In Ubang, a farming community in southern Nigeria, men and women say they speak different languages. They view this unique difference as "a blessing from God", but as more young people leave for greener pastures and the English language becomes more popular, there are concerns it won't survive, reports the BBC's Yemisi Adegoke.

Dressed in a brightly coloured traditional outfit, a red chief's cap and holding a staff, Chief Oliver Ibang calls over his two young children, eager to demonstrate the different languages.
He holds up a yam and asks his daughter what it is called.
"It's 'irui'," she says, without hesitating.

But in Ubang's "male language" the word for yam, one of Nigeria's staple foods, is "itong".
And there are many other examples, such as the word for clothing, which is "nki" for men and "ariga" for women.
It is not clear exactly what proportion of words are different in the two languages and there is no pattern, such as whether the words are commonly used, related or linked to traditional roles for men or women.

"It's almost like two different lexicons," says anthropologist Chi Chi Undie, who has studied the community.
"There are a lot of words that men and women share in common, then there are others which are totally different depending on your sex. They don't sound alike, they don't have the same letters, they are completely different words."
'Sign of maturity'
She says the differences are far greater than, for example, British and American versions of English.
However, both men and women are able to understand each other perfectly - or as well as anywhere else in the world.
This might be partly because boys grow up speaking the female language, as they spend most of their childhoods with their mothers and other women, as Chief Ibang explains.

By the age of 10, boys are expected to speak the "male language", he says.
"There is a stage the male will reach and he discovers he is not using his rightful language. Nobody will tell him he should change to the male language."

"When he starts speaking the men language, you know the maturity is coming into him."
If a child does not switch to the correct language by a certain age, they are considered "abnormal", he says.
Ubang people are immensely proud of their language difference and see it as a sign of their uniqueness.
But there are different theories about how it happened. Most of the community offer a Biblical explanation.

Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-africa-45262081

As far as they both understand puna and joystick, no wahala.

The ability to grasp what IS spoken by some that have not being to school beats my imagination ...
languages are going extinct in Nigeria due to how hard we have sunk into English life styles just to APPEAR LITERATE AND ELITE...
Many kids can no speak their local dialect any more...
MOSTLY in AFRICA , A Japanese , an Israeli ,etc will still maintain his LOCAL dialect... They are not carried away by their colonizer`s lifestyles, neither are they sunk into the thought of meeting up in the global world , there by , neglecting what they have

hum, this world is beyond our imagination.

maggi and chef no dey this report? abi na recipe dem call am.

Old boy, this one tire me oooo!!!!

thanki410:
The ability to grasp what IS spoken by some that have not being to school beats my imagination ...
languages are going extinct in Nigeria due to how hard we have sunk into English life styles just to APPEAR LITERATE AND ELITE...
Many kids can no speak their local dialect any more...
MOSTLY in AFRICA , A Japanese , an Israeli ,etc will still maintain his LOCAL dialect... They are not carried away by their colonizer`s lifestyles, neither are they sunk into the thought of meeting up in the global world , there by , neglecting what they have

I still wonder people like you still think outdately ...can you imagine ur justification for keeping language because japan and other countries kept thier lang you see it as a means to keep urs china,indian and japan are billions in pop and they still gasp to speak English ...japan has a pop more than nigeria and all over japan they speak Japanese but we here in nigeria our pop is not up to Japan but we have more language than them ..this language barrier has a been a backbone for africa development from creation we have 3,000languages inside one continent were is the unification going to come from what has the language giving us medcine or what .we have nigerian english and pidgin is that not enough you still want more .more means divisionism we are a country now not kingdom so we do best to bring unification in one language and in everything else if i was ti be d president of this country all languages would be canceled anyone who soeak outside pidgin and english is tyranny it high time we let go unimportant things like language nd culture

It's all a game.

gregyboy:


I still wonder people like you still think outdately ...can you imagine ur justification for keeping language because japan and other countries kept thier lang you see it as a means to keep urs china,indian and japan are billions in pop and they still gasp to speak English ...japan has a pop more than nigeria and all over japan they speak Japanese but we here in nigeria our pop is not up to Japan but we have more language than them ..this language barrier has a been a backbone for africa development from creation we have 3,000languages inside one continent were is the unification going to come from what has the language giving us medcine or what .we have nigerian english and pidgin is that not enough you still want more .more means divisionism we are a country now not kingdom so we do best to bring unification in one language and in everything else if i was ti be d president of this country all languages would be canceled anyone who soeak outside pidgin and english is tyranny it high time we let go unimportant things like language nd culture

no, i dnt think outdated, i think language and culture...

thanki410:

no, i dnt think outdated, i think language and culture...

U have to understand language culture supremacy were all created during struggle for independence as the white looked down on we as inhuman and inferior and tried go impose thier culture on us we opposed nd saw a reason to hold our culture esteem over time we never had this culture legacy before then we never saw
a reason to hold culture so esteem before the white Came. we even interacted within our tribes before the advent of the white but the ideology changed when they came to impose thier culture on us ...the basic truth is we still living around the white supremacist circle our culture we celebrate most of it is where influence by the white people the native atire we wear all are foreign ,the shoes we wear is from them, we worship thier gods then what is african culture persay ? .what am saying in essence our culture is not even what holding on to it only reminds us we are different nigeria is an empire now ruled by a king called president u cant have a kingdom inside an empire we striving for unity long are those days when we were edo ,yorubas ,igbos now we all are Nigerians we should strive for what is common within us not what divides us culture is no use to us anymore english united us where our language couldnt,social media brought us togeda when our kings could not so what is the essence of irrelevant culture to show supiority or divisionism or kill ourselves all over nairaland is all about igbos nd yoruba fight in one country called nigeria...it seems if u dont force Africans to see the light they wont go ....my ideology to culture in nigeria is this if it has to stand at all we should strive for what is common not what divides us. first we should only have four kings oba of benin for d south ,obi of onitsch for d east ,sultan for d north ,oni for d west and the festival day should be celebrated on a particular days should be one yam festival, fish festival,africa festival ...then all language apart from english or local english should be scrambled with this we are sure we wont fight for divisionism in yrs to come...equality brings unity,unity brings strength, strength brings power,power bring development thank you

gregyboy:



U have to understand language culture supremacy were all created during struggle for independence as the white looked down on we as inhuman and inferior and tried go impose thier culture on us we opposed nd saw a reason to hold our culture esteem over time we never had this culture legacy before then we never saw
a reason to hold culture so esteem before the white Came. we even interacted within our tribes before the advent of the white but the ideology changed when they came to impose thier culture on us ...the basic truth is we still living around the white supremacist circle our culture we celebrate most of it is where influence by the white people the native atire we wear all are foreign ,the shoes we wear is from them, we worship thier gods then what is african culture persay ? .what am saying in essence our culture is not even what holding on to it only reminds us we are different nigeria is an empire now ruled by a king called president u cant have a kingdom inside an empire we striving for unity long are those days when we were edo ,yorubas ,igbos now we all are Nigerians we should strive for what is common within us not what divides us culture is no use to us anymore english united us where our language couldnt,social media brought us togeda when our kings could not so what is the essence of irrelevant culture to show supiority or divisionism or kill ourselves all over nairaland is all about igbos nd yoruba fight in one country called nigeria...it seems if u dont force Africans to see the light they wont go ....my ideology to culture in nigeria is this if it has to stand at all we should strive for what is common not what divides us. first we should only have four kings oba of benin for d south ,obi of onitsch for d east ,sultan for d north ,oni for d west and the festival day should be celebrated on a particular days should be one yam festival, fish festival,africa festival ...then all language apart from english or local english should be scrambled with this we are sure we wont fight for divisionism in yrs to come...equality brings unity,unity brings strength, strength brings power,power bring development thank you

i never talked about the negativity learning a uniformed language , i still remain that as much as we want unity and strength , and we want to be as we were taught , our culture still remains very cool and should not be thrown as many are going extinct...
The native English man speaks his language and doesn`t go for french...
as good as it is for us to come general , we should keep ours alive too

gregyboy:


I still wonder people like you still think outdately ...can you imagine ur justification for keeping language because japan and other countries kept thier lang you see it as a means to keep urs china,indian and japan are billions in pop and they still gasp to speak English ...japan has a pop more than nigeria and all over japan they speak Japanese but we here in nigeria our pop is not up to Japan but we have more language than them ..this language barrier has a been a backbone for africa development from creation we have 3,000languages inside one continent were is the unification going to come from what has the language giving us medcine or what .we have nigerian english and pidgin is that not enough you still want more .more means divisionism we are a country now not kingdom so we do best to bring unification in one language and in everything else if i was ti be d president of this country all languages would be canceled anyone who soeak outside pidgin and english is tyranny it high time we let go unimportant things like language nd culture

Nigeria's population is more than Japan's

thanki410:
i never talked about the negativity learning a uniformed language , i still remain that as much as we want unity and strength , and we want to be as we were taught , our culture still remains very cool and should not be thrown as many are going extinct...
The native English man speaks his language and doesn`t go for french...
as good as it is for us to come general , we should keep ours alive too

I have created a post in culture lets go discuss it there bcus m still culture relevancy in nigeria ...everyday is culture ur lifestyle thats what is the whiteman culture everyday new culture new rules not archaic rules

godfatherx:


Nigeria's population is more than Japan's

What about china that speak one indegenous language through out

thanki410:
i never talked about the negativity learning a uniformed language , i still remain that as much as we want unity and strength , and we want to be as we were taught , our culture still remains very cool and should not be thrown as many are going extinct...
The native English man speaks his language and doesn`t go for french...
as good as it is for us to come general , we should keep ours alive too

I have created a post in culture lets go discuss it there bcus m still culture relevancy in nigeria ...everyday is culture ur lifestyle thats what is the whiteman culture everyday new culture new rules not archaic rules like we have culture should be adaptive kearning ,educative to the society japan has a culture of technology, American has a culture of tourism,England has a culture of dominance russia has a culture of weapons nigeria has a culture of divisionism we can as well not practise the whiteman culture by staying unclad ,no phones ,no cars ,no shoes no education because they are white if our culture is bad we should not pain it beautiful but strive for a new culture

gregyboy:



What about china that speak one indegenous language through out

I am not arguing with you, I just want to correct the highlighted error

superlanny:
As far as they both understand puna and joystick, no wahala.

And this is your contribution to the discourse? Weh done sir.

Modern day babel