Nigerian village sees people using gender-based languages

A farming community in Nigeria sees people speaking the gender-based language but are able to understand each other perfectly.

The locals in Ubang believe that they are blessed by God.

An example would be a female using ‘irui’ for yam and the male would call it as ‘itong’.

Males call clothes nki while their female counterparts refer to it as ariga. It is yet to be known how many words are different between the men and women in the community.

However, there is not a fixed pattern for the words that are commonly spoken or are connected to gender-based roles.

According to an anthropologist named Chi Chi Undie – who did research on the topic – told BBC that there are some words that are different to another in 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,” he said. “They don’t sound alike, they don’t have the same letters, they are completely different words.”.

However, they face no problems in understanding each other.

An explanation for the phenomenon could be the boys understanding the women’s language due to being raised by their mothers during childhood.

It is expected of them to start speaking their the male language by the time they turn 10.

However, they are not considered a normal person by the time they reach their age even if not being asked to switch language.