Obanliku (Banliku, Abanliku) is a Bendi language of

Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...

. There are five dialects or varieties: Bisu, Busi, Bishiri, Basang and Bebi. In a 2011 survey, it was found that the Bisu, Busi, Bishiri and Bebi dialects share above 75%

lexical similarity In linguistics, lexical similarity is a measure of the degree to which the word sets of two given languages are similar. A lexical similarity of 1 (or 100%) would mean a total overlap between vocabularies, whereas 0 means there are no common words. ...

and are

mutually intelligible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...

, but the

southwestern The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sepa ...

Basang dialect had less than 75%, causing some difficulty for speakers of the other dialects. Basang speakers could understand the other dialects, however. Additionally, all Obanliku speakers have some understanding of the neighbouring

Bete-Bendi language Bete-Bendi, or Bendi, is one of the Bendi languages of Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Afri ...

, mainly through learning it at the market; the Obanliku and Bete-Bendi languages also had an average of 70%

References

Bendi languages Languages of Nigeria {{Bantoid-lang-stub