 | This list needs additional citations for verification .(July 2012) |
This is a list of English language words that come from the Niger-Congo languages. It excludes placenames except where they have become common words.
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| | This list needs additional citations for verification .(July 2012) |
This is a list of English language words that come from the Niger-Congo languages. It excludes placenames except where they have become common words.
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The Bantu languages are a large family of languages spoken by the Bantu peoples in the southern half of Africa. They form the largest branch of the Southern Bantoid languages.
The languages of Africa are divided into several major language families:
The West Atlantic languages of West Africa are a major subgroup of the Niger–Congo languages.
Sotho or Sesotho is a Southern Bantu language of the Sotho-Tswana (S.30) group, spoken primarily by the Basotho in Lesotho, where it is the national and official language; South Africa, where it is one of the 11 official languages; and in Zimbabwe where it is one of 16 official languages.
Candomblé Bantu is one of the major branches (nations) of the Candomblé religious belief system. It developed in the Portuguese Empire among Kongo and Mbundu slaves who spoke Kikongo and Kimbundu languages. The supreme and creative god is Nzambi or Nzambi a Mpungu. Below him are the Jinkisi or Minkisi, deities of Bantu mythology. These deities resemble Olorun and the other orishas of the Yoruba religion. Minkisi is a Kongo language term: it is the plural of Nkisi, meaning "receptacle". Akixi comes from the Kimbundu language term Mukixi.
Kongo or Kikongo is one of the Bantu languages spoken by the Kongo people living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, Angola and Gabon. It is a tonal language. It was spoken by many of those who were taken from the region and sold as slaves in the Americas. For this reason, while Kongo still is spoken in the above-mentioned countries, creolized forms of the language are found in ritual speech of Afro-American religions, especially in Brazil, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Haiti. It is also one of the sources of the Gullah language and the Palenquero creole in Colombia. The vast majority of present-day speakers live in Africa. There are roughly seven million native speakers of Kongo, with perhaps two million more who use it as a second language.
The Gullah are African Americans who live in the Lowcountry region of the U.S. states of Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and North Carolina, in both the coastal plain and the Sea Islands. They have developed a creole language, also called Gullah, and a culture with significant African influence.
Fanagalo, or Fanakalo, is a vernacular or pidgin based primarily on Zulu with input from English and a small amount of Afrikaans input. It is used as a lingua franca, mainly in the gold, diamond, coal and copper mining industries in South Africa and to a lesser extent in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Although it is used as a second language only, the number of speakers was estimated as "several hundred thousand" in 1975. By the time independence came – or in the case of South Africa, universal suffrage – English had become sufficiently widely spoken and understood that it became the lingua franca, enabling different ethnic groups in the same country to communicate with each other, and Fanakalo use declined.
The Northern Ndebele people are a Bantu ethnic group in Southern Africa. They speak a language called isiNdebele. The Northern Ndebele were historically referred to as the Matabele by Sotho people, for a Nguni speaking person. Sotho people called all Nguni speaking people 'Matebele". That is why today there are a few tribes that live amongst the Basotho people and identify themselves as Matebele. These include from GaMashashane, Zebediela, and Mokopane near Polokwane. They identify themselves as Matebele meaning they are of Nguni origin, from Mpumalanga and in Lesotho. Mzilikazi was a contemporary of King Shaka and spoke the same language. The different between the isiNdebele language of Zimbabwe and Zulu language of South Africa is not great. The two languages are mutually intelligible to some degree, with differences in pronunciation, accents, and some loan words. There is also the use of older words in isiNdebele, with some of the words no longer being in use in isiZulu, and only older generation knows these words. The Ndebele culture and language is similar Zulu culture, as they share ancestry and common origins to Zulu people from the KwaZulu Natal (KZN) province of South Africa. The amaNdebele of Mzilikazi used the much smaller cowhide shields and short stabbing assegai of King Shaka's army. Ndebele people were also called Bathebele, which became amaNdebele.
Tsotsitaal is a vernacular derived from a variety of mixed languages mainly spoken in the townships of Gauteng province, but also in other agglomerations all over South Africa. Tsotsi is a Sesotho, Pedi or Tswana slang word for a "thug" or "robber" or "criminal", possibly from the verb "ho lotsa" "to sharpen", whose meaning has been modified in modern times to include "to con"; or from the tsetse fly, as the language was first known as Flytaal, although flaai also means "cool" or "street smart". The word taal in Afrikaans means "language".
South African Bantu-speaking peoples are the majority of Black South Africans. Occasionally grouped as Bantu, the term itself is derived from the word for "people" common to many of the Bantu languages. The Oxford Dictionary of South African English describes its contemporary usage in a racial context as "obsolescent and offensive" because of its strong association with white minority rule with their Apartheid system. However, Bantu is used without pejorative connotations in other parts of Africa and is still used in South Africa as the group term for the language family.
Portuguese is the only official language of Angola, but 46 other languages are spoken in the country, mostly Bantu languages. Ethnologue considers six languages to benefit of an institutional status in Angola:(Angolan)Portuguese, Chokwe, Kikongo, Kimbundu, Oshiwambo, Ngangela and Umbundu.
The languages of the African Union are languages used by citizens within the member states of the African Union (AU). For languages of the institution, see African Union: Languages.
The phonology of Sesotho and those of the other Sotho–Tswana languages are radically different from those of "older" or more "stereotypical" Bantu languages. Modern Sesotho in particular has very mixed origins inheriting many words and idioms from non-Sotho–Tswana languages.
The Southern Bantu languages are a large group of Bantu languages, largely validated in Janson (1991/92). They are nearly synonymous with Guthrie's Bantu zone S, apart from the exclusion of Shona and the inclusion of Makhuwa. They include all of the major Bantu languages of South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, and Mozambique, with outliers such as Lozi in Zambia and Namibia, and Ngoni in Zambia, Tanzania and Malawi.
Buckra or Backra is a term of West African origin. It is mainly used in the Caribbean and in the Southeast United States. Originally, it was used by slaves to address their white slave master. Later the meaning was broadened to describe white people in general.
Efik is the indigenous language of the Efik people of Nigeria. It is the official language of Cross River State in Nigeria. The language is named after the Efik people who are situated in the present-day Cross River state and Akwa Ibom state. The Efik language is mutually intelligible with other lower Cross River languages such as Ibibio, Annang, Oro and Ekid but the degree of intelligibility in the case of Oro and Ekid is unidirectional; in other words, speakers of these languages speak and understand Efik but not vice-versa. The Efik vocabulary has been enriched and influenced by external contact with the British, Portuguese and other surrounding communities such as Balondo, Oron, Efut, Okoyong, Efiat and Ekoi (Qua).
Bantu people are the speakers of Bantu languages, comprising several hundred indigenous ethnic groups spread over a vast area from Central Africa, to Southeast Africa, and to Southern Africa.
Most words of African origin used in English are nouns describing animals, plants, or cultural practices that have their origins in Africa. The following list includes some examples.
 | This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations .(July 2012) |
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