Bantu languages

Examples of Bantu languages in the following topics:

• The Bantu Migration

  • The Bantu expansion is the name for a postulated millennia-long series of migrations of speakers of the original proto-Bantu language group.
  • The linguistic core of the Bantu family of languages, a branch of the Niger-Congo language family, was located in the adjoining region of Cameroon and Nigeria.
  • Currently, 300-600 ethnic groups in Africa speak Bantu languages and are categorized as Bantu peoples.
  • It is not known how many Bantu language exist today, but Ethnologue counts 535.
  • Parts of the Bantu area include languages from other language families.

• The Swahili Culture

  • Swahili culture originated on the Swahili Coast from the mixture of Perso-Arab and Bantu cultures that is credited for creating Swahili as a distinctive East African culture and language.
  • As with the Swahili language, Swahili culture has a Bantu core and has also borrowed from foreign influences.
  • Around 3,000 years ago, speakers of the proto-Bantu language group began a millennia-long series of migrations eastward from their homeland between West Africa and Central Africa, at the border of eastern Nigeria and Cameroon. 
  • The Swahili people are mainly united under the mother tongue of Kiswahili, a Bantu language. 
  • It is the mixture of Perso-Arab and Bantu cultures in Kilwa that is credited for creating Swahili as a distinctive East African culture and language.

• The Kingdoms of Madagascar

  • Over the past 2,000 years, Madagascar has received waves of settlers of diverse origins, including Austronesian, Bantu, Arab, South Asian, Chinese, and European populations.
  • Centuries of intermarriages created the Malagasy people, who primarily speak Malagasy, an Austronesian language with Bantu, Malay, Arabic, French, and English influences.
  • Most of the genetic makeup of the average Malagasy, however, reflects an almost equal blend of Austronesian and Bantu influences, especially in coastal regions. 

• Namibia

  • Both the San and the Nama were Khoisan peoples, and spoke languages from the Khoisan language group.
  • The Damara do not relate to the other Khoisan peoples, although they share a similar language.
  • It is believed that they separated themselves early on from their Bantu brothers of Southern and Central Africa and moved to Southwest Africa.
  • Both groups belonged to the Bantu nation.
  • Known as Oorlams, these Khoisans adopted Boer customs and spoke a language similar to Afrikaans.

• Sanskrit

  • Sanskrit is the primary sacred language of Hinduism, and has been used as a philosophical language in the religions of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism.
  • Sanskrit traces its linguistic ancestry to Proto-Indo-Iranian and ultimately to Proto-Indo-European languages, meaning that it can be traced historically back to the people who spoke Indo-Iranian, also called the Aryan languages, as well as the Indo-European languages, a family of several hundred related languages and dialects.
  • Today, an estimated 46% of humans speak some form of Indo-European language.
  • At approximately 1000 BCE, Vedic Sanskrit began the transition from a first language to a second language of religion and learning.
  • Poetry was also a key feature of this period of the language.

• The Preclassic Period of the Maya

  • Mayan language speakers most likely originated in the Chiapas-Guatamalan Highlands and dispersed from there.
  • Though the exact starting date of Mayan civilization is unclear, there were Mayan language speakers in the Southern Maya Area by 2000 BCE.
  • Speakers of a Mixe–Zoquean language, the Olmec are generally recognized as the first true civilization in the Americas.
  • Several words entered Mayan from a Mixe–Zoquean language, presumably due to Olmec influence.
  • By 2000 BCE, there were speakers of Mayan languages in the Southern Maya Area.

• The Rise of the Vernacular

  • Prior to the Renaissance, the Italian language was not the literary language in Italy.
  • It was only in the 13th century that Italian authors began writing in their native vernacular language rather than Latin, French, or Provençal.
  • With the printing of books initiated in Venice by Aldus Manutius, an increasing number of works began to be published in the Italian language in addition to the flood of Latin and Greek texts that constituted the mainstream of the Italian Renaissance.
  • The creation of the printing press (using movable type) by Johannes Gutenberg in the 1450s encouraged authors to write in their local vernacular rather than in Greek or Latin classical languages, widening the reading audience and promoting the spread of Renaissance ideas.

• The Mixtec

  • The word "Mixtec" is often used to refer not to the group of people of Mixtec ancestry, but to the family of languages that have developed alongside the group.
  • There is no longer one single Mixtec language; some estimate that there are fifty distinct languages in the Mixtec family, including Cuicatec and Triqui.
  • Distinguish between the Mixtec people and the Mixtec language and identify when they were most prominent

• The Sumerians

  • Toward the end of the empire, though, Sumerian became increasingly a literary language.
  • However, the region was becoming more Semitic, and the Sumerian language became a religious language.

• The Hittites

  • The Hittite language was a member of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family.
  • Despite the use of Hatti as the core of their territory, the Hittites should be distinguished from the Hattians, an earlier people who inhabited the same region (until the beginning of the 2nd millennium BCE), and spoke a different language, possibly in the Northwest Caucasian language group known as Hattic.