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Glite Dictionary
🌍 African culture 🧑🏿 An African group 🗣️ African languages
Bantu

Bantu

8.4
A group of languages spoken across central and southern Africa including Swahili and Zulu
  • noun
  • /ˈbæn.tu/
  • Specialized
translation icon : lenguas bantúes
  • Swahili is one of the most widely spoken Bantu languages in East Africa.

Blacks Bantu is a linguistic group of languages.

Examples

  • Many people in southern Africa communicate using various Bantu languages.

  • And then there are a bunch of Bantu languages that also have cliques also in Africa, in theory because they've been in contact with the Khoisan languages.

  • The linguist studied the structure of ancient Bantu languages and their evolution.

Compounds

Bantu-speaking
7.7

People, groups, or places where a Bantu language is spoken

Surface Forms

Bantu singular
Bantus plural

Etymology

The name Bantu is taken from the common word for 'people' used in many African languages (shown in the parts ba- 'they' and -ntu 'person'). Because of that meaning, Bantu is used for the whole family of related languages spoken by those peoples.