Originating in West Africa, this migration — known as the Bantu expansion — spread agriculture and a family of common languages into eastern and southern Africa, where many residents still speak Bantu languages and have West African ancestry.
Are there Bantus in West Africa?
– except for the Nilote language group and a few others in northern east Africa (as well as the West Africa language group), all other peoples in central and southern Africa speak a Bantu language. – where did the Bantu speakers come from and when did they have their origins?
Are Bantu and West African the same?
The Western Bantu are part of the same great swath of Bantu who inhabit eastern and southern Africa. They moved south from Cameroon along the west coast of Africa in the same time frame as the Eastern Bantu (beginning about 1000 B.C.), ending up in what we know today as Angola and Namibia.
What race is West African?
Major ethnic groups
| Major ethnic groups | Region | Language family |
|---|---|---|
| Fulani | West Africa | Niger–Congo, Senegambian |
| Hausa | West Africa | Afro-Asiatic, Chadic |
| Hutu | Central Africa | Niger–Congo, Bantu |
| Igbo | West Africa | Niger–Congo, Volta–Niger |
Is Yoruba a Bantu?
No, the Yoruba are not Bantu. Yoruba belongs to the Niger-Congo family of languages. Most Yoruba speakers live in the West African nations of Nigeria and Benin. There are about 40 million people who have Yoruba as a first language.
What does bantu mean in African?
[2] Abantu (or ‘Bantu’ as it was used by colonists) is the Zulu word for people. It is the plural of the word ‘umuntu’, meaning ‘person’, and is based on the stem ‘–ntu’ plus the plural prefix ‘aba’. This original meaning changed through the history of South Africa.
What race is Bantu?
Bantu peoples are the speakers of Bantu languages, comprising several hundred indigenous ethnic groups in Africa, spread over a vast area from Central Africa across the African Great Lakes to Southern Africa.
What religion is Bantu?
Traditional religion is common among the Bantu, with a strong belief in magic. Christianity and Islam are also practiced.
Is Bantu an offensive term?
Blacks in South Africa generally consider the word Bantu offensive. They similarly rejected the word “native,” which it replaced in official terminology some years ago, preferring to be called blacks.
What are African Bantu languages?
The Bantu languages are spoken in a very large area, including most of Africa from southern Cameroon eastward to Kenya and southward to the southernmost tip of the continent. Twelve Bantu languages are spoken by more than five million people, including Rundi, Rwanda, Shona, Xhosa, and Zulu.
Are Jamaicans originally from Africa?
The vast majority of Jamaicans are of African descent, with minorities of Europeans, East Indians, Chinese, Middle Eastern and others or mixed ancestry.
Who is African descent?
Most African Americans are descendants of persons brought to the Americas as slaves between the 17th and 19th century (distant ancestry). Such people differ from others who came from Africa or the Caribbean in the 20th and 21st centuries (recent ancestry), in terms of culture, language, migration history, and health.
Who is a African?
African(s) may refer to: Anything from or pertaining to the continent of Africa: People who are native to Africa, descendants of natives of Africa, or individuals who trace their ancestry to indigenous inhabitants of Africa. Ethnic groups of Africa. African diaspora.
How old is Yoruba?
The Yoruba-speaking peoples share a rich and complex heritage that is at least one thousand years old. Today 18 million Yoruba live primarily in the modern nations of southwestern Nigeria and the Republic of Benin.
Who is the Yoruba god?
Oshun, also spelled Osun, an orisha (deity) of the Yoruba people of southwestern Nigeria. Oshun is commonly called the river orisha, or goddess, in the Yoruba religion and is typically associated with water, purity, fertility, love, and sensuality.
Are Hausa people Bantu?
Are Hausa bantu? The simple answer is “NO” This pluralist attitude toward ethnic-identity and cultural affiliation has enabled the Hausa to inhabit one of the largest geographic regions of non-Bantu ethnic groups in Africa.