NewStats: 3,259,519 , 8,170,404 topics. Date: Sunday, 25 May 2025 at 12:32 PM 5m1j4k

I hear when people say this guy or girl looks like ayoruba or looks like an igbo. So my question is what are those physical qualities that can distinctively classify one as either a yoruba or igbo, even before you confirm from the person.
P.S: please this is not a tribal thread, so tribal cannibals keep off,
Beware of BAN

kagari:
I hear when people say this guy or girl looks like ayoruba or looks like an igbo. So my question is what are those physical qualities that can distinctively classify one as either a yoruba or igbo, even before you confirm from the person.
P.S: please this is not a tribal thread, so tribal cannibals keep off,
Beware of BAN

If yoruba head, igbo head is not a tribal thread then what is it? U better change d title of your topic

Op show us picture of your own head so that we can tell your own tribe by looking at it

Their eyes, their mouths and of course their head . I am not Yoruba or Igbo so i can tell they both have distinct shape of heads.....Observing from afar. You can also recognize most Fulanis by the structure of their faces and their athletic and slim body structure. But many Northerners don't have that distinct feature unlike the Yorubas or Igbo. Probably because of years of intermarriage between many northern tribes.

There is nothing wrong in identifying the physical features of certain tribes. Even the white who came to Rwanda immediately recognized the difference between the Tutsis and the Hutus tribes and they made a diagram of both. [img]http://pcolman.files./2012/04/tribal-differences.jpg?w=584[/img] The food you eat, The climate you are exposed to and your daily activities will definitely change your body structure. And if your generation continued in your footsteps for thousands of years unchanged, that physical feature may just be permanent and would be ed down from generation to generation. Your body will definitely evolved to take the strain from these activities.

So you still don't know how to Eyedentify a Chinese man in the midst of Americans.

IGBOS are light skin in nature while most yorubas are dark skin though most of them bleach their skins their hands will have rainbow colors

ak47mann:
IGBOS are light skin in nature while most yorubas are dark skin though most of them bleach their skins their hands will have rainbow colors

,
i say this cause i can easily identify other major tribes physicaly except yoruba and igbo. To me i believe its the lips

Tribal marks.

Yorubas have large marks on their cheeks. If you are not used to it you would think you met a victim of a tiger attack, but they actually do that to themselves.

Most NUPE people have dark skin

Most FULANI people are tall and light-skinned

GWARIs are usually dark and thick

IGBO people have flat head likewise GHANIANS

Horlawoomey:
Most NUPE people have dark skin

Most FULANI people are tall and light-skinned

GWARIs are usually dark and thick

IGBO people have flat head likewise GHANIANS

.
For real
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I dont know if its just me, but to me Esan girls most times look alike, mostly chubby with round head amd mostly chocolate color and them dey sabi get pimples at teenage age with kissing shaped kind of lips

Una don start?

kagari:

.
For real
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I dont know if its just me, but to me Esan girls most times look alike, mostly chubby with round head amd mostly chocolate color and them dey sabi get pimples at teenage age with kissing shaped kind of lips

i think is isoko babe i use to date one before they got pretty face but pimples spoil their face anyway i cant say for others

This thread is highly educative @lalaclastica

I can easily identify a yroba men by their big and wide mouth. while an igbo man can be recognized by his flat head.

For me how I identify a yoruba is four factors. They tend to have cone head shaped like their brain is being compressed. Very dark skin, almost dinka like, very loud mouth, stocky but not in a good way and a high percentage of them have facial features that is primate like.
When they are mixed with something, it becomes difficult to differentiate them example banky w

This entire thread is just one long record of tribalistic idiocy. The real answer is that the various Niger-Congo speaking groups within Nigeria's borders are genetically very similar, especially those within the same YEAI group that includes Yoruboid, Edoid and Igboid languages. Anyone claiming to be able to reliably distinguish people from these groups using purely physical features is either delusional or a liar.

Identification has more to do with accent when they talk than looks, and looks plays a much smaller part


Yorubas, edo/delta, efik/ibibio, hausa/fulani and ibos have distinctively different and a very easy to identify accent when they speak pure English/pidgin English


Looks can only give an unreliable estimate of a typical Nigerian in a multicultural environment. For accuracy, our brain immediately vhecks for other signs such as mode of dressing, tribal marks, prayer induced dark forehead (muslims) and lastly skin colour. There are generally more light skinned colored people amongst fulanis and the south eastern states compared to other states

Tribes do have distinctive looks in Nigeria, I believe this in spite of the African language classification imposed on our education by European Anthropologists. Each main tribe is roughly homogeneous among themselves and different from the others in Nigeria. Each tribal homogeneity may not be, say, as pronounced as Ethiopians, Aborigines or Papuans but differences exist nonetheless. Intertribal mixing has further blurred these distinctive and alternative physical characteristics but differences remain. It is a pity that we as Africans have to rely on Western research or replicate them in order to command peer approval if not I'm convinced the distinctive characteristics would have been recognised academically. Research on Africa in this regard has been lazy.


Outside of this, isn't it odd how the environment can quickly affect the appearance of individuals? For instance, there are recognisable and yet difficult to point out differences in appearance of say a Yoruba, Igbo or Isoko man brought up in America from a Yoruba, Igbo or Isoko man brought up in England? Even something as simple as being brought up in an enlightened home can effect marked changes in appearance compared to those brought up in less afluent backgrounds.

A Yoruba girl saw me in Kogi and quickly referred to me as Igbo. When I asked how she knew, she said "you're tall, fair, muscular and big" and decided to go round and experiment on her analysis.
Turns out she was right; majority of igbos are really tall, fair and big while many Yorubas are slim, black, and shortish.
That doesn't mean that there're no tall, fair Yorubas ooo.

I also noticed majority of the Hausa/Fulani has pointed nose..that's a distinctive feat on them

Of course, this being Nairaland, people had to "rebut" my pointing out the extreme genetic similarity of southern Nigerians by repeating their personal anecdotes as if they were fact. Here is the actual science ing my view that any talk of one group being "tall and muscular" or "dark" and another being "light skinned" is pure nonsense:

https://bmcgenet.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2156-6-38

The funny thing about anecdotes is that it's the easiest thing in the world to come up with counter-examples. Most of the people in my own family are lighter than any supposed "light skinned" Igbos, without having any known white or Igbo ancestry, while the likes of Anthony Joshua and Hakeem Olajuwon hardly fit the notion that Yorubas are short and less than muscular, do they?

You tribal warriors really need to give it up. The only real way to tell Edos, Igalas, Igbos, Itsekiris, Ijaws, Yorubas, etc. apart is through their behaviors, accents, ways of dressing, and so on, not through any inherited physical features. If you claim there is, provide solid research to back it up, not your personal impressions which have been colored by stereotypes and tribal prejudices.

omohayek:
Of course, this being Nairaland, people had to "rebut" my pointing out the extreme genetic similarity of southern Nigerians by repeating their personal anecdotes as if they were fact. Here is the actual science ing my view that any talk of one group being "tall and muscular" or "dark" and another being "light skinned" is pure nonsense:

https://bmcgenet.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2156-6-38

The funny thing about anecdotes is that it's the easiest thing in the world to come up with counter-examples. Most of the people in my own family are lighter than any supposed "light skinned" Igbos, without having any known white or Igbo ancestry, while the likes of Anthony Joshua and Hakeem Olajuwon hardly fit the notion that Yorubas are short and less than muscular, do they?

You tribal warriors really need to give it up. The only real way to tell Edos, Igalas, Igbos, Itsekiris, Ijaws, Yorubas, etc. apart is through their behaviors, accents, ways of dressing, and so on, not through any inherited physical features. If you claim there is, provide solid research to back it up, not your personal impressions which have been colored by stereotypes and tribal prejudices.

that is actually the essence of this thread. But there must be a reason why you can be said to look Yoruba, igbo, delta, Hausa, even before you speak or when you are on coporate

kagari:
that is actually the essence of this thread. But there must be a reason why you can be said to look Yoruba, igbo, delta, Hausa, even before you speak or when you are on coporate

Sure, but it's the same reason why people can tell Koreans from Japanese - cultural norms, fashions, mannerisms, etc. That's really all there is to it.

For instance, there appears to be a strand of Yorubas, mostly male that have large wet eyes - some Germanic strands also have theses large wet eyes - on skulls where the forehead down to the nostril area are forward while the mouth area down to the chin area is in. The American Sprinter has this appearance and resembles the Yoruba Fela. See pics.





This look is almost always Yoruba.




Likewise, see any Nigerian with a Maurice White type look and he'll almost certainly be of Igbo origen.

Still on the matter

80% of Yoruba women bleach, it's very common.

I tag any bleacher Yoruba, look at derele and bobrisky

igbos

*igbos are lighter on average
*more physically build than yorubas too
*facial feature looks similar to there neighbours e.g efik, edo etc," more broader facial feature
"


*bonus:most igbos have flat-head shape





yoruba

* yorubas are usually slim.
*yorubas are taller on average both men and women.
*facial feature :yorubas are more diverse via connection with many great empires since medieval period e g hausa, fulani,gbe speakers, nupe, songhai etc, yorubas can look like any of the tribes I mentioned, yorubas have" more straight facial features too"

kagari:
I hear when people say this guy or girl looks like ayoruba or looks like an igbo. So my question is what are those physical qualities that can distinctively classify one as either a yoruba or igbo, even before you confirm from the person.
P.S: please this is not a tribal thread, so tribal cannibals keep off,
Beware of BAN

Nice, this needs to get to front page for better audience

Lalaclastica

Check the shape of the head maybe it is flat


Then check their girls legs maybe be it is yam like

Yorubas to me are easily identified anywhere in world. They look very African like Kenyans and South Sudanese with dark blue skin color. Thier skin is very soaked up or bloated like from drinking too much oil as the picture below also show. They also have yellow eyes like they have Jaundice disease. Their women are like that too. Also their men have zero to no muscles or very low testosterone levels, meaning their men rarely have facial or body hair.