Edo (with diacritics, ; also called
Bini (Benin)) is a
Volta–Niger language spoken primarily in
Edo State,
Nigeria. It was and remains the primary language of the
Edo people of
Igodomigodo. The Igodomigodo kingdom was renamed
Edo by
Oba Eweka, after which the Edos refer to themselves as
Oviedo 'child of Edo'. The Edo capital was
Ubinu, known as
Benin City to the Portuguese who first heard about it from the coastal
Itsekiri, who pronounced it this way; from this the kingdom came to be known as the
Benin Empire in the West.