(uncountable) The largest African language family of the Niger-Congo group, spoken in much of Sub-Saharan Africa.
Used in a Sentence
bantu
Definitions, parts of speech, synonyms, and sentence examples for bantu.
Editorial note
In Africa Thar Bantu people have almost eradicated non-Thar indigineous cultures like the San over the last century.
Examples19
Definitions2
Parts of speech1
Quick take
(uncountable) The largest African language family of the Niger-Congo group, spoken in much of Sub-Saharan Africa.
Meaning at a glance
The clearest senses and uses of bantu gathered in one view.
(countable) A member of any of the African ethnic groups that speak a Bantu language.
Definitions
Core meanings and parts of speech for bantu.
noun
(uncountable) The largest African language family of the Niger-Congo group, spoken in much of Sub-Saharan Africa.
noun
(countable) A member of any of the African ethnic groups that speak a Bantu language.
Example sentences
In Africa Thar Bantu people have almost eradicated non-Thar indigineous cultures like the San over the last century.
Imagine a couple, where the man and the woman each have one Scandinavian parent and one Bantu parent.
The Khoikhoi and the Bantu entered South Africa about 2000 years ago, between 1 and 300 AD.
Is it fair to say Bantu farmers colonized most of southeast Africa approximately 1500 years ago?
The South African composite I did only uses Khoi-San and South Bantu populations found in South Africa, not whites or colourds.
There has been a recent right-wing movement in South Africa to politicize the Bantu migrations to minimize the impact of European colonialization and ultimately apartheid.
About 1500 years ago, Bantu farmers swept through southeast Africa and left the speakers of click languages persisting only in isolated deserts that couldn't be farmed.
The Khoisan lineages diverged from those leading to Bantu and other sub-Saharan groups around 100,000–150,000 years ago, making them one of the most ancient human ancestries.
The Bantu expanded from a small region of west Africa beginning around 3000 years ago; it's plausible that it took them a while to overwhelm southeast Africa.
> with an entirely different language group and All African languages stem from the same group (the Bantu language group).
There is also a bantu language that isn't really associated with one of the major tribes but is a kind of lingua franca beside english in the urban centres.
Convergent evolution, ie: lactase persistence using different genes, also came about in the Bantu population in Sub-saharan Africa which enabled this population to spread further south and overtake San populations (bushmen).
Quote examples
Ubuntu (most Bantu languages have a similar word) literally means “shared grazing land”.
Bantu languages, which cover much of subsaharan Africa, have many noun classes ("genders")—sometimes as many as 20.
African pygmies separated from their Bantu relatives 4,000 - 5,000 years ago, and have since evolved to have an average male height of 4'11".
Interesting that you should bring that up: in South Africa under Apartheid, the racial classification of "Black" (previously called "Bantu" and "Native") was a person of "pure" African descent.
Proper noun examples
Does he think of himself as steadfastly committed to not speaking Japanese, Bantu, Hindi, and Algonquin?
We even have records of their diplomacy with the non-Bantu kingdoms to their south.
Bantu and Arab Thar people have always been relatively incompetent at war.
Frequently asked questions
Short answers drawn from the clearest meanings and examples for this word.
How do you use bantu in a sentence?
In Africa Thar Bantu people have almost eradicated non-Thar indigineous cultures like the San over the last century.
What does bantu mean?
(uncountable) The largest African language family of the Niger-Congo group, spoken in much of Sub-Saharan Africa.
What part of speech is bantu?
bantu is commonly used as noun.