What are the Bantu languages?
- Kituba, another language of the Congos, also known as Munukutuba (“I speak”) or Kikongo ya Leta (“Kikongo of the State” — Leta is from French l’état ), is a creole ...
- Luganda, spoken in Uganda. ...
- Chinyanja, spoken in Zambia and Malawi, also known as Chi chewa. ...
- Shona, spoken in Zimbabwe, is the Bantu language with the most native speakers.
What is the origin of the Bantu people?
The following are some of the larger Bantu tribes:
- Swahili (East and Central Africa) - Approximately 82 million speakers (Population includes both native speakers and others who speak a native language in addition to Swahili)
- Hutu (Rwanda and Burundi) - Approximately 8.5 million speakers in late 20th century.
- Shona (Zimbabwe)-Approximately 15 million speakers
What is the origin of the Bantu language?
Origin. The Bantu languages descend from a common Proto-Bantu language, which is believed to have been spoken in what is now Cameroon in Central Africa. An estimated 2,500–3,000 years ago (1000 BC to 500 BC), speakers of the Proto-Bantu language began a series of migrations eastward and southward, carrying agriculture with them.
What did the Bantu people do?
What are the Bantu people known for? The Bantu helped develop the land to which they moved by introduce new foods, such as millet and sorghum. It has also been speculated that they introduced iron smelting and iron tools. They have grown to about 60 million linguistically related people.
What are the Bantu known for?
The Bantu shared their knowledge of iron-smelting, pottery-making, and their farming skills with indigenous forager and nomadic tribes they met, many of whom eventually then settled into stable village communities.
What are two facts about Bantu?
Interesting FactsThe Bantu have over 400 different ethnic groups within it.The Bantu lived in small villages governed by a chief, council, or elders.They exhausted an area of the resources and then they moved.The word Bantu was first used by Wilhelm Bleek with the meaning 'people'.Nelson Mandela was a Bantu.
What is Bantu society?
In the Bantu migrations, Bantu people spread from their homeland in Cameroon and Nigeria throughout much of Sub-Saharan Africa over the 2,000 years from 1500 BCE to 500 CE. As they migrated south and east, they spread their agricultural practices, their language, their culture, and their iron working skills.
Where is the Bantu tribe from?
The Bantu peoples, or Bantu, are several hundred ethnic groups who speak Bantu languages, spread over a vast area from Central Africa to Southeast Africa and into Southern Africa.
What are some Bantu traditions?
The traditional culture of most Bantu peoples includes several fables about personified, talking animals. The prominent character of Bantu fables is the hare, a symbol of skill and cunning. Its main antagonist is the sneaky and deceptive hyena. Lion and elephant usually represent brute force.
What language do Bantu speak?
Bantu languages such as Swahili, Zulu, Chichewa or Bemba are spoken by an estimated 240 million speakers in 27 African countries, and are one of the most important language groups in Africa in terms of geographical and demographic distribution.
What is the Bantu religion?
HE religion of the Bantu is primarily a worship of ancestors. Some of these have recently passed into the spirit world and are well known. Others are ancient and are often considered as high gods or worshipped as spirits of various places. The idea of a Supreme God is present but He is worshipped little if at all.
What tribes are Bantu?
Bantu communities have populations of several million, e.g. the Shona of Zimbabwe (12 million as of 2000), the Zulu of South Africa (12 million as of 2005) the Luba of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (7 million as of 2010), the Sukuma of Tanzania (9 million as of 2016), or the Kikuyu of Kenya (7 million as of 2010 ...
What does the term Bantu refer to?
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.
Who are the Bantu today?
Contemporary Bantu Currently the Bantu are known more as a language group than as a distinct ethnic group. Swahili is the most widely spoken Bantu language and is considered the main language of around 50 million people living in the countries along the east coast of Africa.
Where are the Bantu today?
Today, Bantu-speaking people are primarily found in Rwanda, Angola, Burundi, Zimbabwe, and South Africa, with some among other nations in the Southern part of Africa.
How old is Bantu?
An estimated 2,500–3,000 years ago (1000 BC to 500 BC), speakers of the Proto-Bantu language began a series of migrations eastward and southward, carrying agriculture with them.
Where is Bantu located?
People, Locations, Episodes The Bantu live in sub-Saharan Africa, spread over a vast area from Central Africa across the African Great Lakes to Southern Africa. Linguistically, these languages belong to the Southern Bantoid branch of Benue Congo, one of the language families grouped within the Niger-Congo phylum.
What do the Bantu believe in?
While most Bantu are Muslim, a small percentage follow traditional African religion or Christianity.
When did Bantu people spread?
Although culture can spread from one place to another through ideas and technology, language spreads with the physical movement of people speaking it. That's why linguists theorize that the Bantu-speaking peoples of western Africa migrated south and east, between 2000 BCE and 1000 CE.
Why did Bantu migrate?
Bantu people might have decided or might have often been forced to move away from their initial settlements by any one or many of the following circumstances: Overpopulation. exhaustion of local resources - agricultural land, grazing lands, forests, and water sources. increased competition for local resources.
Where did the Bantu people live?
The classification is primarily linguistic, for the cultural patterns of Bantu speakers are extremely diverse; the linguistic connection, however, has given rise to considerable speculation concerning a possible common area of origin of the Bantu peoples, the linguistic evidence pointing strongly to the region of the present-day Cameroon-Nigeria border. It is generally agreed that some one-third of the continent today occupied by Bantu-speaking peoples was, until approximately 2,000 years ago, the dominion of other groups. The causes and itinerary of the subsequent Bantu migration have attracted the attention of several anthropologists. George P. Murdockof the United States postulated that the expansion of the Bantu was associated with their acquisition of certain Malaysian food crops (banana, taro, and yam), which spread westward across the continent at about the time that the migration is thought to have begun. These crops, Murdock argued, enabled them to penetrate the tropical rainforestof equatorial Africa, whence they spread southward. A more widely held view, however, is that the migratory route lay eastward, across the southern Sudan, and then south, past the great lakes of the northeast.
What food crops did the Bantu people acquire?
Murdock of the United States postulated that the expansion of the Bantu was associated with their acquisition of certain Malaysian food crops (banana, taro, and yam), which spread westward across the continent at about the time that the migration is thought to have begun.
What did the Zulu people make?
The Zulu and related peoples of the southern Bantu made wooden figures that are mostly undistinguished and may have been executed under European influence. Attractive small clay models of cattle, made by children, occur there, as they do through much of eastern and southern…
What African art is made of wooden figures?
African art: Southern Bantu. The Zulu and related peoples of the southern Bantu made wooden figures that are mostly undistinguished and may have been executed under... This article was most recently revised and updated by Elizabeth Prine Pauls, Associate Editor.
What did the Bantu people learn?
Known as the Interlacustrine Bantu, these peoples learned new farming methods from neighbors in eastern Africa who spoke Cushitic and Sudanic languages. They raised livestock—particularly cattle—and practiced agriculture, growing grain crops such as sorghum.
Where did the Bantu originate?
The Bantu, a large group of related peoples, originated along what is now the border between NIGERIA and CAMEROON and spread throughout central and southern Africa. The term Bantu is sometimes used to describe all Africans and African culture in general. But this use of the term is inaccurate; Bantu peoples make up only about a third ...
How did the Bantu community gain political power?
People who owned cattle gained political power by loaning the cattle to neighbors, who were obligated to provide support and assistance to the lender in return. In this way, loaning cattle forged new political relationships and incorporated outsiders in existing political and social groups.
What did the West Bantu people do?
These West Bantu people developed new skills such as ironworking and the making of ceramics.
Where did the Interlacustrine Bantu come from?
The Interlacustrine Bantu. Long after the West Bantu migration, a second Bantu migration began—this one toward the east. Sometime before 1000 B.C. Bantu groups arrived in the northwestern Great Lakes area in what is now UGANDA. Known as the Interlacustrine Bantu, these peoples learned new farming methods from neighbors in eastern Africa who spoke ...
How many Bantu languages are there in Africa?
Hundreds of societies in central and southern Africa trace their roots to the Bantu, and about 150 million Africans speak one of nearly 600 Bantu languages. Yet regional differences in environment, livelihood, and history have made each Bantu society and tongue unique.
Where did the Bantu language spread?
The Interlacustrine Bantu eventually spread east to modern-day KENYA and TANZANIA and south into the present-day countries of ZIMBABWE, BOTSWANA, MOZAMBIQUE, and parts of SOUTH AFRICA. This movement was very rapid and most likely occurred before 200 B.C. As in the west, Bantu languages scattered widely throughout eastern Africa. After the first eastern expansion ended, East Bantu speakers in southeastern Congo (Kinshasa) and ZAMBIA moved westward and joined with West Bantu speakers. The languages in this area show a mixture of East and West Bantu influences.
What is the Bantu language?
Predominantly Christianity, traditional faiths; minority. 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.
Where did the Bantu language originate?
Bantu languages are theorised to derive from the Proto-Bantu reconstructed language, estimated to have been spoken about 4,000 to 3,000 years ago in West/ Central Africa (the area of modern-day Cameroon ).
What brought the Bantu to Madagascar?
The Bantu migrations, and centuries later, the Indian ocean slave trade, brought Bantu influence to Madagascar, the Malagasy people showing Bantu admixture, and their Malagasy language Bantu loans.
What are some examples of Bantu states?
examples of such Bantu states include: the Kingdom of Kongo, Anziku Kingdom, Kingdom of Ndongo, the Kingdom of Matamba the Kuba Kingdom, the Lunda Empire, the Luba Empire, Mbunda Kingdom, Yeke Kingdom, Kasanje Kingdom, Empire of Kitara, Butooro, Bunyoro, Buganda, Busoga, Rwanda, Burundi, Ankole, the Kingdom of Mpororo, the Kingdom of Igara, the Kingdom of Kooki, the Kingdom of Karagwe, Swahili city states, the Mutapa Empire, the Zulu Kingdom, the Ndebele Kingdom, Mthethwa Empire, Tswana city states, Mapungubwe, Kingdom of Eswatini, the Kingdom of Butua, Maravi, Danamombe, Khami, Naletale, Kingdom of Zimbabwe and the Rozwi Empire.
What is the cognate of Nguni abantu?
In the Sotho–Tswana languages of southern Africa, batho is the cognate term to Nguni abantu, illustrating that such cognates need not actually look like the -ntu root exactly. The early African National Congress of South Africa had a newspaper called Abantu-Batho from 1912 to 1933, which carried columns in English, Zulu, Sotho, and Xhosa.
What did the term "Bantu" mean in South Africa?
In the 1920s, relatively liberal South Africans, missionaries, and the small black intelligentsia began to use the term "Bantu" in preference to "Native". After World War II, the National Party governments adopted that usage officially, while the growing African nationalist movement and its liberal allies turned to the term "African" instead, so that "Bantu" became identified with the policies of apartheid. By the 1970s this so discredited "Bantu" as an ethno-racial designation that the apartheid government switched to the term "Black" in its official racial categorizations, restricting it to Bantu-speaking Africans, at about the same time that the Black Consciousness Movement led by Steve Biko and others were defining "Black" to mean all non-European South Africans (Bantus, Khoisan, Coloureds, and Indians ). In modern South Africa due to its connection to apartheid the noun has become so discredited that it is only used in its original linguistic meaning.
When did the Bantu Kingdom of Kongo emerge?
Later history. The Bantu Kingdom of Kongo, c. 1630. Between the 9th and 15th centuries, Bantu-speaking states began to emerge in the Great Lakes region and in the savannah south of the Central African rain forest.
What is the food of Bantu?
The staple food for the Bantu is maize, locally known as soor, which is a thick porridge. Other foods are beans, sorghum, vegetables, and fruits. Through outside influences, additional foods such as rice and spaghetti have become common.
What is the Bantu festival?
One of the popular and celebrated traditional festivities is the fire festival known as Deb-Shid, in which people dance and sing around a bonfire to celebrate the beginning of a new year.
What do Bantu eat for lunch?
For lunch, they may eat boiled corn and beans mixed with sesame oil and tea. Dinner could be soor with mboga (cooked vegetables), fish or meat, and milk.The Bantu eat halal meat—that is, meat that comes from animals slaughtered by a Muslim—and are not permitted to eat pork and lard.
What do Bantu people drink?
Some Bantu also hunt wild game to supplement their diets. Although the Bantu follow restrictions against alcohol, a few brew local drinks made of maize and honey, which are consumed during the traditional ritual dance gatherings.
Why is it offensive to call someone "Bantu"?
In Africa, African Americans find it offensive if they are called "Bantu" because it's used in a racial context as obsolescent and offensive because of its strong association with white minority rule and the apartheid system.
Why is the dance of the forest performed?
It is only performed during the day for the commemoration of an important figure in the community or for someone who is about to get married and requests it for the wedding.
Where do the Bantu live?
The Bantu people today live in the geographical region that stretches from central Africa eastwards and southwards.
What does "bantu" mean?
Spread the love. Bantu is a term used in different contexts to mean different things. This document is confined to the Bantu as a major linguistic group in Africa whose existence is in record up to about 5000 years ago. The linguistic group comprises of about 300-600 different ethnic groups totaling to over 100 million individuals across ...
How many people are in the Bantu tribe?
The largest tribe is the Luba of DRC with a population of about 13.5 million people. The Bantu Peoples of South Africa are now 10 million Zulus and are second in terms of numbers. The Kikuyu of Kenya have about 6 million people.
What was the only livestock kept by the Bantu people?
Tradeing happened in Indian Ocean where traders used to ride the monsoon winds towards the west. History suggest that goats were the only type of livestock kept by the Bantu People.
Why did the Bantu migrated to the river valleys?
During stone age the Bantu migrated to river valleys due to the difficult of bringing down trees in the Central African forests. At the valleys they cultivated crops to feed the increasing population.
How long did the Bantu tribe migrate?
Studies by Joseph Greenberg and Malcolm Guthrie show that, from their original homeland in West Africa, the Bantu tribe underwent a series of migrations eastwards and southwards for a period of over 1000 years.
When did the Somalia Bantu farmers move eastwards?
Somalia Bantu farmer. southwards and by 500 BC (2500 years ago) they had already occupied the savannah countries; DRC, Angola and Zambia. The other stream moved eastwards to occupy the region around the Great lakes in what is today East Africa in 1000BC. Further migrations occurred from the two groups in search for settlement areas near rivers, ...
What is the Bantu philosophy?
Full Article. Bantu philosophy, the philosophy, religious worldview, and ethical principles of the Bantu peoples —tens of millions of speakers of the more than 500 Bantu languages on the African continent—as articulated by 20th-century African intellectuals and founders of contemporary African philosophy and theology.
Where did Bantu philosophy originate?
Originally, the term Bantu philosophy referred to research done on traditional culture between 1950 and 1990 in Central Africa —more specifically, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (called Zaire in 1971–97), Rwanda, and Uganda by philosophers and theologians such as Mulago Gwa Cikala Musharamina, John Mbiti, Mutuza Kabe, and Alexis Kagame.
What was the goal of the African Proverbs?
It was intended to rediscover the ancestral philosophical worldview and spiritual values that had been denigrated and distorted by colonial education. That goal was accomplished by analyzing African proverbs; the structure of Bantu languages, songs, art, and music; and various customs and social institutions.
How many people speak Bantu?
Bantu peoples, the approximately 85 million speakers of the more than 500 distinct languages of the Bantu subgroup of the Niger-Congo language family, occupying almost the entire southern projection of the African continent. The classification is primarily linguistic, for the cultural patterns of Bantu speakers are extremely diverse; the linguistic…
What is the purpose of comparative studies in African theology?
The unveiling of the “cultural unity” of African cultures through comparative studies that grasp the common features of African worldviews, ethical principles, and spiritual values and the use of them to articulate an African theology. The defense and promotion of human rights as a fundamental task of African theology.
What is the foundation of African philosophy?
The establishment of the elements of a traditional African philosophy and a philosophical anthropology to be used as the foundation for a theological discourse . The use of traditional religion and wisdom (proverbs, myths of creation, traditional vision of God, traditional ethic, and oral literature) as the foundation for theology.
Who were the leaders of the Negritude movement?
That is why some of the leading figures of the Negritude movement, such as Léopold Sédar Senghor and Alioune Diop, and the nascent publishing house Présence Africaine embraced Tempels and promoted the book in French and English translations. Mutombo Nkulu-N'Sengha The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica.
What is the traditional culture of Bantu?
The traditional culture of most Bantu peoples includes several fables about personified, talking animals.
What is the Bantu mythology?
The phrase "Bantu mythology" usually refers to the common, recurring themes that are found in all or most Bantu cultures.
What are the Bantu monsters?
Bantu mythologies often include monsters, referred to as amazimu in isiZulu and Chewa language -Chichewa and madimo, madimu, zimwi in other languages. In English translations of Bantu legends these words are often translated into " ogre " or most commonly " (Spirits)", as one of the most distinctive traits of such monsters is that of being man-eaters. They can sometimes take on the appearance of men or animals (for example, the Chaga living by the Kilimanjaro have tales of a monster with leopard looks) and sometimes can cast spells on men and transform them into animals. A specific type of monsters is that of raised, mutilated dead (bearing a surface resemblance to western culture's zombies) such as the umkovu of Zulu tradition and the ndondocha of the Yao people .
What is the Bantu belief system?
Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. The Bantu beliefs are the system of beliefs and legends of the Bantu people of Africa. Although Bantu peoples account for several hundred different ethnic groups, there is a high degree of homogeneity in Bantu cultures and customs, just as in Bantu languages.
What do Bantus believe?
All Bantus traditionally believe in a supreme God. The nature of God is often only vaguely defined, although he may be associated with the Sun, or the oldest of all ancestors, or have other specifications. Most names of God include the Bantu particle ng ( nk ), that is related to the sky; some examples are Nzambi Mpungu ( Bakongo ), Mulungu ( Wayao, Chewa, Akamba and others), Unkulunkulu ( AmaZulu ), Mugulu ( Baganda ), Muluku ( Makua ), Mungu ( WaSwahili ), Mukuru ( OvaHerero and OvaHimba ), Kibumba ( Basoga ), Imana ( Banyarwanda and Barundi ), Modimo ( Basotho and Batswana ), Ruhanga ( Banyoro and Banyankole ), and Ngai (Akamba, Agikuyu and other groups). In many traditions God is supposed to live in the skies; there are also traditions that locate God on some high mountain, for example the Kirinyaga mountain - Mt. Kenya, for Kikuyu people.
Do Bantu people have their own origins?
It can be noted that, as is the case with many mythologies, Bantu mythologies about the creation of man are often limited to descri bing their own origins, rather than those of all of humanity. For example, most Bantu peoples that coexist with bushmen do not include these in their creation myths (i.e., bushmen are considered, like animals and the rest of humanity, to be a part of the eternal universe rather than a part of the specific group or people).
Introduction
- The Bantu linguistic group occupies an area that stretches from South Cameroon covering the greater part of South Africa. They also cover part of Eastern and Central Africa. It is composed of hundreds of languages with approximately two hundred and twenty million people speaking these languages. Congo Kinshasa is the country that has the largest group of Bantu speakers. Swahili …
Theories About The Bantu Origin
- Two theories have been developed in an attempt to give the origin of the Bantus. One of the theories was developed by Joseph Greenberg in 1963. Greenberg studied the various languages that were being spoken in Africa and came up with the conclusion that most of the languages that were being spoken in Southeastern Nigeria almost coincided with the Bantu languages. He posit…
The Bantu Culture
- Although the Bantu speakers introduced an Iron Age and an agricultural culture into Neolithic hunting and gathering society, their way of life came to differ greatly from place to place. Part of this is through the pressure from the people with whom they came in contact, and partly because of the persistent pressure of the environment. The Bantu of...
Conclusion
- Even today, most of the traditional Bantu cultural designs are still manufactured in most of the East African countries. Uganda is one of the countries where these products are produced. The main reason for these is to remind people of their tradition and to make good use of the available resources that ceased being used with the advent of civilization. By so doing, these people are a…
References
- Malcolm, Guthrie. The classification of the Bantu languages. London: Oxford University Press for the International African Institute. 1948. Mayer Philip. “The Cultural Prospects Of The Bantu In South Africa.” Web. Roux, AG. “Psychopathology In Bantu Culture.” South African Medical Journal 47(1973): 20777-20783. South Africa Tours and Travel. “Brief history of the Bantu migration int…
Overview
The Bantu peoples, or Bantu, are several hundred ethnic groups who speak Bantu languages, spread over a vast area from Central Africa to Southeast Africa and into Southern Africa. There are several hundred Bantu languages. Depending on the definition of "language" or "dialect", it is estimated that there are between 440 and 680 distinct languages. The total number of speakers is in the hundreds o…
History
Bantu languages are theorised to derive from the Proto-Bantu reconstructed language, estimated to have been spoken about 4,000 to 3,000 years ago in West/Central Africa (the area of modern-day Cameroon). They were supposedly spread across Central, East and Southern Africa in the so-called Bantu expansion, a comparatively rapid dissemination taking roughly two millennia and dozens …
Etymology
Abantu 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'. In Latin, the words "Abantea", "Abanteum", and "Abanteus" have been found in ancient writings having various meanings, one of which is "an Ethiopian".
In linguistics, the word Bantu, for the language families and its speakers, is an artificial term bas…
Use in South Africa
In the 1920s, relatively liberal South Africans, missionaries, and the small black intelligentsia began to use the term "Bantu" in preference to "Native". After World War II, the National Party governments adopted that usage officially, while the growing African nationalist movement and its liberal allies turned to the term "African" instead, so that "Bantu" became identified with the policies of apartheid. …
Gallery
• Kongo youth and adults in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo
• A Kikuyu woman in Kenya
• A Makua mother and child in Mozambique
• Bubi girls in Equatorial Guinea
See also
• African Pygmies
• Bantu mythology
• Bantu music
• Congoid
• Demographics of Africa
External links
• bantu vibes—a Facebook page for Bantu people