  In Yoruba language the word eniyan means a person. Even though the word is used in a normative as well as non-normative (or, ordinary) sense, “greater emphasis is placed on the normative dimension of eniyan” (Gbadagesin, 1991: 27). It can be said of some human individual that ‘he or she is not a person’ (Ki i se eniyan). Such a comment is a “judgment of the moral standing of the human being who is thus determined to fall short of what it takes to be recognized as such” (Gbadagesin, 1991: 27).