After doing some research online and offline ( oral history in my family). I've come to the belief that bantus speaking people from eastern Africa come from Sudan area and not Nigeria/cameroon.
My family is from eastern Congo ( Katanga) we are descendants of Tanzanians who came to the area around lake Taganyika. Anyways my elders of my tribe (Hemba) claim that we came to present day Katanga from the North along the Nile through tanzania then moved again through rwanda/burundi area till reaching Katanga under the order of our ancestor who was what we call in Swahili, Sultani I think it means ruler or boss.
Reading online I'm seeing that other Bantu speaking people of eastern Africa too claim of a northern migration which is damn cool at how we have the same story yet so far apart.
Also you can Google the ancient Egyptian connection with swahili and there clearly is one and it's not of the words of Arabic origin but rather Bantu words.
Now my point, I honestly don't feel related to west Africans like in my Swahili dialect we call ugaali, bukari which is similar to Rwanda/ Burundi of ubugari my Tutsi friends from Burundi told me they have oral tradition that states they decend from Kings.
Another interesting thing I noticed is that real Congolese tend to be similar to west African despite being Bantu and west African not. They both eat yams and call the food fufu and the tone of speech in for example lingala when spoken sounds like a west African person along with other things.
For my final statement I honestly think that we come from the North not that it's any better but that's a common oral history amongst alot of us in the east.
Baal the word for lord in a canaanite or something language and in swahili we say Bwana for Lord.

Your claim is wrong. First, there is no concrete evidence which suggests that Bantu ppl originated in Sudan or NE Africa (but there are which suggest they originated in West Africa). Second, the Cushite ppl used to inhabit all of East Africa in ancient times, but most of those who lived in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi were killed and the survivors assimilated by Bantus during their great expansion.

The ancient Egyptian language was an Afroasiatic language. Swahili is a Bantus language, so other some words which it borrowed from other languages that had connections with ancient Egyptian languages,both languages have no relation.

By the way, most scholars nowadays agree that Afroasiatic language originated in the Horn of Africa (probably in western Ethiopia). This single language later diversified into 6 groups of language as,
- Cushitic family language
- Semitic family language
- Omotic family language
- Chadic family language
- Berber family language
- ancient Egyptian

• The ancient Egyptians themselves said that there ancestors came from the south in the land of Punt (Punt was located in the Horn of Africa).

You don't understand what I meant.
Ancient Egyptian most definently was a afro-asiatic similarity. My point is that these influence on language. There are many similarities though that can't be a case of coincidence.

The West African theory of origin of Bantus is debateable. It was first heard from the European anthropologist.

Its really strange when people point to one direction and say, "our ancestors came from that side", then a European "expert" comes, and points to an opposite direction as your origin. Its the disregard and discreditation of African knowledge by the western civilization.

The Bukusu for example. This is where they say they came from. The north. In Kenya, they live next to the Luos. They say they always have, and migrated down the Nile side by side in boats to settle in Western Kenya. On the other hand, I remember being shown arrows in my history class originating from the West. May be because the Nile goes down into Uganda as the source, the European anthropologist did not bother to follow up on the direction and find out how far in the west the point of Eastward migration was? Or it just did not fit in the Egypt was a Caucasian Kingdom theory.

Others like Suba, kisii and Maragoli point to Uganda as the land from which their ancestors came from. But assuming that all Ugandans who speak Bantu are so by origin is a mistake too. Because many have acquired the language and Know of a very different origin.

Then there is the forgotten small people's of ancient Africa who were assimilated in a way that bantu cited them while on many occasions letting them continue to live as communities. These are the many tribes that in folk lore are portrayed as users of bows and arrows in their early days. But now classified as Bantus and Nilotes and their former origins ignored. Original Bantus must have been just a handful of people but with great influence.

I understand that the Kingdom of Kongo was very huge in its days.I do not doubt that some communities may have spread out from there. May be that is the origin of the language. But if even the Congolese are unaware of the modern theory of West African theory, it makes you wonder.

Hati13, the theory of the Cushite Egyptian Kings is European in Originn. I would like to find out what the cushion themselves say about their origin. Its more believable than an outsider saying that the bones of this and that mummy is this tribal group. I hear the contention of the archaeologists is the bone structure of discovered mummies.

I was reading about blood group "O" the other day. It has interesting origins. Even more interesting distributions world wide and in ancient Kingdoms. Take a look.

Muafrika2,

I thought the claim that Bantu ppl originated from West Africa is totally agreeable by scholars. I didn't know it was debatable. Thanks for the info.

When I sometimes think about it, I'm with you. Why are we following what European scholars are always saying about us. Some are indeed good and unbiased, but there also other who are the opposite. Those latter scholars are saying that ancient Egypt was a non-black civilization (but it was a black civilization), so they are corrupting other ppl history in the Nile area to meet their agenda (the Bantu case may be one of them).

I also agree with you that at least half of the ancestors of those who identify themselves as Bantu nowadays are from other different origin, but they were culturally assimilated by the relatively less Bantu ppl compared to them who came there in the past.

• Watch the below documentary when you have free time. It's primarily about ancient Egypt and Nubia Cushite/Kushite Sudan, but it look Ethiopia very little. Most of the personals in the documentary are Black scholars and are saying that ancient Egypt was a melting pot of Egyptians, Nubians, East Africans and West Africans.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeIUwD9kkUY