Bantu

Ban·tu  (bnt)

n. pl. Bantu or Ban·tus

1. A member of any of a large number of linguistically related peoples of central and southern Africa.

2. A group of over 400 closely related languages spoken in central, east-central, and southern Africa, belonging to the South Central subgroup of the Niger-Congo language family and including Swahili, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Zulu, and Xhosa.

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[From Proto-Bantu *bantu, people : *ba-, pl. human pref. + *-ntu, entity.]

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Bantu adj.

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Bantu

Noun

1. a group of languages of Africa

2. pl -tu or -tus Offensive a Black speaker of a Bantu language

Adjective

of the Bantu languages or the peoples who speak them [Bantu Ba-ntu people]

Thesaurus

Noun	1.	Bantu - a member of any of a large number of linguistically related peoples of Central and South Africa African - a native or inhabitant of Africa Herero - a member of a pastoral Bantu people living in Namibia, Botswana, and Angola Hutu - a member of a Bantu people living in Rwanda and Burundi Chiluba, Luba - a member of a Bantu people in southeastern Congo Sotho - a member of the Bantu people who inhabit Botswana, Lesotho, and northern South Africa and who speak the Sotho languages Batswana, Bechuana, Tswana - a member of a Bantu people living chiefly in Botswana and western South Africa Tutsi, Watusi, Watutsi - a member of a Bantu speaking people living in Rwanda and Burundi Shona - a member of a Bantu tribe living in present-day Zimbabwe
	2.	Bantu - a family of languages widely spoken in the southern half of the African continent Bantoid language Niger-Congo - a family of African language spoken in west Africa Chichewa - the Bantu language of the Chewa of east central Africa ChiMwini - a Bantu language spoken in southern Somalia Chishona - a Bantu language that is one of the two major languages of Zimbabwe Fang - a Bantu language spoken in Cameroon Gikuyu - a Bantu language spoken in western Kenya Giriama - a Bantu language spoken in the coastal regions of eastern Kenya Herero - a Banto language spoken by the Herero in Namibia, Botswana, and Angola Kamba - a Bantu language spoken by the Kamba in Kenya Chaga, Chagga, Kichaga - a Bantu language spoken by the Chaga in northern Tanzania Kinyarwanda - a Bantu language Kiswahili - a Bantu language Kongo - the Bantu language spoken by the Kongo living in the tropical forests of Zaire and Congo and Angola Tshiluba, Luba - a Bantu language spoken in southeastern Congo LuGanda - the Bantu language of the Buganda people; spoken in Uganda Luyia - a Bantu language Mashi - a Bantu language Mwera - a Bantu language spoken in southern coastal Tanzania Nguni - a group of southern Bantu languages Nyamwezi - a Bantu language spoken in central Tanzania Pokomo - a Bantu language spoken in the Kenyan coastal areas of East Africa Shona - a Bantu language spoken in Zimbabwe Sotho - any of the mutually intelligible southern Bantu languages of the Sotho in Botswana and South Africa and Lesotho Umbundu - a Bantu language spoken in Angola Swahili - the most widely spoken Bantu languages; the official language of Kenya and Tanzania and widely used as a lingua franca in east and central Africa Tonga - the language of the Tongan people of south central Africa (Zambia and Rhodesia)
Adj.	1.	Bantu - of or relating to the African people who speak one of the Bantoid languages or to their culture; "the Bantu population of Sierra Leone"