The language was brought to Bioko from continental Africa more than three thousand years ago when the Bubi began settling on the island.

The Bube language is divided into six different dialects that vary in the northern and southern regions of Bioko Island.

[citation needed] Bube is also spoken in a small area on the mainland closest to the island, where speakers are shifting to Wumboko.

[6] A later Bube-to-English primer was authored in 1875 by William Barleycorn, a colonial era Primitive Methodist missionary of Igbo and Fernandino descent, while he was serving in the Bubi village of Basupu.

An official language dictionary and grammar guide was published by the ethnic Bubi scholar Justo Bolekia Boleká.