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The Bantu languages descend from a common Proto-Bantu language, which is believed to have been spoken in what is now Cameroon in Central Africa. [21] An estimated 2,500–3,000 years ago (1000 BC to 500 BC), speakers of the Proto-Bantu language began a series of migrations eastward and southward, carrying agriculture with them.
Two related languages formerly spoken in Cameroon are now extinct but are believed to have belonged to the group. This connection between Nigerian and Cameroonian Jarawan is attributed to Thomas (1925). Whether Jarawan languages are best classified alongside other Bantu languages or among non-Bantu Bantoid languages is a matter of ongoing ...
It consists of the Bantu languages along with several small branches and isolates of eastern Nigeria and west-central Cameroon (though the affiliation of some branches is uncertain). Since the Bantu languages are spoken across most of Sub-Saharan Africa , Southern Bantoid comprises 643 languages as counted by Ethnologue , though many of these ...
Map of the major Bantu languages shown within the Niger–Congo language family, with non-Bantu languages in greyscale. Abantu is the Ndebele, Swazi, Xhosa and 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'. [6]
The Tiv believe they moved into their present location from the southeast of Africa. It is claimed [6] that the Tiv left their Bantu kin and wandered through southern, south-central and west-central Africa before returning to the savannah lands of West African Sudan via the River Congo and Cameroon Mountains and settled at Swem, the region adjoining Cameroon and Nigeria at the beginning of ...
The Grassfields languages (or Wide Grassfields languages) are a branch of the Southern Bantoid languages spoken in the Western High Plateau of Cameroon and some parts of Taraba state, Nigeria. Better known Grassfields languages include the Eastern Grassfields languages , Bamun , Yamba , Bali , and Bafut and the Ring languages , Kom , Nso , and ...
That is, A101 would be a language geographically in group A10, but not particularly close to any of Guthrie's A10 languages, or not known well enough to further classify. Pidgins and creoles are indicated by adding a capital letter to the decade code. That is, A10A would be a pidgin or creole based on a language in group A10.
It is Southern Bantoid which contains the Bantu languages, which are spoken across most of Sub-Saharan Africa. This makes Benue–Congo one of the largest subdivisions of the Niger–Congo language family, both in number of languages, of which Ethnologue counts 976 (2017), and in speakers, numbering perhaps 350 million.