To Speak, Not to Speak, or How to Speak: Atypical Bodies and the Politics of Language
Damilola R. Oydeji
Language Literature and Interdisciplinary Studies12/31/2025·DOI·Read paper
Abstract
<jats:p>Sé dìndìnrìn ni é ni?—“Are you mentally disabled?” —my mother would shout at me and my siblings in Yorùbá when we were still children, a question often provoked by any range of behaviors she deemed unusual. Whether it was bursting into tears when reporting a wrong done by another or responding sluggishly to a question of hers, any difference from expected emotional or behavioral norms prompted this remark. To this day, I can still hear the words, intoned in her Ibadan dialect, echoing through the walls of our one-story home in Lagos, Nigeria.</jats:p>
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