Bantu is a language group that belongs to the Niger-Congo group.
Bantu languages are spoken in South Cameroon, in Gabon, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Angola, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Botswana and South Africa.
The language family has hundreds of members. They have been classified by Guthrie in 1948 into groups A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, K, L, M, N, P, R and S and then numbered within the group. (List of Bantu Language Names with synonyms ordered by Guthrie number). Guthrie as well reconstructed Proto-Bantu as the Proto-language of this language family.
The most prominent grammatical characteristic of Bantu languages is the extensive use of prefixes. Each noun belong to a class, and there may be around ten classes altogether, something like genders in European languages. The class is indicated by a prefix on the noun, as well as on adjectives and verbs agreeing with it. Plural is indicated by a change of class.
The Bantu language with the largest number of speakers is Swahili (G 40). Bantu languages are on a continuum from purely tonal languages to languages with no tone at all.
Links:
- Berkeley Comparative Bantu Online Dictionary CBOLD; includes a comprehensive bibliography.
- Bantu online ressources by Jacky Maniacky
See also: Click consonant