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Bantu

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: African Geography

   Map showing the approximate distribution of Bantu (dull yellow) vs.
   other Niger-Congo languages and peoples (bright yellow).
   Enlarge
   Map showing the approximate distribution of Bantu (dull yellow) vs.
   other Niger-Congo languages and peoples (bright yellow).

   Bantu is a general term for over 400 different ethnic groups in Africa,
   from Cameroon to South Africa, united by a common language family (the
   Bantu languages) and in many cases common customs.

Definition

   "Bantu" means "people" in many Bantu languages. Dr. Wilhelm Bleek first
   used the term "Bantu" in its current sense in his 1862 book A
   Comparative Grammar of South African Languages, in which he
   hypothesized that a vast number of languages located across central,
   southern, eastern, and western Africa shared so many characteristics
   that they must be part of a single language group. This basic thesis is
   still accepted by some people today, although the theory has been
   widely challenged since it was proposed - not least because a language
   may be spread by a relatively small number of human carriers.

Origins

   Before the Bantu, the southern half of Africa is believed to have been
   populated by Khoisan speaking people, today occupying the arid regions
   around the Kalahari and a few isolated pockets in Tanzania. Pygmies
   inhabited central Africa, whereas Cushites and other people speaking
   Afro-Asiatic languages inhabited north-eastern and northern Africa.
   Northwestern Africa, the Sahara, and the Sudan were inhabited by people
   speaking Mande and Atlantic languages (such as the Fulani and Wolof)
   and other people speaking Nilo-Saharan languages.

   There are two basic theories of Bantu origins. The first was advanced
   by Joseph Greenberg in 1963. He had analyzed and compared several
   hundred African languages and found that a group of languages spoken in
   Southeastern Nigeria were the most closely related to languages from
   the Bantu group. He theorized that Proto-Bantu (the hypothetical
   ancestor of the Bantu languages) was originally one of these languages
   that spread south and east over hundreds of years.

   This was quickly challenged by Malcolm Guthrie who analyzed each Bantu
   language and found that the most stereotypical were those spoken in
   Zambia and in the southern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). This
   provided the alternate theory that Bantu speakers had spread from this
   location in all directions.

Bantu expansion

   One common hypothesis of the Bantu expansion
   Enlarge
   One common hypothesis of the Bantu expansion

   Some historians still accept a synthesis of the above named theories,
   although the enthusiasm with which the South African apartheid
   government exploited these ideas left them under something of a cloud.

   The Bantu first originated around the Benue- Cross rivers area in
   southeastern Nigeria and spread over Africa to the Zambia area.
   Sometime in the second millennium BC, perhaps triggered by the drying
   of the Sahara and pressure from the migration of people from the Sahara
   into the region, they were forced to expand into the rainforests of
   central Africa (phase I). About 1000 years later they began a more
   rapid second phase of expansion beyond the forests into southern and
   eastern Africa. Then sometime in the first millennium new agricultural
   techniques and plants were developed in Zambia, probably imported from
   South East Asia via Austronesian-speaking Madagascar. With these
   techniques another Bantu expansion occurred centered on this new
   location (phase III).

   By about AD 1000 it had reached modern day Zimbabwe and South Africa.
   In Zimbabwe a major southern hemisphere empire was established, with
   its capital at Great Zimbabwe. It controlled trading routes from South
   Africa to north of the Zambezi, trading gold, copper, precious stones,
   animal hides, ivory and metal goods with the Arab traders of the
   Swahili coast. By the 14th or 15th centuries the Empire had surpassed
   its resources and had collapsed, with the city of Great Zimbabwe being
   abandoned.

Bantu in South Africa

   Black South Africans were at times officially called "Bantus" by the
   apartheid regime. The term "Bantu" is considered pejorative in South
   Africa.

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bantu"
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