Some people will always exhibit hatred whenever they see signs of Igbo greatness, but Igbos have no option but to be great.

Radoillo:

Actually (to clarify) Igbos have probably been in Eastern Nigeria for a long long time. I was only speaking of the Eastern frontier of Igboland close to Bantu-related groups on the border with Cameroon. It appears (from oral tradition, at least) that the Igbo-speaking groups (or at least the ones mentioned in my earlier post) made their appearance there in relatively recent times (the Common Era), taking land from Bantu-related peoples and pushing them farther east or absorbing them.

Bantu migrations from that area began some 3000 years ago. And that was before the Igbo groups mentioned reached their present frontiers with Bantu-related groups.

Thanks for clearing that up.

Radoillo:

Saying Bantu is a race is like saying the Romance-speaking people (Italian, Spanish, French, etc) are a race.

And Igbos are not Bantu. It is even highly doubtful that they mixed to a significant extent with Bantu. They have no borders with Bantu people.
Note that in my posts I keep using 'Bantu-related'. This is because the Ibibio, the Ekoi who are our neighbours to the east are not actually Bantu but only speak languages related to Bantu, being in the same language family (East Benue-Congo) with the Bantu languages.

Explained it better then I did!

igbodefender: Some people will always exhibit hatred when they see signs of Igbo greatness, but Igbos have no option but to be great.

Honestly, your organization ought to be shut down and disbanded for its disservice.

Radoillo:

Saying Bantu is a race is like saying the Romance-speaking people (Italian, Spanish, French, etc) are a race.

No... its like saying Indo-European is a race, and it is. We call it white. Every single white group speaks an indo-european language except the basque in spain.

This picture shows the language families in the world, which also happen to be the borders between what is considered, mongloid, black, caucasian and semetic

Green is white, orange is black, yellow is semetic, red is mongloid and pink is pacific islander. This might as well be a racial map.

pleep:
No... its like saying Indo-European is a race, and it is. We call it white. Every single white group speaks an indo-european language except the basque in spain.

This picture shows the language families in the world, which also happen to be the borders between what is considered, mongloid, black, caucasian and semetic

Green is white, orange is black, yellow is semetic, red is mongloid and pink is pacific islander. This might as well be a racial map.

Indo-European is a language family NOT a race. I hope you are aware that there are Northern Indians and Afghani's whho are also Indo-European speakers, yet are not "white". The Hausa people speak a Chadic language which is under the Afro-Asiatic family; the AA family which is mainly spoken by horners and Berbers in Africa. Yet Hausa do not cluster with those two but Nilo-Saharan speakers(and West Africans). Yet Hausa speak their own indignous Afro-Asiatic language.

I can go on, Arabs speak an AA language yet most are not black or African. Language is not a race. Language can be transfered to another group of people; many linguist and anthropologist agree on this.

One can say the reason the majority of Europeans are under the same language family is:
1. Unlike Africa/Africans Europeans are not that diverse. Especially considering this.
http://www.nature.com/news/most-europeans-share-recent-ancestors-1.12950
^^^That definitely explains why Europeans are not that genetically diverse as Africans.
2. Europe is smaller.
3. Europe is technically am extension of Europe.

Meanwhile there are four indignous language families in Africa(more than Europe). Yet speakers of those four language families share a common ancestor. Saying a language family is a race has many holes in it.

North indians and iranians both trace their Indo-European heritage to a ethnic group called the Ayrans. Does that sound familiar? thats right, its the same race Hitler and the natzis claim to be decended from.

Arabs are Afro Asiatic.... which has nothing to do with being black. It means semitic. Berbers, North Africans, Arabs, Jews etc all fall into this group, and on the fringe Eithopians and Somalis. You don't seem to understand that race isn't a clear cut thing, every race merges into the others. The ethiopians are where Semetic merges with black and the iranians are where white merges with semitic.

this is my opinion, and the way i choose to look at things. Its fine if we disagree, race is pseudoscience anyway.

ChinenyeN: The only thing language definitively shows is interaction. It can only truly tell you the extent to which two or more groups have interacted. Admittedly, it's a good marker for discerning relationships, but you cannot cite language as conclusive on matters of race** and origin. Other factors take precedence.

**In fact, race is even a sketchy term to use for this discussion as it is largely a social and political construct and has no real anthropological meaning.

pleep: North indians and iranians both trace their Indo-European heritage to a ethnic group called the Ayrans. Does that sound familiar? thats right, its the same race Hitler and the natzis claim to be decended from.

Hitler tried to claim Germanic people were the true Aryans to say Germanic people are the first Europeans, but later that was found not to be true. If anything the Indo-European language only spread into Europe by those early Aryans. Similar to how Northeast Africans spread AA into the Middle East. Doesn't mean Europeans are related to Northern Indians like Punjabis who speak Indo-European.

pleep:
Arabs are Afro Asiatic.... [b]which has nothing to do with being black. [/b]It means semitic. Berbers, North Africans, Arabs, Jews etc all fall into this group, and on the fringe Eithopians and Somalis. You don't seem to understand that race isn't a clear cut thing, every race merges into the others. The ethiopians are where Semetic merges with black and the iranians are where white merges with semitic.

Actually it does. The first AA speakers would be would we call "black". Ethiopians and Somalis are NOT the fringe, in fact AA originated in Ethiopia in the first place. But horners spread it into Arabia. Also I am well aware that race is not clear. And stated it many times on here. That actually proves more that Bantu is not race. Nor can a language family be a race. Also there is no such evidence of blacks "merging" with Semitic speakers to create Ethiopians. In fact the early semitic speakers would have looked no different from horners. Nor is there any proof of Iranians being a result of Europeans mixing with semitic speaking people. If anything modern day semitic speakers are the result of Northeast Africans and South Asians.

pleep:
this is my opinion, and the way i choose to look at things. Its fine if we disagree, race is pseudoscience anyway.

Just know a language family as a whole can't be a "race". its impossible. Not trying to sound like a know it all but just saying.

If anything the Indo-European language only spread into Europe by those early Aryans. Similar to how Northeast Africans spread AA into the Middle East. Doesn't mean Europeans are related to Northern Indians like Punjabis who speak Indo-European.

Dude. What are u even talking about. All indo european groups are decended from one group that migrated out of central asia called "Proto-Indo Europeans". How on on earth can u claim they not related when they descended from the same ethnic group?

Actually it does. The first AA speakers would be would we call "black". Ethiopians and Somalis are NOT the fringe, in fact AA originated in Ethiopia in the first place. But horners spread it into Arabia. Also I am well aware that race is not clear. And stated it many times on here. That actually proves more that Bantu is not race. Nor can a language family be a race. Also there is no such evidence of blacks "merging" with Semitic speakers to create Ethiopians. In fact the early semitic speakers would have looked no different from horners. Nor is there any proof of Iranians being a result of Europeans mixing with semitic speaking people. If anything modern day semitic speakers are the result of Northeast Africans and South Asians.

And then you discover that amharic (the dominant ethnic group in ethiopia) actually claim to have originated in yemen. Dude listen. Just because you think afro asiatic originated in East Africa, and i actually agree with you on that, does't mean that they aren't mixed. Cultures that share a border always mix and thus blurr the lines of their respective races, its common sense.

You are arguing against textbook Anthropology with internet psuedo-science. The fact of the mater is, anthropologists use language to determine ethnic/racial identity it has been proven to be the most reliable method. I'm not going to keep arguing about stuff that has already been proven correct, have a good day.

pleep:

Dude. What are u even talking about. All indo european groups are decended from one group that migrated out of central asia called "Proto-Indo Europeans". How on on earth can u claim they not related when they descended from the same ethnic group?

No they don't. Europeans descent from people who migrated into Europe 15k years ago. Indo-European was BOUGHT into Europe by non-Europeans like I said. Similar to how AA was bought into Africa. Doesn't mean they are related. Do you know these people are Indo-European speakers?

^^^Don't look white.

pleep:
And then you discover that amharic (the dominant ethnic group in ethiopia) actually claim to have originated in yemen. Dude listen. Just because you think afro asiatic originated in East Africa, and i actually agree with you on that, does't mean that they aren't mixed. Cultures that share a border always mix and thus blurr the lines of their respective races, its common sense.

The Amharic are only one small group in Ethiopia compared to Oromos and other Ethiopians, they're a minority in the horn all to together compared to Somalis who not only speak an older AA langauge(Cushite), but are less admixed and have more African DNA(I don't care what that Somali nut has said in the past, I actually spoken to actual Somalis). Sharing borders is a good point, but I don't know why people think its always the Horn being influenced by western Asian admixture instead really the other way around for the most part. The Amharic eurasian admixture is really due to them conquering the Arabian peninsula. Which is why their Cushitic langauge was replaced for a Semitic one(again proving language is not a race). And I never heard of Amharics or any habesha group claiming they descent from Yemen. If anything much of the the coastal people of the Arabia peninsula has roots in the Horn. Heck some look no different then Horners and even in the past:

The term Arab when used in historical documents often represented an ethnic term, as many of the "Arab" slave traders, such as Tippu Tipand others, were physically indistinguishable from the "Africans" whom they bought and sold.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_slave_trade

pleep:
You are arguing against textbook Anthropology with internet psuedo-science. The fact of the mater is, anthropologists use language to determine ethnic/racial identity it has been proven to be the most reliable method. I'm not going to keep arguing about stuff that has already been proven correct, have a good day.

I never heard any professional anthropologist state that language can be used to determined an ethnicity/race instead I heard many like S.O.Y Keita state language can be transmitted. If anthropologist state what you're actually stating then show me.

Anyways we can agree-disagree.

I have not yet seen any proof that Igbos are not the Proto Bantus. Happy weekend to you all. Igbos keep your heads up!

KidStranglehold:
No they don't. Europeans descent from people who migrated into Europe 15k years ago. Indo-European was BOUGHT into Europe by non-Europeans like I said. Similar to how AA was bought into Africa. Doesn't mean they are related. Do you know these people are Indo-European speakers?

^^^Don't look white.


The Amharic are only one small group in Ethiopia compared to Oromos and other Ethiopians, they're a minority in the horn all to together compared to Somalis who not only speak an older AA langauge(Cushite), but are less admixed and have more African DNA(I don't care what that Somali nut has said in the past, I actually spoken to actual Somalis). Sharing borders is a good point, but I don't know why people think its always the Horn being influenced by western Asian admixture instead really the other way around for the most part. The Amharic eurasian admixture is really due to them conquering the Arabian peninsula. Which is why their Cushitic langauge was replaced for a Semitic one(again proving language is not a race). And I never heard of Amharics or any habesha group claiming they descent from Yemen. If anything much of the the coastal people of the Arabia peninsula has roots in the Horn. Heck some look no different then Horners and even in the past:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_slave_trade



I never heard any professional anthropologist state that language can be used to determined an ethnicity/race instead I heard many like S.O.Y Keita state language can be transmitted. If anthropologist state what you're actually stating then show me.

Anyways we can agree-disagree.

lol, True, Somalis/ethiopians (our forefathers) controlled Yemen, and southernern Egypt, which is why in southern Egypt and Yemen their are our people still there from thousands of years ago.

That being said, Somalis/Ethiopians/Ertireans (Cushitic) are not related to Bantus. Also the word Cushitic was used as a race before it became a language family half a century ago. Oromos, Amhara and tigrey are all Cushitic, the amahara and tigrey just speak Semetic language.


All of Ethiopia except the south (southern peoples nation, Bantus/Nilos) are Cushitic

Plz stop talking about my peoples history and stick to your own kind.

pleep: North indians and iranians both trace their Indo-European heritage to a ethnic group called the Ayrans. Does that sound familiar? thats right, its the same race Hitler and the natzis claim to be decended from.

Arabs are Afro Asiatic.... which has nothing to do with being black. It means semitic. Berbers, North Africans, Arabs, Jews etc all fall into this group, and on the fringe Eithopians and Somalis. You don't seem to understand that race isn't a clear cut thing, every race merges into the others. The ethiopians are where Semetic merges with black and the iranians are where white merges with semitic.

this is my opinion, and the way i choose to look at things. Its fine if we disagree, race is pseudoscience anyway.

Ethiopians dont merge with Black. Horn gave rise to North Africans and Arabs. All Afroasiatic languages are spoken in the Horn, this is where they came from.

The only way out of Africa is through the Horn via the Nile river into North Africa, and the red sea into Yemen.

axum:


Ethiopians dont merge with Black. Horn gave rise to North Africans and Arabs. All Afroasiatic languages are spoken in the Horn, this is where they came from.

The only way out of Africa is through the Horn via the Nile river into North Africa, and the red sea into Yemen.

I dont care.

axum:


Ethiopians dont merge with Black. Horn gave rise to North Africans and Arabs. All Afroasiatic languages are spoken in the Horn, this is where they came from.

The only way out of Africa is through the Horn via the Nile river into North Africa, and the red sea into Yemen.

All Afro-Asiatic languages are not spoken in the horn that's a lie! What about the 60 or so Afroasiatic languages spoken in Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon? None of them are spoken in the horn.

Fulaman198:

All Afro-Asiatic languages are not spoken in the horn that's a lie! What about the 60 or so Afroasiatic languages spoken in Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon? None of them are spoken in the horn.

Idiot Somali, Oromo, are Cushitic languages that are spoken in Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Northern Kenya.

Amahara, Tigrrey are Semetic languages that are also part of the Afroasiatc languages, Somalis in Coastal towns and in Eritrea also speak Arabic.

Hausa is not spoken in Horn, but many linguistics don't count Hausa as Afroasiatc

How Afroasiatic languages spread. They came from the HORN.

axum:


Idiot Somali, Oromo, are Cushitic languages that are spoken in Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Northern Kenya.

Amahara, Tigrrey are Semetic languages that are also part of the Afroasiatc languages, Somalis in Coastal towns and in Eritrea also speak Arabic.

Hausa is not spoken in Horn, but many linguistics don't count Hausa as Afroasiatc

Too bad it is, it is one of Several Chadic languages. I also know you are making crap up about Hausa not being AfroAsiatic.

Berber and Chadic languages are not spoken in East Africa aka Tamasheq, Hausa, Ngas, Tamazigh, etc.

axum:


Idiot Somali, Oromo, are Cushitic languages that are spoken in Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Northern Kenya.

Amahara, Tigrrey are Semetic languages that are also part of the Afroasiatc languages, Somalis in Coastal towns and in Eritrea also speak Arabic.

Hausa is not spoken in Horn, but many linguistics don't count Hausa as Afroasiatc

And what many linguistics are this??

Although there is a case I read that Hausa evolved from a Nilotic language to Afroasiatic

macof:

And what many linguistics are this??

Although there is a case I read that Hausa evolved from a Nilotic language to Afroasiatic

Many linguistics do not consider hausa as Afroasiatic. Notice that Semetic, Cushitic, Omatic are all found in the Horn. Notice the DNA of the people who are in North Africa (similar to Cushitic people), notice the easiest way out of Africa is from the Horn via the Nile river and the Red sea into Yemen.

Fulaman198:

Too bad it is, it is one of Several Chadic languages. I also know you are making crap up about Hausa not being AfroAsiatic.

Berber and Chadic languages are not spoken in East Africa aka Tamasheq, Hausa, Ngas, Tamazigh, etc.

Ofcourse berber is not spoken, because it evolved from the Horn, just like how Arabic which is semetic evolved from other semetic languages like Tigrey and Amaharic.

The Horn has the most afroasiatic languages in the World.

axum:


Ofcourse berber is not spoken, because it evolved from the Horn, just like how Arabic which is semetic evolved from other semetic languages like Tigrey and Amaharic.

The Horn has the most afroasiatic languages in the World.

You mean diversity of afro Asiatic language families. I would say Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Chad have more than the Horn. There are 22 or so in Nigeria alone with Hausa having 50 million speakers.

Fulaman198:

You mean diversity of afro Asiatic language families. I would say Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Chad have more than the Horn. There are 22 or so in Nigeria alone with Hausa having 50 million speakers.

LMAO, dude Linguistics already said the horn has them most. The Horn has Semetic/Cushitic/Omatic

Radoillo:

This post is about whether Igbos are 'proto-Bantu or not. The issue of Igbo origin is a different question all together.

Ok, so who are the Bantus? I have not come across any material that indicates that Igbos are not related to them...

ChinenyeN:

That topic deserves its own dedicated thread. Or even, it's own book. We can title it, "An Ethno-Historic Sketch of The Igbo: From Time Immemorial to the 20th Century", and it will not fear revisions as new, ethnographic and anthropological evidence emerges.

.
Am waiting for that thread....

KidStranglehold:


Bantu IS NOT a race. There is no proof of Bantu being a race or Igbo language being Bantu or part Bantu. "Bantu" is a recent 19/20th century term. The reason why Bantu is a language is because of one word, "the people".

Igbo(and Germans) IS an ethnic group where as Bantu is just a term to group together people who speak a common language. Again its not a race nor is it technically an ethnic group. Even if you want to say Bantu is a "race", studies show that Igbo's don't cluster with Bantu "speakers", so Igbo's can't have Bantu ancestry. And I believe Radoillo even stated Igbo's recently migrated into Eastern Nigeria.

Igbos were in Eastern Nigerian long before tales of recent migration. The axis within Awka,Orlu and Isiukwuato have no migration tales,however the Abakaliki,Arochukwu people are the recent migratants form hinter igbolands that settled and absorbed smaller non igbo groups.

Ihuomadinihu:
Ok, so who are the Bantus? I have not come across any material that indicates that Igbos are not related to them...

Have u come across any material that shows Igbo are related to Bantus... Or to use OP's words 'were proto-Bantu? Let's start from there.

Radoillo:
Have u come across any material that shows Igbo are related to Bantus... Or to use OP's words 'were proto-Bantu? Let's start from there.

Hope the article below answers your question. Pay particular attention to the bolded parts.

Bantu peoples

Bantu
Nelson Mandela-2008 (edit).jpg
Nelson Mandela

Wangari Maathai.jpg
Wangari Maathai

PatricelumumbaIISG.jpg
Patrice Lumumba

KingShaka.jpg
Shaka
Regions with significant populations
Central Africa, Southern Africa, African Great Lakes
Languages
Bantu languages (over 535)
Religion

Predominantly Christianity
Minority traditional African religions, irreligion, Islam

Related ethnic groups
Other Niger-Congo peoples, Nilo-Saharan peoples
Bantu peoples divided into zones according to the Guthrie classification of Bantu languages.

Bantu peoples is used as a general label for the 300–600 ethnic groups in Africa who speak Bantu languages.[1] They inhabit a geographical area stretching east and southward from Central Africa across the African Great Lakes region down to Southern Africa.[1] Bantu is a major branch of the Niger-Congo language family spoken by most populations in Sub-Saharan Africa. There are about 650 Bantu languages by the criterion of mutual intelligibility,[2] though the distinction between language and dialect is often unclear, and Ethnologue counts 535 languages.[3]

Between 2500–3000 years ago, speakers of the original proto-Bantu language group began a millennia-long series of migrations eastward from their original homeland in West Africa at the border of eastern Nigeria and Cameroon.[4] This Bantu expansion first introduced Bantu peoples to central, southern and southeastern Africa, regions they had previously been absent from. The proto-Bantu migrants in the process assimilated and/or displaced a number of earlier inhabitants that they came across, including Khoisan populations in the south and Afro-Asiatic groups in the southeast.[5][6]

Individual Bantu groups today often include millions of people. Among these are the Luba of the Democratic Republic of Congo, with over 13.5 million people; the Zulu of South Africa, with over 10 million people; and the Kikuyu of Kenya, with over 6 million people. Although only around five million individuals speak the Bantu Swahili language as their mother tongue,[7] it is used as a lingua franca by over 140 million people throughout Southeast Africa.[8] Swahili also serves as one of the official languages of the African Union.

Contents

Etymology
History
Origins and expansion
Kingdoms
Use of the term "Bantu" in South Africa
See also
Notes
References

EtymologyEdit

The word Bantu, and its variations, means "people" or "humans". Versions of this word occur in all Bantu languages: for example, as watu in Swahili; batu in Lingala; bato in Duala; abanto in Gusii; andũ in Kikuyu; abantu in Zulu, Runyakitara,[9] and Ganda; Vanhu in Shona; batho in Sesotho; and Vandu in some Luhya dialects.
HistoryEdit
Origins and expansion
Main article: Bantu expansion
1 = 2000–1500 BC origin
2 = ca.1500 BC first migrations
2.a = Eastern Bantu, 2.b = Western Bantu
3 = 1000–500 BC Urewe nucleus of Eastern Bantu
4–7 = southward advance
9 = 500 BC–0 Congo nucleus
10 = 0–1000 AD last phase[10][11][12]

Current scholarly understanding places the ancestral proto-Bantu homeland near the modern boundary of Nigeria and Cameroon ca. 4,000 years ago (2000 B.C.), and regards the Bantu languages as a branch of the Niger–Congo language family.[13] This view represents a resolution of debates in the 1960s over competing theories advanced by Joseph Greenberg and Malcolm Guthrie, in favor of refinements of Greenberg's theory. Based on wide comparisons including non-Bantu languages, Greenberg argued that Proto-Bantu, the hypothetical ancestor of the Bantu languages, had strong ancestral affinities with a group of languages spoken in South Eastern Nigeria (homeland of Ndigbo; read SE/SS). He proposed that Bantu languages had spread east and south from there, to secondary centers of further dispersion, over hundreds of years.
A Kikuyu woman in Kenya

Using a different comparative method focused more exclusively on relationships among Bantu languages, Guthrie argued for a single central African dispersal point spreading at a roughly equal rate in all directions. Subsequent research on loanwords for adaptations in agriculture and animal husbandry and on the wider Niger–Congo language family rendered that thesis untenable. In the 1990s Jan Vansina proposed a modification of Greenberg's ideas, in which dispersions from secondary and tertiary centers resembled Guthrie's central node idea, but from a number of regional centers rather than just one, creating linguistic clusters.[14]
Kongo youth and adults in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo

It is unclear exactly when the spread of Bantu-speakers began from their core area as hypothesized ca. 5,000 years ago. By 3,500 years ago (1500 B.C.) in the west, Bantu-speaking communities had reached the great Central African rain forest, and by 2,500 years ago (500 B.C.) pioneering groups had emerged into the savannahs to the south, in what are now the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola and Zambia. Another stream of migration, moving east, by 3,000 years ago (1000 B.C.) was creating a major new population center near the Great Lakes of East Africa, where a rich environment supported a dense population. Movements by small groups to the southeast from the Great Lakes region were more rapid, with initial settlements widely dispersed near the coast and near rivers, due to comparatively harsh farming conditions in areas farther from water. Pioneering groups had reached modern KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa by A.D. 300 along the coast, and the modern Northern Province (encompassed within the former province of the Transvaal) by A.D. 500.[15]
A Makua mother and child. The Makua are the largest Bantu group in Mozambique, a predominantly Bantu country.

Before the expansion of farming and herding peoples, including those speaking Bantu languages, Africa south of the equator was populated by neolithic hunting and foraging peoples. Some of them were ancestral to modern Central African forest peoples (so-called Pygmies) who now speak Bantu languages. Others were proto-Khoisan-speaking peoples, whose few modern hunter-forager and linguistic descendants today occupy the arid regions around the Kalahari desert. Many more Khoekhoe and San descendants have a Coloured identity in South Africa and Namibia, speaking Afrikaans and English. The small Hadza and Sandawe populations in Tanzania comprise the other modern hunter-forager remnant in Africa.

Over a period of many centuries, most hunting-foraging peoples were displaced and absorbed by incoming Bantu-speaking communities, as well as by Ubangian, Nilotic and Central Sudanic language-speakers in North Central and Eastern Africa. The Bantu expansion was a long series of physical migrations, a diffusion of language and knowledge out into and in from neighboring populations, and a creation of new societal groups involving inter-marriage among communities and small groups moving to communities and small groups moving to new areas.

After their movements from their original homeland in West Africa, Bantus also encountered in East Africa peoples of Cushitic origin. As cattle terminology in use amongst the few modern Bantu pastoralist groups suggests, the Bantu migrants would acquire cattle from their new Cushitic neighbors. Linguistic evidence also indicates that Bantus likely borrowed the custom of milking cattle directly from Cushitic peoples in the area.[16] Later interactions between Bantu and Cushitic peoples resulted in Bantu groups with significant Cushitic admixture and culturo-linguistic influences, such as the Herero herdsmen of southern Africa.[17][18]
Bubi girls in Equatorial Guinea

On the coastal section of East Africa, another mixed Bantu community developed through contact with Muslim Arab and Persian traders. The Swahili culture that emerged from these exchanges evinces many Arab and Islamic influences not seen in traditional Bantu culture, as do the many Afro-Arab members of the Bantu Swahili people. With its original speech community centered on the coastal parts of Zanzibar, Kenya and Tanzania -- a seaboard referred to as the Swahili Coast -- the Bantu Swahili language contains many Arabic loan-words as a consequence of these interactions.[19]

Between the 14th and 15th centuries, Bantu-speaking states began to emerge in the Great Lakes region in the savannah south of the Central African rainforest. On the Zambezi river, the Monomatapa kings built the famous Great Zimbabwe complex, a civilization whose origins and ethnic affiliations are uncertain. From the 16th century onward, the processes of state formation amongst Bantu peoples increased in frequency. This was probably due to denser population (which led to more specialized divisions of labor, including military power, while making emigration more difficult); to increased interaction amongst Bantu-speaking communities with Chinese, European, Indonesian and Arab traders on the coasts; to technological developments in economic activity; and to new techniques in the political-spiritual ritualization of royalty as the source of national strength and health.[20]
Kingdoms
The Bantu Kingdom of Kongo ca. 1630.

Between the 14th and 15th centuries, Bantu states began to emerge in the Great Lakes region in the savanna south of the Central African rain-forest. In Southern Africa on the Zambezi river, the Monomatapa kings built the famous Great Zimbabwe complex, the largest of over 200 such sites in Southern Africa, such as Bumbusi in Zimbabwe and Manyikeni in Mozambique. From the 16th century onward, the processes of state formation among Bantu peoples increased in frequency. Some examples of such Bantu states include: in Central Africa, the Kingdom of Kongo,[21] Lunda Empire,[22] and Luba Empire[23] of Angola, the Republic of Congo, and the Democratic Republic of Congo; in the Great Lakes Region, the Buganda[24] and Karagwe[24] Kingdoms of Uganda and Tanzania; and in Southern Africa, the Mutapa Empire,[25] Rozwi Empire,[26] and the Danamombe, Khami and Naletale Kingdoms of Zimbabwe and Mozambique.[25]

Toward the 18th and 19th centuries, the flow of Bantu slaves from Southeast Africa increased with the rise of the Omani Sultanate of Zanzibar, based in Zanzibar in Tanzania. With the arrival of European colonialists, the Zanzibar Sultanate came into direct trade conflict and competition with Portuguese and other Europeans along the Swahili coast, leading eventually to the fall of the Sultanate and the end of slavetrading on the Swahili Coast in the mid-20th century.
Use of the term "Bantu" in South AfricaEdit
Main article: Bantu-speaking peoples of South Africa
A Zulu traditional dancer in Southern Africa.

In the 1920s relatively liberal white South Africans, missionaries and the small black intelligentsia began to use the term "Bantu" in preference to "Native" and more derogatory terms (such as "Kaffir" to refer collectively to Bantu-speaking South Africans. After World War II, the racialist National Party governments adopted that usage officially, while the growing African nationalist movement and its liberal white allies turned to the term "African" instead, so that "Bantu" became identified with the policies of apartheid. By the 1970s this so discredited "Bantu" as an ethno-racial designation that the apartheid government switched to the term "Black" in its official racial categorizations, restricting it to Bantu-speaking Africans, at about the same time that the Black Consciousness Movement led by Steve Biko and others were defining "Black" to mean all racially oppressed South Africans (Africans, Coloureds and Indians).

Examples of South African usages of "Bantu" include:

One of South Africa's politicians of recent times, General Bantubonke Harrington Holomisa (Bantubonke is a compound noun meaning "all the people", is known as Bantu Holomisa.
The South African apartheid governments originally gave the name "bantustans" to the eleven rural reserve areas intended for a spurious, ersatz independence to deny Africans South African citizenship. "Bantustan" originally reflected an analogy to the various ethnic "-stans" of Western and Central Asia. Again association with apartheid discredited the term, and the South African government shifted to the politically appealing but historically deceptive term "ethnic homelands". Meanwhile the anti-apartheid movement persisted in calling the areas bantustans, to drive home their political illegitimacy.
The abstract noun ubuntu, humanity or humaneness, is derived regularly from the Nguni noun stem -ntu in isiXhosa, isiZulu and siNdebele. In siSwati the stem is -ntfu and the noun is buntfu.
In the Sotho–Tswana languages of southern Africa, batho is the cognate term to Nguni abantu, illustrating that such cognates need not actually look like the -ntu root exactly. The early African National Congress of South Africa had a newspaper called Abantu-Batho from 1912–1933, which carried columns in English, isiZulu, Sesotho, and isiXhosa.

See alsoEdit

Bantu Educational Kinema Experiment
Candomblé Bantu
Centre International des Civilisations Bantu

NotesEdit

Butt, John J. (2006). The Greenwood Dictionary of World History. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 39. ISBN 0313327653.
Derek Nurse, 2006, "Bantu Languages", in the Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics
Ethnologue report for Southern Bantoid. The figure of 535 includes the 13 Mbam languages considered Bantu in Guthrie's classification and thus counted by Nurse (2006)
Philip J. Adler, Randall L. Pouwels, World Civilizations: To 1700 Volume 1 of World Civilizations, (Cengage Learning: 2007), p.169.
Toyin Falola, Aribidesi Adisa Usman, Movements, borders, and identities in Africa, (University Rochester Press: 2009), pp.4-5.
Fitzpatrick, Mary (1999). Tanzania, Zanzibar & Pemba. Lonely Planet. p. 39. ISBN 0864427263.
Peek, Philip M.; Kwesi Yankah (2004). African folklore: an encyclopedia. Taylor & Francis. p. 699. ISBN 0-415-93933-X.
Irele 2010
http://bunyoro-kitara.org/53.html
The Chronological Evidence for the Introduction of Domestic Stock in Southern Africa
A Brief History of Botswana
On Bantu and Khoisan in (Southeastern) Zambia, (in German)
Erhet & Posnansky, eds. (1982), Newman (1995)
Vansina (1995)
Newman (1995), Ehret (1998), Shillington (2005)
J. D. Fage, A history of Africa, Routledge, 2002, p.29
Was there an interchange between Cushitic pastoralists and Khoisan speakers in the prehistory of Southern Africa and how can this be detected?
Robert Gayre, Ethnological elements of Africa, (The Armorial, 1966), p.45
Daniel Don Nanjira, African Foreign Policy and Diplomacy: From Antiquity to the 21st Century, ABC-CLIO, 2010, p.114
Shillington (2005)
Roland Oliver, et al. "Africa South of the Equator," in Africa Since 1800. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 21
Roland Oliver, et al. "Africa South of the Equator," in Africa Since 1800. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 23
Roland Oliver, et al. "Africa South of the Equator," in Africa Since 1800. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 23.
Roland Oliver, et al. "Africa South of the Equator," in Africa Since 1800. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 24-25.
Roland Oliver, et al. "Africa South of the Equator," in Africa Since 1800. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 25.
Isichei, Elizabeth Allo, A History of African Societies to 1870 Cambridge University Press, 1997, ISBN 978-0521455992 page 435

ReferencesEdit

Christopher Ehret, An African Classical Age: Eastern and Southern Africa in World History, 1000 B.C. to A.D. 400, James Currey, London, 1998
Christopher Ehret and Merrick Posnansky, eds., The Archaeological and Linguistic Reconstruction of African History, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1982
April A. Gordon and Donald L. Gordon, Understanding Contemporary Africa, Lynne Riener, London, 1996
John M. Janzen, Ngoma: Discourses of Healing in Central and Southern Africa, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1992
James L. Newman, The Peopling of Africa: A Geographic Interpretation, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1995. ISBN 0-300-07280-5.
Kevin Shillington, History of Africa, 3rd ed. St. Martin's Press, New York, 2005
Jan Vansina, Paths in the Rainforest: Toward a History of Political Tradition in Equatorial Africa, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1990
Jan Vansina, "New linguistic evidence on the expansion of Bantu", Journal of African History 36:173–195, 1995