Bantu languages

The Bantu languages (English: /ˈbæntuː/, Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀) are a large

family of languages spoken by the Bantu peoples throughout Sub-Saharan
Bantu
Africa. Ethnicity Bantu peoples
Geographic Africa, mostly Southern
As part of the Bantoid group, they are part of the Benue–Congo language
distribution Hemisphere
family, which in turn is part of the large Niger–Congo phylum.
Linguistic Niger–Congo
The total number of Bantu languages ranges in the hundreds, depending on classification
the definition of "language" versus "dialect", and is estimated at between 440 Atlantic–Congo
and 680 distinct languages.[2] For Bantuic, Linguasphere (Part 2, Transafrican Volta-Congo
phylosector, phylozone 99) has 260 outer languages (which are equivalent to Benue–Congo
languages, inner languages being dialects). McWhorter points out, using a
comparison of 16 languages from Bangi-Moi, Bangi-Ntamba, Koyo-Mboshi, Bantoid
Likwala-Sangha, Ngondi-Ngiri, and Northern Mozambiqean, mostly from Southern Bantoid
Guthrie Zone C, that many varieties are intercomprehensible.[3] Bantu
The total number of Bantu speakers is in the hundreds of millions, estimated Proto- Proto-Bantu
around 350 million in the mid-2010s (roughly 30% of the total population of language
Africa, or roughly 5% of world population).[4] Bantu languages are largely
spoken southeast of Cameroon, throughout Central Africa, Southeast Africa Subdivisions Zones A–S (geographic)
and Southern Africa. About one sixth of the Bantu speakers, and about one (Jarawan?–Mbam?)
third of Bantu languages, are found in the Democratic Republic of Congo Manenguba
alone (c. 60 million speakers as of 2015). See list of Bantu peoples.
Sawabantu
The Bantu language with the largest total number of speakers is Swahili; Basaa
however, the majority of its speakers use it as a second language (L1: c. 16 Bafia
million, L2: 80 million, as of 2015).[5] Beti

Other major Bantu languages include Zulu, with 27 million speakers (15.7 Makaa–Njem
million L2), and Shona, with about 11 million speakers (if Manyika and Ndau Kele–Tsogo
are included).[6][7] Ethnologue separates the largely mutually intelligible Teke–Mbede
Kinyarwanda and Kirundi, which, if grouped together, have 20 million Mboshi–Buja
speakers.[8] Bangi–Tetela
Mbole–Enya
Lega–Binja
Contents Boan
Name Lebonya
Origin Nyanga–Buyi
Northeast Bantu
Classification
Tongwe-Bende
Language structure
Mbugwe–Rangi
Reduplication
Kilombero
Noun class
Kongo–Yaka–Sira
By country
Kimbundu
Geographic areas Chokwe–Luchazi
Bantu words popularised in western cultures Luyana
Writing systems Mbukushu
See also Pende

References Luban
Lunda
Bibliography
Rukwa
External links
Sabi–Botatwe
Name Nyasa
Rufiji–Ruvuma
The similarity between dispersed Bantu languages had been observed as early Umbundu
as in the 17th century.[9] The term Bantu as a name or the group was coined Kavango–Southwest Bantu
(as Bâ-ntu) by Wilhelm Bleek in 1857 or 1858, and popularised in his Yeyi
Comparative Grammar of 1862.[10] The name was coined to represent the Shona
word for 'people' in loosely reconstructed Proto-Bantu, from the plural noun
class prefix *ba- categorizing 'people', and the root *ntʊ̀ - 'some (entity), any' Southern Bantu
(e.g. Zulu umuntu 'person', abantu 'people'). There is no native term for the ISO 639-2 / 5 bnt
group, as Bantu-speaking populations refer to themselves by their endonyms
Glottolog narr1281 (http://glottolog.or
but did not have a concept for the larger ethno-linguistic phylum. Bleek's
g/resource/languoid/id/narr128
coinage was inspired by the anthropological observation of groups self-
identifying as 'people' or 'the true people' (as is indeed the case, for example, 1)[1]
with the term Khoekhoe, which is really a kare 'praise address' and not an
ethnic name).[11]

The term narrow Bantu, excluding those languages classified as Bantoid by

Guthrie (1948), was introduced in the 1960s.[12]

The prefix ba- specifically refers to people. Endonymically, the term for
cultural objects, including language, is formed with the ki- noun class (Nguni
ísi-), as in Kiswahili 'coast language and culture' and isiZulu 'Zulu language
and culture'.

There was a suggestion in South Africa to refer to these languages as KiNtu in

the 1980s. However, the word kintu exists in some places, meaning 'thing'
with no relation to the concept of 'language';[13] it was also reported by
delegates at the African Languages Association of Southern Africa
conference in 1984 that in some places, the term Kintu has a derogatory
significance,[14] that is, kintu refers to 'things' and is used as a dehumanizing
term of people who have lost their dignity.[15] In addition, Kintu is a figure in
some mythologies.[16] The term Kintu apparently still saw occasional use in Map showing the distribution of Bantu vs. other
the 1990s in South Africa.[17] In contemporary decolonial South African African languages. The Bantu area is in orange.
linguistics, the term Ntu languages is used.

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.[18] An estimated 2,500–3,000 years ago (1000 BC to 500 BC), although other sources put the start
of the Bantu Expansion closer to 3000 BC,[19] speakers of the Proto-Bantu language began a series of migrations eastward and
southward, carrying agriculture with them. This Bantu expansion came to dominate Sub-Saharan Africa east of Cameroon, an
area where Bantu peoples now constitute nearly the entire population.[18][20]

The technical term Bantu, meaning "human beings" or simply "people", was first used by Wilhelm Bleek (1827–1875), as this is
reflected in many of the languages of this group. 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". Bleek, and later Carl Meinhof, pursued extensive studies
comparing the grammatical structures of Bantu languages.

Classification
The most widely used classification is an alphanumeric coding system developed by Malcolm Guthrie in his 1948 classification
of the Bantu languages. It is mainly geographic. The term 'narrow Bantu' was coined by the Benue–Congo Working Group to
distinguish Bantu as recognized by Guthrie, from the Bantoid languages not recognized as Bantu by Guthrie.

In recent times, the distinctiveness of Narrow Bantu as opposed to the other Southern Bantoid languages has been called into
doubt (cf. Piron 1995, Williamson & Blench 2000, Blench 2011), but the term is still widely used.
There is no true genealogical classification of the (Narrow) Bantu
languages. Until recently most attempted classifications only
considered languages that happen to fall within traditional Narrow
Bantu, but there seems to be a continuum with the related languages
of South Bantoid.

At a broader level, the family is commonly split in two depending on

the reflexes of proto-Bantu tone patterns: Many Bantuists group
together parts of zones A through D (the extent depending on the
author) as Northwest Bantu or Forest Bantu, and the remainder as
Central Bantu or Savanna Bantu. The two groups have been
described as having mirror-image tone systems: where Northwest
Bantu has a high tone in a cognate, Central Bantu languages
generally have a low tone, and vice versa.

Northwest Bantu is more divergent internally than Central Bantu,

and perhaps less conservative due to contact with non-Bantu Niger–
Congo languages; Central Bantu is likely the innovative line
cladistically. Northwest Bantu is clearly not a coherent family, but
even for Central Bantu the evidence is lexical, with little evidence
that it is a historically valid group. The approximate locations of the sixteen Guthrie Bantu
zones, including the addition of a zone J around the Great
Another attempt at a detailed genetic classification to replace the Lakes. The Jarawan languages are spoken in Nigeria.
Guthrie system is the 1999 "Tervuren" proposal of Bastin, Coupez,
and Mann.[21] However, it relies on lexicostatistics, which, because
of its reliance on overall similarity rather than shared innovations, may predict spurious groups of conservative languages that
are not closely related. Meanwhile, Ethnologue has added languages to the Guthrie classification which Guthrie overlooked,
while removing the Mbam languages (much of zone A), and shifting some languages between groups (much of zones D and E to
a new zone J, for example, and part of zone L to K, and part of M to F) in an apparent effort at a semi-genetic, or at least semi-
areal, classification. This has been criticized for sowing confusion in one of the few unambiguous ways to distinguish Bantu
languages. Nurse & Philippson (2006) evaluate many proposals for low-level groups of Bantu languages, but the result is not a
complete portrayal of the family. Glottolog has incorporated many of these into their classification.[1]

The languages that share Dahl's law may also form a valid group, Northeast Bantu. The infobox at right lists these together with
various low-level groups that are fairly uncontroversial, though they continue to be revised. The development of a rigorous
genealogical classification of many branches of Niger–Congo, not just Bantu, is hampered by insufficient data.

Computational phylogenetic analyses of Bantu include Currie et al. (2013),[22] Grollemund et al. (2015),[23] Rexova et al.
2006,[24] Holden et al., 2016,[25] and Whiteley et al. 2018.[26]

Language structure
Guthrie reconstructed both the phonemic inventory and the vocabulary of Proto-Bantu.

The most prominent grammatical characteristic of Bantu languages is the extensive use of affixes (see Sotho grammar and
Ganda noun classes for detailed discussions of these affixes). Each noun belongs to a class, and each language may have several
numbered classes, somewhat like grammatical gender in European languages. The class is indicated by a prefix that is part of the
noun, as well as agreement markers on verb and qualificative roots connected with the noun. Plural is indicated by a change of
class, with a resulting change of prefix.

The verb has a number of prefixes, though in the western languages these are often treated as independent words.[27] In Swahili,
for example, Kitoto kidogo kimekisoma (for comparison, Kamwana kadoko karikuverenga in Shona language) means 'The small
child has read it [a book]'. Kitoto 'child' governs the adjective prefix ki-('ki' being a prefix representing the diminutive form of the
word) and the verb subject prefix a-. Then comes perfect tense -me- and an object marker -ki- agreeing with implicit kitabu
'book' (from Arabic kitab). Pluralizing to 'children' gives Vitoto vidogo vimekisoma (Vana vadoko varikuverenga in Shona), and
pluralizing to 'books' (vitabu) gives Watoto wadogo wamevisoma.

Bantu words are typically made up of open syllables of the type CV (consonant-vowel) with most languages having syllables
exclusively of this type. The Bushong language recorded by Vansina, however, has final consonants,[28] while slurring of the
final syllable (though written) is reported as common among the Tonga of Malawi.[29] The morphological shape of Bantu words
is typically CV, VCV, CVCV, VCVCV, etc.; that is, any combination of CV (with possibly a V- syllable at the start). In other
words, a strong claim for this language family is that almost all words end in a vowel, precisely because closed syllables (CVC)
are not permissible in most of the documented languages, as far as is understood.

This tendency to avoid consonant clusters in some positions is important when words are imported from English or other non-
Bantu languages. An example from Chewa: the word "school", borrowed from English, and then transformed to fit the sound
patterns of this language, is sukulu. That is, sk- has been broken up by inserting an epenthetic -u-; -u has also been added at the
end of the word. Another example is buledi for "bread". Similar effects are seen in loanwords for other non-African CV
languages like Japanese. However, a clustering of sounds at the beginning of a syllable can be readily observed in such
languages as Shona,[30] and the Makua languages.[31]

With few exceptions, notably Swahili, Bantu languages are tonal and have two to four register tones.

Reduplication

Reduplication is a common morphological phenomenon in Bantu languages and is usually used to indicate frequency or intensity
of the action signalled by the (unreduplicated) verb stem.[32]

Example: in Swahili piga means "strike", pigapiga means "strike repeatedly".

Well-known words and names that have reduplication include:

Bafana Bafana, a football team

Chipolopolo, a football team
Eric Djemba-Djemba, a footballer
Lomana LuaLua, a footballer
Ngorongoro, a conservation area

Repetition emphasizes the repeated word in the context that it is used. For instance, "Mwenda pole hajikwai," while, "Pole pole
ndio mwendo," has two to emphasize the consistency of slowness of the pace. The meaning of the former in translation is, "He
who goes slowly doesn't trip," and that of the latter is, "A slow but steady pace wins the race." Haraka haraka would mean
hurrying just for the sake of hurrying, reckless hurry, as in "Njoo! Haraka haraka" [come here! Hurry, hurry].

In contrast, there are some words in some of the languages in which reduplication has the opposite meaning. It usually denotes
short durations, and or lower intensity of the action and also means a few repetitions or a little bit more.

Example 1: In Xitsonga and Shona, famba means "walk" while famba-famba means "walk around".
Example 2: in isiZulu and SiSwati hamba means "go", hambahamba means "go a little bit, but not much".
Example 3: in both of the above languages shaya means "strike", shayashaya means "strike a few more times
lightly, but not heavy strikes and not too many times".
Example 4: In Shona kwenya means "scratch", Kwenyakwenya means "scratch excessively or a lot".

Noun class

The following is a list of nominal classes in Bantu Languages:[33]

 Singular classes Plural classes
Typical meaning(s)
Number Prefix Number Prefix
1 *mʊ- 2 *ba- Humans, animate
3 *mu- 4 *mi- Plants, inanimate
5 *dɪ- 6 *ma- Various; class 6 for liquids (mass nouns)
7 *ki- 8 *bɪ- Various, diminutives, manner/way/language
9 *n- 10 *n- Animals, inanimate
11 *du- Abstract nouns
12 *ka- 13 *tu- Diminutives
14 *bu- Abstract nouns
15 *ku- Infinitives
16 *pa- Locatives (proximal, exact)
17 *ku- Locatives (distal, approximate)
18 *mu- Locatives (interior)
19 *pɪ- Diminutives

By country
Following is an incomplete list of the principal Bantu languages of each country.[34] Included are those languages that constitute
at least 1% of the population and have at least 10% the number of speakers of the largest Bantu language in the country. An
attempt at a full list of Bantu languages (with various conflations and a puzzlingly diverse nomenclature) can be found in The
Bantu Languages of Africa, 1959.[35]

Most languages are best known in English without the class prefix (Swahili, Tswana, Ndebele), but are sometimes seen with the
(language-specific) prefix (Kiswahili, Setswana, Sindebele). In a few cases prefixes are used to distinguish languages with the
same root in their name, such as Tshiluba and Kiluba (both Luba), Umbundu and Kimbundu (both Mbundu). The bare
(prefixless) form typically does not occur in the language itself, but is the basis for other words based on the ethnicity. So, in the
country of Botswana the people are the Batswana, one person is a Motswana, and the language is Setswana; and in Uganda,
centred on the kingdom of Buganda, the dominant ethnicity are the Baganda (sg. Muganda), whose language is Luganda.

Lingua franca Mozambique

Swahili (Kiswahili) (350,000; tens of millions as L2) Makhuwa (3 million; 5.5 million all Makua)
Tsonga (Xitsonga) (3.1 million)
Angola Shona (Ndau) (1.6 million)
South Mbundu (Umbundu) (4 million) Lomwe (1.5 million)
Central North Mbundu(Kimbundu) (3 million) Sena (1.3 million)
North Bakongo (Kikongo) (576,800) Tswa (1.2 million)
Ovambo (Ambo) (Oshiwambo) (500,000) Chuwabu (1.0 million)
Luvale (Chiluvale) (500,000) Chopi (800,000)
Chokwe (Chichokwe) (500,000) Ronga (700,000)
Chewa (Nyanja) (Chichewa) (600,000)
Botswana Yao (Chiyao) (500,000)
Nyungwe (Cinyungwe/Nhungue)(400,000)
Tswana (Setswana) (1.6 million) Tonga (400,000)
Kalanga (Ikalanga) (150,000)
Makonde (400,000)
Burundi Namibia
Kirundi (8.5 - 10.5 million)
Ovambo (Ambo, Oshiwambo) (1 500,000)
Cameroon Herero (200,000)

Republic of the Congo (Congo-Brazzaville)

 Beti (1.7 million: 900,000 Bulu, 600,000 Ewondo, Kituba (1.2+ million) [a Bantu creole]
120,000 Fang, 60,000 Eton, 30,000 Bebele) Kongo (Kikongo) (1.0 million)
Basaa (230,000) Teke languages (500,000)
Duala (350,000) Yombe (350,000)
Suundi (120,000)
Central African Republic
Mbosi (110,000)
Mbati (60,000) Lingala (100,000; ? L2 speakers)

Democratic Republic of the Congo Rwanda

Lingala (Ngala) (2 million; 7 million with L2 speakers) Kinyarwanda (Kinyarwanda) (10 - 12 million)
Luba-Kasai (Tshiluba) (6.5 million)
South Africa According to the South African National
Kituba (4.5 million), a Bantu creole
Census of 2011[36]
Kongo (Kikongo) (3.5 million)
Luba-Katanga (Kiluba) (1.5+ million) Zulu (Isizulu) (11,587,374[36])
Songe (Lusonge) (1+ million) Xhosa (Isixhosa) (8,154,258[36])
Nande (Orundandi) (1 million) Northern Sotho (Sesotho sa Leboa) (4,618,576[36])
Tetela (Otetela) (800,000)
Tswana (Setswana) (4,067,248[36])
Yaka (Iyaka) (700,000+)
Sotho (Sesotho) (3,849,563[36])
Shi (700,000)
Yombe (Kiyombe) (670,000) Tsonga (Xitsonga) (2,277,148[36])
Swazi (Siswati) (1,297,046[36])
Equatorial Guinea Venda (Tshivenda) (1,209,388[36])
Southern Ndebele (Transvaal Ndebele) (1,090,223[36])
Beti (Fang) (300,000)
Bube (40,000) TOTAL Nguni: 22,406,O49 (61.98%) TOTAL Sotho-
Tswana: 13,744,775 (38.02%) TOTAL OFFICIAL
Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) INDIGENOUS LANGUAGE SPEAKERS: 36,150,824
(69.83%[36])
Swazi (Siswati) (1 million)
Tanzania
Gabon
Swahili is the national language
Baka
Barama Sukuma (5.5 million)
Bekwel Gogo (1.5 million)
Benga Haya (Kihaya) (1.3 million)
Bubi Chaga (Kichaga) (1.2+ million : 600,000 Mochi,
Bwisi 300,000+ Machame, 300,000+ Vunjo)
Duma Nyamwezi (1.0 million)
Fang (500,000) Makonde (1.0 million)
Kendell Ha (1.0 million)
Kanin Nyakyusa (800,000)
Sake Hehe (800,000)
Sangu Luguru (700,000)
Seki Bena (600,000)
Sighu Shambala (650,000)
Simba Nyaturu (600,000)
Sira
Uganda
Northern Teke
Western Teke Ganda (Luganda) (7.5 million)
Tsaangi Nkore-Kiga (3.5 million : 2.3 million Nyankore, 1.2
Tsogo million Kiga (Chiga))
Vili (3,600) Soga (Lusoga) (2 million)
Vumbu Masaba (Lumasaba) (1.1 million)
Wandji Nyoro-Tooro (1.1 million)
 Wumbvu Kinyarwanda (Kinyarwanda) (750,000)
Yangho Konjo (600,000)
Yasa Gwere (400,000)

Kenya Zambia

Swahili and English are national languages Bemba (3.3 million)

Tonga (1.0 million)
Gikuyu (7 million)
Chewa (Nyanja) (Chichewa) (800,000)
Luhya (5.4 million)
Kaonde (240,000)
Kamba (4 million)
Lozi (Silozi) (600,000)
Meru (Kimeru) (2.7 million)
Lala-Bisa (600,000)
Gusii (2 million)
Nsenga (550,000)
Mijikenda
Tumbuka (Chitumbuka) (500,000)
Taita
Lunda (450,000)
Kiembu
Nyiha (400,000+)
Kimbere
Mambwe-Lungu (400,000)
Giriama
Zimbabwe
Lesotho
Shona languages (12 million incl. Karanga, Zezuru,
Sesotho (1.8 million) Korekore, Ndau, Manyika)
Zulu (Isizulu) (300,000) Northern Ndebele (IsiNdebele) (estimated 2 million)
Tonga
Malawi
Chewa/ Nyanja (Chichewa/ChiNyanja)
Chewa (Nyanja) (Chichewa) (7 million) Venda
Tumbuka (1 million) Kalanga
Yao (1 million)

Geographic areas
Map 1 shows Bantu languages in Africa and map 2 a magnification of the Benin, Nigeria and Cameroon area, as of July 2017.

Localization of the Niger–Congo languages

Bantu words popularised in western cultures

A case has been made out for borrowings of many place-names and even misremembered rhymes – chiefly from one of the Luba
varieties – in the USA.[37]

Some words from various Bantu languages have been borrowed into western languages. These include:
 Boma Kalimba
Bomba Kwanzaa
Bongos Mamba
Bwana Mambo
Candombe Mbira
Chimpanzee Marimba
Gumbo Rumba
Hakuna matata Safari
Impala Samba
Indaba Simba
Jenga Ubuntu
Jumbo

Writing systems
Along with the Latin script and Arabic script orthographies, there are also some modern indigenous writing systems used for
Bantu languages:

The Mwangwego alphabet is an abugida that is used to write the Chewa language and other languages of
Malawi.
The Mandombe script is an abugida that is used to write the Bantu languages of the Democratic Republic of the
Congo, mainly by the Kimbanguist movement.
The Isibheqe Sohlamvu or Ditema tsa Dinoko script is a featural syllabary used to write the siNtu or Southern
Bantu languages.

See also
Bantu peoples
Meeussen's rule
Nguni languages
Noun class

References
1. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Narrow Bantu" (http://glottolog.org/reso
urce/languoid/id/narr1281). Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
2. "Guthrie (1967-71) names some 440 Bantu 'varieties', Grimes (2000) has 501 (minus a few 'extinct' or 'almost
extinct', Bastin et al. (1999) have 542, Maho (this volume) has some 660, and Mann et al. (1987) have c. 680."
Derek Nurse, 2006, "Bantu Languages", in the Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, p. 2. Ethnologue
report for Southern Bantoid (http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=73-16) lists a total of 535
languages. The count includes 13 Mbam languages which are not always included under "Narrow Bantu".
3. McWhorter, J. 2001. The Power of Babel (p. 81-82). Freeman-Times-Henry Holt, New York.
4. Total population cannot be established with any accuracy due to the unavailability of precise census data from
Sub-Saharan Africa. A number just above 200 million was cited in the early 2000s (see Niger-Congo languages:
subgroups and numbers of speakers for a 2007 compilation of data from SIL Ethnologue, citing 210 million).
Population estimates for West-Central Africa were recognized as significantly too low by the United Nations
Department of Economic and Social Affairs in 2015 ("World Population Prospects: The 2016 Revision – Key
Findings and Advance Tables" (https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Publications/Files/WPP2017_KeyFindings.pdf)
(PDF). United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. July 2016. Retrieved
26 June 2017.). Population growth in Central-West Africa as of 2015 is estimated at between 2.5% and 2.8%
p.a., for an annual increase of the Bantu population by about 8 to 10 million.
5. Swahili (https://www.ethnologue.com/language/swh), Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015): "47,000,000 in Tanzania, all
users. L1 users: 15,000,000 (2012), increasing. L2 users: 32,000,000 (2015 D. Nurse). Total users in all
countries: 98,310,110 (as L1: 16,010,110; as L2: 82,300,000)."
6. "Ethnologue: Zulu" (https://www.ethnologue.com/language/zul). Ethnologue. Retrieved 2017-03-05.
7. "Ethnologue: Shona" (https://www.ethnologue.com/language/sna). Retrieved 2017-03-06.
8. "Statistical Summaries" (http://www.ethnologue.com/ethno_docs/distribution.asp?by=size). Ethnologue.
Retrieved 2012-06-29.
 9. R. Blench, Archaeology, Language, and the African Past (2006), p. 119 (https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=es
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211–212, doi:10.1080/00020186808707298 (https://www.doi.org/10.1080/00020186808707298).
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co.uk/books?id=cqaGb_SEQHUC&pg=PA50).
12. Studies in African Linguistics: Supplement, Issues 3-4, Department of Linguistics and the African Studies Center,
University of California, Los Angeles (1969), p. 7.
13. Joshua Wantate Sempebwa ,The Ontological and Normative Structure in the Social Reality of a Bantu Society: A
Systematic Study of Ganda Ontology and Ethics, 1978, p. 71.
14. Addendum: ALASA conference of 1984 doi:10.1080/02572117.1984.10587452 (http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/p
df/10.1080/02572117.1984.10587452)
15. Molefi Kete Asante, Ama Mazama, Encyclopedia of African Religion (2009), p. 173 (https://books.google.co.uk/bo
oks?id=B667ATiedQkC&pg=PT173).
16. David William Cohen, The historical tradition of Busoga, Mukama and Kintu (1972). Joseph B. R. Gaie, Sana
Mmolai, The Concept of Botho and HIV/AIDS in Botswana (2007), p. 2 (https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ieiT
9tZMqBgC&pg=PA2).
17. as in Noverino N. Canonici, A Manual of Comparative Kintu Studies, Zulu Language and Literature, University of
Natal (1994).
18. Philip J. Adler, Randall L. Pouwels, World Civilizations: To 1700 Volume 1 of World Civilizations, (Cengage
Learning: 2007), p.169.
19. Gemma Berniell-Lee et al Genetic and Demographic Implications of the Bantu Expansion: Insights from Human
Paternal Lineages. (http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/26/7/1581.abstract) Oxfordjournals.com
20. Toyin Falola, Aribidesi Adisa Usman, Movements, borders, and identities in Africa, (University Rochester Press:
2009), p.4.
21. The Guthrie, Tervuren, and SIL lists are compared side by side in Maho 2002 (https://web.archive.org/web/20090
325021837/http://www.african.gu.se/maho/downloads/bantulineup.pdf).
22. Currie, Thomas E., Andrew Meade, Myrtille Guillon, Ruth Mace (2013). Cultural phylogeography of the Bantu
Languages of sub-Saharan Africa (http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/280/1762/20130695).
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2013, Volume 280, issue 1762
doi:10.1098/rspb.2013.0695 (https://doi.org/10.1098%2Frspb.2013.0695)
23. Grollemund, Rebecca Simon Branford, Koen Bostoen, Andrew Meade, Chris Venditti, and Mark Pagel (2015).
Bantu expansion shows that habitat alters the route and pace of human dispersals (http://www.pnas.org/content/1
12/43/13296). PNAS October 27, 2015. 112 (43) 13296-13301. doi:10.1073/pnas.1503793112 (https://doi.org/10.
1073%2Fpnas.1503793112)
24. Rexová, K., Bastin, Y., Frynta, D. 2006. Cladistic analysis of Bantu languages: a new tree based on combined
lexical and grammatical data. Naturwissenschaften 93, 189–194.
25. Holden, C., Meade, A., Pagel, M. 2016. Comparison of MP and Bayesian Bantu Trees (Chp. 4). In: The Evolution
of Cultural Diversity: a Phylogenetic Approach, Ruth Mace, Clare Holden, Stephen Shennan (eds.)(Amazon Look
Inside)(in Britain 1st published by UCL Press, 2005)
26. Whiteley, P.M., Ming Xue, Wheeler, W.C. 2018. Revising the Bantu tree. Cladistics, 1-20 (amnh.org).
27. Derek Nurse, 2008. Tense and aspect in Bantu, p 70 (fn). In many of the Zone A, including Mbam, the verbs are
clearly analytic.
28. Vansina, J. Esquisse de Grammaire Bushong. Commission de Linguistique Africaine, Tervuren, Belgique, 1959.
29. Turner, Rev. Wm. Y., Tumbuka–Tonga$1–$2 $3ictionEnglish Dictionary Hetherwick Press, Blantyre, Malawi 1952.
pages i–ii.
30. Doke, Clement M., A Comparative Study in Shona Phonetics University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 1931.
31. Relatório do I Seminário sobre a Padronização da Ortografia de Línguas Moçambicanas NELIMO, Universidade
Eduardo Mondlane. 1989.
32. Abdulaziz Lodhi, "Verbal extensions in Bantu (the case of Swahili and Nyamwezi) (https://web.archive.org/web/20
090325021837/http://www.african.gu.se/aa/pdfs/aa02004.pdf)". Africa & Asia, 2002, 2:4–26, Göteborg University
33. "Les classes nominales en bantu" (http://www.bantu-languages.com/fr/classes.html).
34. "According to Ethnologue" (http://www.ethnologue.org). Ethnologue.org. Retrieved 2012-06-29.
35. Bryan, M.A.(compiled by), The Bantu Languages of Africa. Published for the International African Institute, Oxford
University Press, 1959.
36. South African National Census of 2011
37. Vass, Winifred Kellersberger (1979). The Bantu Speaking Heritage of the United States (https://books.google.co
m/?id=Sbp1AAAAMAAJ&q=Here+we). Center for Afro-American Studies, University of California. p. 73.
ISBN 9780934934015. Retrieved 7 September 2014. "“Here we go looby-loo; here we go looby-la (or looby-light)
/ Here we go looby-loo; all on a Saturday night!” Both of these Luba words, lubilu (quickly, in a hurry), and lubila
(a shout) are words still in common usage in the Republic of Zaïre."

Bibliography
Biddulph, Joseph, Bantu Byways Pontypridd 2001. ISBN 978-1-897999-30-1.
Finck, Franz Nikolaus (1908). Die Verwandtschaftsverhältnisse der Bantusprachen (https://archive.org/details/bu
b_gb_Ph1WGXroFWoC). Vandenhoek und Ruprecht. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
Guthrie, Malcolm. 1948. The classification of the Bantu languages. London: Oxford University Press for the
International African Institute.
Guthrie, Malcolm. 1971. Comparative Bantu, Vol 2. Farnborough: Gregg International.
Heine, Bernd. 1973. Zur genetische Gliederung der Bantu-Sprachen. Afrika und Übersee, 56: 164–185.
Maho, Jouni F. 2001. The Bantu area: (towards clearing up) a mess. Africa & Asia, 1:40–49 (https://web.archive.o
rg/web/20090325021837/http://www.african.gu.se/aa/pdfs/aa01040.pdf).
Maho, Jouni F. 2002. Bantu lineup: comparative overview of three Bantu classifications (https://web.archive.org/w
eb/20090325021837/http://www.african.gu.se/maho/downloads/bantulineup.pdf). Göteborg University:
Department of Oriental and African Languages.
Nurse, Derek, & Gérard Philippson. 2006. The Bantu Languages. Routledge.
Piron, Pascale. 1995. Identification lexicostatistique des groupes Bantoïdes stables. (https://web.archive.org/web/
20130115224255/http://www.journalofwestafricanlanguages.org/Volume25.aspx) Journal of West African
Languages, 25(2): 3–39.
Stanford (2013). "Kiswahili" (http://swahililanguage.stanford.edu/). Retrieved 2013-06-20.(subscription required)

External links
Arte da lingua de Angola: oeferecida [sic] a virgem Senhora N. do Rosario, mãy, Senhora dos mesmos pretos (ht
tps://archive.org/details/artedalinguadean00dias) The art of the language of Angola, by Father Pedro Dias, 1697,
Lisbon, artedalinguadean
Comparative Bantu Online Dictionary (http://www.linguistics.berkeley.edu/CBOLD/) linguistics.berkeley.edu,
includes comprehensive bibliography.
Maho, Jouni Filip NUGL Online. The online version of the New Updated Guthrie List, a referential classification of
the Bantu languages (https://web.archive.org/web/20130607210512/http://goto.glocalnet.net/mahopapers/nuglonl
ine.pdf) goto.glocalnet.net, 4 June 2009, 120pp. Guthrie 1948 in detail, with subsequent corrections and
corresponding ISO codes.
Bantu online resources (http://www.bantu-languages.com/en/) bantu-languages.com, Jacky Maniacky, 7 July
2007, including
List of Bantu noun classes with reconstructed Proto-Bantu prefixes (http://www.bantu-languages.com/fr/class
es.html) bantu-languages.com (in French)
Ehret's compilation of classifications by Klieman, Bastin, himself, and others (https://web.archive.org/web/201206
24221430/http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/history/ehret/kinship/BantuClassification%204-09.pdf) pp 204–09, ucla.edu,
24 June 2012
Contini-Morava, Ellen. Noun Classification in Swahili (http://www3.iath.virginia.edu/swahili/). 1994, Virginia.edu
List of Bantu language names with synonyms ordered by Guthrie number (https://web.archive.org/web/20121120
223537/http://www.linguistics.berkeley.edu/CBOLD/Lgs/LgsbyGN.html).linguistics.berkeley.edu 529 names
Introduction to the languages of South Africa (http://salanguages.com) salanguages.com
Narrow Bantu (https://web.archive.org/web/20110726212602/http://www.journalofwestafricanlanguages.org/Narro
wBantu.aspx) Journal of West African Languages
Uganda Bantu Languages (http://www.ugandatravelguide.com/bantu-people.html) ugandatravelguide.com

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