Bantu languages
E25285
Bantu languages are a large family of closely related languages spoken across much of central, eastern, and southern Africa, known for features like noun class systems and widespread mutual influences among neighboring tongues.
Observed surface forms (6)
| Surface form | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Bantu | 16 |
| Bantu language family | 2 |
| Bantu R languages | 1 |
| Bantu family | 1 |
| Bantu languages of East Africa | 1 |
| Southern Bantu languages | 1 |
Statements (80)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
branch of Niger–Congo languages
ⓘ
language family ⓘ |
| alsoKnownAs |
Bantu languages
ⓘ
surface form:
Bantu
Bantu languages ⓘ
surface form:
Bantu family
|
| ancestorLanguage | Proto-Bantu ⓘ |
| areKnownFor |
complex systems of noun classes controlling agreement across the clause
ⓘ
widespread mutual influences among neighboring languages ⓘ |
| areSpokenIn |
Angola
ⓘ
Botswana ⓘ Burundi ⓘ Cameroon ⓘ Comoros ⓘ Democratic Republic of the Congo ⓘ Equatorial Guinea ⓘ Eswatini ⓘ Gabon ⓘ Kenya ⓘ Lesotho ⓘ Madagascar (some Bantu languages on the island) ⓘ Malawi ⓘ Mozambique ⓘ Namibia ⓘ Republic of the Congo ⓘ Rwanda ⓘ South Africa ⓘ Tanzania ⓘ Uganda ⓘ Zambia ⓘ Zimbabwe ⓘ parts of Nigeria ⓘ parts of Somalia ⓘ |
| classificationScheme | Guthrie classification ⓘ |
| estimatedNumberOfLanguages | over 500 ⓘ |
| estimatedNumberOfSpeakers | hundreds of millions ⓘ |
| expansionPeriod | roughly last 3000 years ⓘ |
| geographicDistribution |
African Great Lakes
ⓘ
Central Africa ⓘ East Africa ⓘ
surface form:
Eastern Africa
East Africa ⓘ
surface form:
Great Lakes region of Africa
Southern Africa ⓘ parts of Western Africa ⓘ |
| hasLinguisticFeature |
agglutinative morphology
ⓘ
concord between nouns and modifiers ⓘ derivational verb extensions ⓘ extensive agreement morphology ⓘ extensive mutual lexical borrowing among neighboring languages ⓘ noun class system ⓘ prefixal noun classes ⓘ rich verbal morphology ⓘ subject–verb–object basic word order in many languages ⓘ tone in many member languages ⓘ |
| hasSubgroup |
Northeast Coast Bantu languages
ⓘ
surface form:
Eastern Bantu languages
Narrow Bantu ⓘ Southern Bantu languages ⓘ Western Bantu languages ⓘ |
| historicalOrigin | associated with Bantu expansion ⓘ |
| influencedBy |
Afrikaans (in some southern Bantu languages)
ⓘ
Arabic (via Swahili and other coastal languages) ⓘ English (in many southern and eastern African Bantu languages) ⓘ Portuguese (in some coastal and southern Bantu languages) ⓘ |
| majorLanguage |
Chichewa
ⓘ
Northern Ndebele ⓘ
surface form:
IsiNdebele
Kikongo ⓘ Kikuyu ⓘ Kinyarwanda ⓘ Kirundi ⓘ Swahili language ⓘ
surface form:
Kiswahili
Lingala ⓘ Luganda ⓘ Sesotho ⓘ Setswana ⓘ Shona ⓘ Swahili language ⓘ
surface form:
Swahili
Xhosa ⓘ Zulu ⓘ |
| researchField | Bantu linguistics ⓘ |
| subfamilyOf | Niger–Congo languages ⓘ |
| usedAs |
lingua franca in many regions of Central and Eastern Africa
ⓘ
national languages in several African countries ⓘ |
| writingSystem | Latin script in most written Bantu languages ⓘ |
Referenced by (82)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
Bantu
this entity surface form:
Bantu
this entity surface form:
Bantu
this entity surface form:
Bantu