Bantu languages

Bantu languages form a large branch of the Niger-Congo language family, spoken across much of central, eastern, and southern Africa. They share characteristic noun-class systems and grammatical patterns.

Niger-Congo languages: A major language family spoken across much of sub-Saharan Africa. Bantu languages form one of its largest branches.
Swahili: A Bantu language widely used as a first or additional language in eastern Africa. Its broad regional use makes it the family’s most prominent lingua franca.
Bantu expansion: The prehistoric spread of Bantu-speaking communities from west-central Africa into central, eastern, and southern Africa. It accounts for the family’s wide geographic distribution.
Bantu languages and non-Bantu languages of Africa: A comparison between Bantu languages and African languages outside the Bantu branch. The contrast prevents geographic location alone from being mistaken for linguistic membership.
Noun class: A grammatical system that groups nouns and marks their categories through agreement on related words. Noun classes and agreement are defining features across Bantu languages.
Zulu: A Nguni Bantu language spoken chiefly in South Africa. Zulu illustrates the family’s extensive southern African presence.
Bantu homeland: The proposed ancestral region from which early Bantu-speaking communities spread. Competing homeland hypotheses concern where the expansion began.
Bantu languages and Khoisan languages: A comparison between Bantu languages and several distinct southern African language groups often called Khoisan. The groups coexist in parts of southern Africa but do not form one language family.
Grammatical agreement: A grammatical relationship in which words share features such as class, number, gender, or person. Bantu agreement patterns often carry noun-class information through a sentence.
Shona: A Bantu language spoken chiefly in Zimbabwe and neighboring countries. Shona is a major national language within the family’s central-southern range.

Linked from 39 pages