June 2024

Gender diglossia and its maintenance among the Ubang

Ubang, a Bendi language spoken in Obudu, Nigeria, has gender-based language varieties whereby different terms are used for certain basic items in female and male speech forms. For instance, “okwakwe” and “abu” are respective female and male words for ‘dog’. There are also gendered nuances in the use of vowels and tone. Apparently, the non-cognate gender-differentiated lexicon derives...

Author(s): Lewis Demola