Home›African Language Families›In Group›Bantu LanguagesGroupBantu LanguagesThis group collects African Language Families subcategory members belonging to the Bantu languages, the largest single sub-branch of the Niger-Congo family by number of speakers and geographic spread, covering most of sub-Saharan Africa from Cameroon and Nigeria in the west to Kenya and Tanzania in the east and south to South Africa. Bantu is split out here on its own, as the report proposes, rather than folded into the general Niger-Congo group below, because it would otherwise dominate that group on its own. Members include named zonal clusters such as the Kilimanjaro-Taita (Chaga-Taita) languages of Tanzania and Kenya. Placement follows each member's own description naming it Bantu, or, for the Chaga-Taita cluster, the named Guthrie zonal classification where the description itself does not use the word Bantu.FactsBantu LanguagesSourcesComments (0)Reader Challenges (0)FactsComparisonEstimated Living LanguagesWell-attested600 1Bantu LanguagesFilter Results48 entriesParent Family (Classification Tree)AllAtlantic-Congo (1)Bantu (2)Benue-Congo (1)Botatwe languages (1)Gur (1)Ijoid (1)Mande (1)Niger-Congo (1)RegionAllAngola, chiefly the north-west (1)Cameroon (1)Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon (1)Central reaches of the Congo River and adjacent areas (1)Central, Eastern and Southern Africa (1)Namibia and the Kalahari Desert (1)Southeastern Nigeria and adjacent regions of Cameroon (1)Southern Africa, mainly South Africa, Zimbabwe and Eswatini. (1)Southern Cameroon and neighbouring areas (1)Southern Democratic Republic of the Congo (1)Southwest Cameroon and southeast Nigeria (1)Southwestern Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon (1)Sub-Saharan Africa (1)Sub-Saharan Africa, not farther west than Nigeria (1)Sub-Saharan Africa, not further west than Nigeria (1)Swahili Coast (1)Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Kenya and the DRC (1)Uganda, Tanzania, the DRC and Rwanda (2)Western Congo and Gabon (1)Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Botswana (1)Speaker Count BandAll3728000.000000 (1)350000000.000000 (1)500000000.000000 (1)Macro-areaAllBantu Languages (48)BrowseCompareSelect all 48Bafia languagesBantu LanguagesBangi-Ntomba languagesBantu LanguagesBantoid languagesBantu LanguagesBantuBantu LanguagesBasaa languagesBantu LanguagesBati-Angba languagesBantu LanguagesBeboid languagesBantu LanguagesBoan languagesBantu LanguagesBoma-Dzing languagesBantu LanguagesBotatwe languagesBantu LanguagesBuja-Ngombe languagesBantu LanguagesBushoong languagesBantu LanguagesChokwe-Luchazi languagesBantu LanguagesEkoid languagesBantu LanguagesGreat Lakes Bantu languagesBantu LanguagesKele languagesBantu LanguagesKhoeBantu LanguagesKilimanjaro-Taita languagesBantu LanguagesKilombero languagesBantu LanguagesKimbundu languagesBantu LanguagesKomo-Bira languagesBantu LanguagesKongo languagesBantu LanguagesKonjo language (Bantu)Bantu LanguagesLuban languagesBantu LanguagesMakaa-Njem languagesBantu LanguagesMbam languagesBantu LanguagesMbete languagesBantu LanguagesNgiri languageBantu LanguagesNguniBantu LanguagesNiger-CongoBantu LanguagesNorth Nyanza languagesBantu LanguagesNzebi languagesBantu LanguagesRutara languagesBantu LanguagesSabaki languagesBantu LanguagesSawabantu languagesBantu LanguagesShona languagesBantu LanguagesSira languagesBantu LanguagesSotho-Tswana languagesBantu LanguagesSouthern Bantoid languagesBantu LanguagesSouthern Bantu languagesBantu LanguagesTaita Cushitic languagesBantu LanguagesTeke languagesBantu LanguagesTsogo languagesBantu LanguagesTswa-Ronga languagesBantu LanguagesUpland Bantu languagesBantu LanguagesWest AtlanticBantu LanguagesWest Nyanza languagesBantu LanguagesWestern Lakes Bantu languagesBantu LanguagesSources1. Wikipedia: Bantu LanguagesWikimedia FoundationLead section, first paragraphQuote, Lead section, first paragraphThe Bantu languages are a language family, or a branch of the proposed Niger-Congo language family, containing about 600 languages that are spoken by the Bantu peoples of Central, Southern, Eastern and Southeast Africa.View the SourceComments (0)No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.Sign in to join the discussion.Reader Challenges (0)No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.