Bantu peoples of Southern Africa

South Africa’s nine African official languages all fall into the Southern Bantu-Makua subfamily, part of the broad and branching Niger-Congo family of languages. The languages arrived here during the great expansion of Bantu-speaking people from West Africa eastwards and southwards into the rest of the continent. The expansion began in around 3000 BCE and was largely complete by 1000 CE.Like all languages in the Niger-Congo family they are tonal languages, in which either a high or low tone gives a word a different meaning.The nine African languages can be broadly divided in two:

1. Nguni-Tsonga languages: isiNdebele, isiXhosa, isiZulu, siSwati, Xitsonga
2. Sotho-Makua-Venda languages: Sesotho, Sesotho sa Leboa, Setswana, Tshivenda

Nguni (Zulu, Hlubi, Xhosa, Southern Ndebele, Swazi)

• amaXhosa Peoples of SA
  • Xhosa Royalty of Southern Africa
    • abaThembu Descent Line
• Zulu Royalty of Southern Africa
• Swazi Royalty of Southern Africa
• Ndebele
• Hlubi

Sotho

• Basotho (South Sotho),
• Bapedi (North Sotho)
  • Rain Queens of the Lobedu
• Venda,
• Batswana,
• Tsonga,
• Kgaga (North Sotho)

Resources

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bantu_peoples
• https://southafrica-info.com/arts-culture/11-languages-south-africa/

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