River State, is Ubang community where the female and their male
inhabitants speak separate languages and they understand themselves.
Neighbouring villagers, who know about the extraordinary development
look at the people with a feeling of awe.
Ubang people know how others feel about their wonderful talent and now
and again, they tell their story in a way that makes others green with
envy.
For instance, whenNiger Delta Voicevisited the community, the elders
led by Ogbe Sylvanus Odobi, said God descended on one of the mountains
in the villages of Okiro and stood on the rock at the peak of the
mountain and distributed languages.
"He started with us (Ubang) since it is our mountain that He stood to
distribute the languages and His footprint is still etched on that
rock till today," Odobi flanked by two others, Ochui David and Clement
Obi said.
His words: "It was after God had distributed the languages to the men
and women of Ubang that He discovered that the languages would not go
round the communities if He continued to give each for both sexes and
so He decided to give the other communities one language for both
sexes."
The clan head, Chief Moses Ade, corroborated their story.
No plan to merge languages
Populated by energetic young men and stunning girls, Ubang comprises
of three villages, Okwersing, Ofambe and Okiro, the variances in
language between the male and female folks is what stands the
community out they most and they are quite proud of it.
They boast that God so loved them and except He comes down again to
the spot in the community where He handed them the languages and
directs otherwise, they had no plan to fuse the two languages.
Odobi asserted that right from birth, each child born in the community
knows he or she has to speak the language of his or her sex because
any attempt to learn the language of the other will end in futility.
"If a female tries to speak the language of the male or vice versa,
she will not be able because she will be confused and make a lot of
mistakes," he added.
For example, the men folk call waterAmie, while the female call
itBanu. The verb, 'go,' isMbieby the male, while to the women, it
isUruo. Women call yam,Iri, while men call itKetung.
An elderly woman in the village, Mary Orim, said the words that form
the two languages were given by God, so no one language is superior to
the other and each sex speaks the words allotted to their language
with pride and confidence.
"Why should I speak the men's language after God has considered it fit
to give me my own language? She queried when asked why the women did
not revolt and speak the same language with male counterpart as it is
done in other places.
She toldNiger Delta Voice, "you (reporter) will spend the entire week
here if you decide to write all the words down because nearly all the
words we speak are separate."
Stuffing her nose with snuff from her carefully-held snuff box, she
said, "Women call stone 'koka', while their men call it 'okai, we call
shirt is 'ariga' while men call itNki.
She added: "If a woman, no matter how old, begins to speak like a man,
the women will laugh at her."
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