Language Families

Bantu

Citation Formats

General Reference

Language Atlas. "Bantu." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://language.interactiveatlas.org/language-families/bantu.

APA Style

Language Atlas. (n.d.). Bantu. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://language.interactiveatlas.org/language-families/bantu

BibTeX

@misc{languageatlas-bantu,
  author = {Language Atlas},
  title = {Bantu},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://language.interactiveatlas.org/language-families/bantu},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

Bantu is a large branch of around five hundred languages within the Southern Bantoid group of the Benue-Congo branch of Niger-Congo, spoken across most of Central, Eastern and Southern Africa. Swahili, Zulu, Shona and Kikongo are among its best known members.

Facts

Region

Central, Eastern and Southern Africa 1

Speaker Count

350,000,000 1

Total across the Bantu languages, roughly half of all Niger-Congo speakers; mid-2010s estimate.

Proto-Language Status

Proto-Bantu is reconstructed via the comparative method and is one of the better supported proto-languages within Niger-Congo, reflecting the closer genealogical unity of Bantu relative to Niger-Congo as a whole. 2

Cross-Tradition Connections