BANTU DEFINITIONS - 10 definitions found
Bantu adj 1: of or relating to the African people who speak one of the Bantoid languages or to their culture; "the Bantu population of Sierra Leone" n 1: a member of any of a large number of linguistically related peoples of Central and South Africa 2: a family of languages widely spoken in the southern half of the African continent [syn: Bantu, Bantoid language] bantu tabun Bantu 1862, applied to south African language group by W.H.I. Bleek, from native Ba-ntu "mankind," from ba-, plural prefix + ntu "a man, person." Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition (2003) Bantu noun (plural Bantu or Bantus) Etymology: ba-, a plural noun classifier + -ntu, noun base meaning “person” in several Bantu languages Date: 1862 1. a family of Niger-Congo languages spoken in central and southern Africa 2. a member of any of a group of African peoples who speak Bantu languages Oxford English Reference Dictionary
Oxford English Reference Dictionary
Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner\'s English Dictionary Bantu 1. Bantu means belonging or relating to a group of peoples in central and southern Africa. ADJ: ADJ n 2. Bantu languages belong to a group of languages spoken in central and southern Africa. ADJ: ADJ n English Explanatory Dictionary Bantu n. & adj. --n. (pl. same or Bantus) 1 often offens. a a large group of Negroid peoples of central and southern Africa. b a member of any of these peoples. 2 the group of languages spoken by them. --adj. of or relating to these peoples or languages. [Bantu, = people] The Nuttall Encyclopaedia (1907) Bantu the name of most of the races, with their languages, that occupy Africa from 6° N. lat. to 20° S.; are negroid rather than negro, being in several respects superior; the name, however, suggests rather a linguistic than an ethnological distinction, the language differing radically from all other known forms of speech—the inflection, for one thing, chiefly initial, not final. Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) Bantu \Ban"tu\, n. A member of one of the great family of Negroid tribes occupying equatorial and southern Africa. These tribes include, as important divisions, the Kafirs, Damaras, Bechuanas, and many tribes whose names begin with Aba-, Ama-, Ba-, Ma-, Wa-, variants of the Bantu plural personal prefix Aba-, as in Ba-ntu, or Aba-ntu, itself a combination of this prefix with the syllable -ntu, a person. -- Ban"tu, a. |
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