The Bantu languages are spoken in a very large area, including most of Africa from southern Cameroon eastward to Kenya and southward to the southernmost tip of the continent. Twelve Bantu languages are spoken by more than five million people, including Rundi, Rwanda, Shona, Xhosa, and Zulu.
What does bantu mean in African?
[2] Abantu (or ‘Bantu’ as it was used by colonists) is the Zulu word for people. It is the plural of the word ‘umuntu’, meaning ‘person’, and is based on the stem ‘–ntu’ plus the plural prefix ‘aba’. This original meaning changed through the history of South Africa.
What is the most common Bantu language?
Shona– 15 million
Shona, though it can be separated into several dialects (Karanga, Zezuru, Korekore, Ndau, and Manyika), is considered the most widely spoken Bantu language after Swahili.
What countries speak Bantu?
Communities speaking Bantu languages are indigenous to twenty-seven African countries: Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, CAR, Comoros, Congo, DRC, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mayotte, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, …
Who created Bantu language?
Wilhelm Bleek first used the term “Bantu” in its current sense in his 1862 book A Comparative Grammar of South African Languages, in which he hypothesized that a vast number of languages located across central, southern, eastern, and western Africa shared so many characteristics that they must be part of a single …
What race is Bantu?
Bantu peoples are the speakers of Bantu languages, comprising several hundred indigenous ethnic groups in Africa, spread over a vast area from Central Africa across the African Great Lakes to Southern Africa.
What religion is Bantu?
Traditional religion is common among the Bantu, with a strong belief in magic. Christianity and Islam are also practiced.
How do you say hello in Bantu language?
1. Hujambo — “Hello!” A friendly “hujambo” goes a long way. 2. Habari — Also means “hello” or “good morning.” Use this one when speaking with older people.
Is Bantu a derogatory term?
The authors explain their choice of names in their Supplementary Information, but the terms Khoisan, Bantu and Bushman are perceived by those populations as outdated and even derogatory.
What is the oldest African language?
Afrikaans is one of the official languages of South Africa. It belongs to the West Germanic branch of the Indo-European family. It evolved from the variety of Dutch which was spoken by Dutch settlers in South Africa.
What language did the Bantu speak?
The Bantu languages are spoken in a very large area, including most of Africa from southern Cameroon eastward to Kenya and southward to the southernmost tip of the continent. Twelve Bantu languages are spoken by more than five million people, including Rundi, Rwanda, Shona, Xhosa, and Zulu.
Is Swahili Bantu language?
Swahili language, also called kiSwahili, or Kiswahili, Bantu language spoken either as a mother tongue or as a fluent second language on the east coast of Africa in an area extending from Lamu Island, Kenya, in the north to the southern border of Tanzania in the south. …
Are there Bantu in West Africa?
The Western Bantu are part of the same great swath of Bantu who inhabit eastern and southern Africa. They moved south from Cameroon along the west coast of Africa in the same time frame as the Eastern Bantu (beginning about 1000 B.C.), ending up in what we know today as Angola and Namibia.
What does Bantu mean?
1 : a family of Niger-Congo languages spoken in central and southern Africa. 2 : a member of any of a group of African peoples who speak Bantu languages.
How do I know my Bantu language?
A common characteristic of Bantu languages is that they use words such as muntu or mutu for “human being” or in simplistic terms “person”, and the plural prefix for human nouns starting with mu- (class 1) in most languages is ba- (class 2), thus giving bantu for “people”.
Is Zulu a Bantu language?
Zulu language, a Bantu language spoken by more than nine million people mainly in South Africa, especially in the Zululand area of KwaZulu/Natal province. The Zulu language is a member of the Southeastern, or Nguni, subgroup of the Bantu group of the Benue-Congo branch of the Niger-Congo language family.