Proto-Bantu language facts for kids

Imagine a very old language that was the "grandparent" of many languages spoken today in Africa. That's what Proto-Bantu is! It's the language that linguists believe was spoken before the many Bantu languages we know today developed. Proto-Bantu is part of a bigger language family called Southern Bantoid languages.

Experts believe Proto-Bantu was first spoken in West/Central Africa, in the area we now call Cameroon. About 6,000 years ago, people speaking Proto-Bantu started moving south and east. This big move is called the Bantu expansion. There are two main ideas about how they moved: one idea is that they first went to the Congo region, and then some moved to East Africa. The other, more likely idea, is that they split into two groups from the start. One group went to the Congo region, and the other went to East Africa.

Like other very old languages that are no longer spoken, there are no written records of Proto-Bantu. Linguists, who are language scientists, have used clues from today's Bantu languages to figure out what Proto-Bantu words and sounds might have been like. By looking at the words they've rebuilt, it seems the Proto-Bantu people already knew about farming, fishing, and using boats before they started their big move. However, they probably didn't know how to work with iron yet. This helps us guess that their expansion began sometime between 3000 BC and 800 BC.

Some experts wonder if Proto-Bantu was truly one single language, or if it was a group of closely related dialects. One scholar, Roger Blench, thinks that the idea of a single Proto-Bantu language might not be strong enough. He suggests that Bantu languages might have come from several smaller language families. These smaller families would still belong to the larger Southern Bantoid group.

Where Did Proto-Bantu Start?

The original home of Proto-Bantu was most likely in the forest areas around the Sanaga and Nyong rivers in Southern Cameroon. People used to think it started near the border of Nigeria and Cameroon. However, newer research suggests that area was probably where Proto-Southern Bantoid began. Proto-Southern Bantoid then spread south into Cameroon long before Proto-Bantu itself appeared.

Sounds of Proto-Bantu

Linguists believe Proto-Bantu had a fairly small set of sounds. It likely had 11 different consonant sounds and 7 different vowel sounds.

Proto-Bantu Consonants

Proto-Bantu consonants were generally simple. They could only appear at the beginning of a syllable. This means that syllables usually ended in a vowel, making them "open syllables."

Sometimes, consonants were "pre-nasalized." This means a nasal sound (like 'm' or 'n') came right before another consonant. For example, you might have sounds like *mb or *nd.

Proto-Bantu Vowels

Proto-Bantu had seven vowel sounds. Syllables always ended with a vowel. Sometimes, two vowels could be next to each other, but they were separate syllables, not blended together like in English "diphthongs" (e.g., "oi" in "coin").

Tones in Proto-Bantu

Proto-Bantu used two different tones to change the meaning of words: a low tone and a high tone. Every syllable in a word had either a low or a high tone. A high tone is often shown with an accent mark like ´ (e.g., á), while a low tone might have ` (e.g., à) or no mark at all.

How Words Were Built: Noun Classes

Proto-Bantu, like the Bantu languages today, had a special system called "noun classes." This system is a bit like how English has "a" and "an" or how some languages have "masculine" and "feminine" nouns.

In Proto-Bantu, nouns had a special prefix (a small part added to the beginning of a word) that put them into a specific class. For example, there might be one class for people, another for plants, and so on. Other words that went with that noun, like adjectives or verbs, would also get a matching prefix. This is called "agreement" or "concord."

Here's a simplified look at the noun classes linguists have reconstructed for Proto-Bantu:

Over time, different linguists like Wilhelm Bleek, Carl Meinhof, A. E. Meeussen, and Malcolm Guthrie have studied and refined the list of these noun classes. They've tried to figure out the exact prefixes and how many classes there were.

How Noun Classes Pair Up

In Proto-Bantu, some noun classes were clearly singular (for one thing) and others were plural (for many things). For example, class 1 was for a single person, and class 2 was for many people. Classes 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 13 are generally seen as the plural forms of other classes.

Linguists have also proposed different ways these classes paired up. For example, Meeussen suggested pairings like 1/2 (singular/plural for humans) and 3/4 (singular/plural for plants).

Proto-Bantu Words

For over a hundred years, linguists have worked hard to study the words of the roughly 550 Bantu languages spoken today. Their goal is to reconstruct the original Proto-Bantu words that these modern words came from.

Some reconstructed words are found in almost all Bantu language areas. These include words like:

• *mbʊ́à (meaning 'dog')
• *-lia (meaning 'eat')
• *i-kúpa (meaning 'bone')
• *i-jína (meaning 'name')
• *-genda (meaning 'walk')
• *mʊ-kíla (meaning 'tail')
• *njɪla (meaning 'path')

The asterisk (*) before these words shows that they are reconstructed forms. This means linguists believe these are how the words were likely pronounced before the Bantu expansion began.

Other words are found only in certain groups of Bantu languages. Linguists divide Bantu languages into two main groups: the Western group and the Eastern group. Words found only in the Western group are called "Proto-Bantu A" (PB-A). Words found only in the Eastern group are called "Proto-Bantu B" (PB-B). Words found across the entire Bantu area are called "Proto-Bantu X" (PB-X).

There's a public database of all the Proto-Bantu words that have been found or suggested. It's kept by the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Belgium.

See also

• Proto-Niger–Congo language