Bantu peoples

Bantu peoples are diverse communities in sub-Saharan Africa whose languages belong to the Bantu branch of the Niger-Congo family. The grouping is linguistic, not a single ethnicity or political identity.

Bantu languages: A large branch of the Niger-Congo language family, spoken across much of sub-Saharan Africa. Shared language ancestry is the basis for grouping these distinct peoples as Bantu.
Bantu expansion: The long-term spread of Bantu languages and communities across much of central, eastern, and southern Africa. This process explains the broad geographic distribution of Bantu-speaking peoples.
Kikuyu people: A Bantu-speaking people of Kenya, also known as the Gikuyu. Their history illustrates the distinct societies found within eastern Africa's Bantu-speaking regions.
Khoisan peoples: A broad, contested grouping of Indigenous peoples of southern Africa, including communities with distinctive languages and histories. Their languages and histories differ from those of many neighboring Bantu-speaking communities.
Niger-Congo languages: A major language family whose languages are spoken across much of sub-Saharan Africa. Bantu languages belong to this broader family.
Proto-Bantu language: The reconstructed ancestral language from which the Bantu languages developed. Its reconstruction helps trace the shared linguistic ancestry behind the grouping.
Shona people: A group of peoples in Zimbabwe and neighboring areas who speak Shona varieties. Shona communities demonstrate the diversity of Bantu-speaking societies in southern Africa.
Nilotic peoples: Diverse peoples of eastern Africa whose languages belong to the Nilotic branch of the Eastern Sudanic family. They provide a regional comparison with a different linguistic grouping.
Ethnolinguistic group: A population grouping defined by shared language and cultural or historical connections. This category clarifies why linguistic grouping does not imply one ethnicity.
West African Niger-Congo homeland hypothesis: A family of proposals locating early Niger-Congo language diversification in parts of West Africa. The proposed homeland provides context for hypotheses about Bantu origins.

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