His and Hers

In the Ubang language of Nigeria, men and women speak different languages. They understand each other perfectly, but “It’s almost like two different lexicons,” says anthropologist Chi Chi Undie. “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”:

English Male Female
yam itong irui
clothing nki ariga
dog abu okwakwe
tree kitchi okweng
water bamuie amu
cup nko ogbala
bush bibiang déyirè
goat ibue obi

Raised by their mothers and other women, boys grow up speaking the female language, but at age 10 they’re expected to switch, unbidden, to the male. “There is a stage the male will reach and he discovers he is not using his rightful language,” says Chief Oliver Ibang. “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.”

“God created Adam and Eve and they were Ubang people,” he says. He had planned to give two languages to each ethnic group, but after the giving two to the Ubang he realized there were not enough languages to continue. “So he stopped. That’s why Ubang has the benefit of two languages — we are different from other people in the world.”