.org/records/7699838).
This collection consists of supplements to reference grammars and texts for Dogon languages that are archived in Deep Blue Documents (and in most cases also at Zenodo). The supplements include audio files (wav and/or mp3), lexical spreadsheets (xlsx and/or csv), and perhaps eventually other media. Some of the audio recordings are transcribed in the reference grammars or in separate text collections. Separate lexical spreadsheets are included for Tiranige and Tebul Ure. Other Dogon languages have their own columns in the comparative Dogon lexical spreadsheet. and Related materials are available in the Deep Blue Data collections “Mali flora images” ( https://doi.org/10.7302/aef4-fk26), “Central Mali geography photos” ( https://doi.org/10.7302/0tbp-zk29 - images of villages), “Native flora-fauna term spreadsheets from interior West Africa” ( https://doi.org/10.7302/5a0d-gq20), “Central Mali documentary videos” ( https://doi.org/10.7302/4jg9-j095), and “Mali documentary videos from 2023” ( https://doi.org/10.7302/4851-2c52).
Jalkunan is a severely endangered Mande language of southwestern Burkina Faso. A grammar of Jalkunan is in Deep Blue Documents (and at Zenodo). This collection supplements the grammar with audio files (wav, mp3) and lexical spreadsheets (xlsx, csv). Some of the audio recordings (1, 2, and 4) are transcribed at the end of the grammar. and Heath, Jeffrey. A grammar of Jalkunan (Mande, Burkina Faso). 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/139025
Jalkunan is an endangered language of the Mande family, spoken in the village cluster of Blédougou in southwestern Burkina Faso. The lexical work complements a published grammar with texts. See the readme for further information.
Opportunistically recorded by me for possible future study in Mali in 1989 (in Gao) and 1991 (in Mopti), while I was working on Songhay languages. One or two speakers were recruited for each session, and were given free choice of topics. They generally talked about history and customs. , 1989-01 features speakers of Tieyaxo from the area of Nouh-Bozo on the Niger R. , 1989-02 features a holy man, speaker of Tigemaxo from the area of Dia. The holy man has a colorful and rapid-fire speaking style and mixed in words and phrases from other languages. , and The 1991 recordings appear to involve varieties of Jenaama-Sorogaama, but have not been analysed. These materials may be listened to, studied, or transcribed as end-users wish.
lexical spreadsheets for the Jenaama/Sorogaama language of Djenné, Mali (Bozo language family). Includes an xlsx file with five sheets, each of which corresponds to a separate csv file: nouns, adjectives, numerals, other, and verbs. See the "readme" file for details.
This collection contains supplements to reference grammars and texts that are archived at Deep Blue Documents and at Zenodo. The supplements include lexical spreadsheets (xlsx and/or csv) and audio files (some of the audio recordings are transcribed in the grammars or text collections). The initial materials are from Tiefo-N and Tiefo-D. Supplements from other languages (Viemo, Siamou) are in progress and may be added later. These languages are thought to constitute their own branches of Niger-Congo, and in the case of Siamou even that affiliation is contested. Supplements from Jalkunan (a Mande language of SW Burkina Faso) are in a separate collection.