Who were the Bantu and where did they originate?
The Bantu first originated around the Benue- Cross rivers area in southeastern Nigeria and spread over Africa to the Zambia area.
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 is the culture of Bantu?
About 4000 B.C. the people who spoke this language developed a culture based on the farming of root crops, foraging, and fishing on the West African coast. Over the years, Bantu became more widely spoken than the languages of the nomadic peoples who lived in the same area.
Who are the Bantu in Nigeria?
Oddly, the Africa Southeastern Bantu region has its roots in West Africa, an area that includes Nigeria and Cameroon. In that area, perhaps 3,000 years ago, a group of Niger-Congo languages called Bantu (meaning “people”) had their origins.
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 religion is Bantu?
Traditional religion is common among the Bantu, with a strong belief in magic. Christianity and Islam are also practiced.
What is the language of the Bantu people?
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.
Is Igbo a Bantu?
No, Igbos are not Bantu. The Igbo and the Bantu languages are deemed to be part of the Niger-Congo language family, but there’s a great deal that separates them. … The Igbo and the Bantu languages are deemed to be part of the Niger-Congo language family, but there’s a great deal that separates them.
What are the Bantu known for?
The Bantu shared their knowledge of iron-smelting, pottery-making, and their farming skills with indigenous forager and nomadic tribes they met, many of whom eventually then settled into stable village communities.
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.
Where did the Bantu people go?
During a wave of expansion that began 4,000 to 5,000 years ago, Bantu-speaking populations – today some 310 million people – gradually left their original homeland of West-Central Africa and traveled to the eastern and southern regions of the continent.
What does Bantu mean?
1 : a family of Niger-Congo languages spoken in central and southern Africa. 2 : a member of any of a group of African peoples who speak Bantu languages.
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.
What skills did the Bantu spread through Africa?
Bantu-speakers in West Africa moved into new areas in very small groups, usually just families. But they brought with them the Bantu technology and language package—iron, crops, cattle, pottery, and more. These pioneers then shared their more advanced technologies (and, in the process, their languages) with the locals.
Who are the coastal Bantu?
The Bantu speakers are commonly divided into three groups: Western/Lacustine, Central/Eastern and Coastal Bantu. The coastal Bantu include the Mijikenda (Agiriama, Digo, Chonyi/Kauma, Duruma, Jibaba, Kambe, Rabai, Ribe), Taveta, Bajun, Malakote, Pokomo, Taita, and Swahili communities.