
How the Bantu people surged across two-thirds of Africa - dodorex
https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/05/how-the-bantu-people-surged-across-two-thirds-of-africa/
======
lesiki
I'm "double Bantu" \- as a Kenyan I speak our national language Swahili, and
I'm also from the Bantu Bukusu tribe of Western Kenya on my father's side.

This migration history is even more complex because the migration was in waves
- Bantu who went to South Africa later migrated north again, meeting Bantu who
were already there from earlier migration. You can tell this from the fact
that some southern African languages have closer linguistic relationship to
some East African ones, than they do to other Bantu languages in their region.

My dad (Bukusu of Western Kenya) once met a gentleman from the Venda tribe of
South Africa, and they conversed in English for an hour until the South
African got a phone call that he answered in Venda. My dad understood
practically every word that was said on the phone, and they each discovered
this tribe they'd never heard of before had more language overlap than their
neighbouring Bantu tribes back home.

It's fascinating if you consider just how big an area we're talking about, and
how much opportunity existed for other languages to wipe out Bantu dialects.
I'm no linguist but I think Africa has a propensity for multilingualism that
has kept these tribal dialects alive, and aside from DNA this gives the
strongest evidence of the past migrations of Bantu people.

~~~
slice_of_life
Vipi Lesiki?! Nice to see you here.

>My dad understood practically every word that was said on the phone

It is quite uncanny how South African languages sound like Swa. I always find
it amusing.

------
Lordarminius
> _analysis and archeological evidence suggest that the Bantu originated near
> the border of Nigeria and Cameroon...._

When Mandela and Winne were in the midst of their divorce, I read an article
which reported that Winnie got the matrimonial home as part of the settlement
because _' the placenta of her children were buried there....'_ This practice
is widespread in West Africa. It surprised me that it was a thing in South
Africa as well and spurred my (amateur) search for other similarities in
culture.

Turns out there are many : inheritance laws, burial customs,traditional
government organization.

This article does a lot to explain why we are so similar. In particular, the
culture and traditions of central plains dwelling Nigerian tribes (Tiv, Berom,
Jukun etc) are very similar to that of the Eastern and South African Bantu
(Swahili, Xhosa, Zulu)

(I am Nigerian)

------
slice_of_life
Very interesting read. I am a Bantu from Kenya and I'd like to tack on
something to this.

First of all, it's incredible how intellectually insatiable the HN community
is; I never imagined a post like this would end up on the HN's home page
because of how niche it is.

I happen to speak up to 4 languages - Eng, Swahili, my native language Kikuyu
and very rusty French. It may surprise you to know that when I listen to other
Bantu tribes even from countries as far as South Africa, one or two words will
often stick out and I might even get the context of a conversation even though
it is indeed true that we Africans don't all speak the same language. As a
matter of fact there thousands of languages and were it not for a language
like Swahili, it might have been very difficult for a region such as East
Africa - where Swahili is largely spoken - to have any sort of cohesion and
communication.

Swahili emanates from a mix of Bantu languages and Arabic. When you hear
greetings like 'alaikum salam', the first thing you probably think of is Islam
but when I was in school - and I was brought up as a Christian(now not so much
but that's another day's tale) - we'd greet our Swahili teachers that way
everyday.

Lastly, there are two other families other than Bantu; Cushites and Nilotes.
We have both families in Kenya. Cushites are mostly comprised of Somalis and
similar tribes from neighboring Ethiopia.

Nilotes come in three sub-groups; River-Lake Nilotes, Plains Nilotes and
Highlands Nilotes.

There has been a lot of hatred between the Bantu speaking communities and
Nilotes in Kenya. Growing up I didn't know this. Our parents largely shielded
us from negative ethnicity until the year 2007.

For those of you who remember, in 2007, it was the bloodiest post election
violence (PEV) experienced in Kenya. Growing up, I had friends from other
communities and never gave it much thought. In fact, my best friend and
double-decker-mate in boarding school was from a Nilotic community known as
Luo. However, when there was the contested election in 2007, it became
apparent that there was deep rooted hatred between our communities. For those
unlucky enough to live in 'cosmopolitan' areas, neighbors were turning against
each other, looting and killing one another like nobody's business. I was a
tad mad at myself for such naiveté - how could I not have seen it all around
me was the question I asked myself. It was always there; my bringing up just
shielded me from its apparent nature.

My neighbor's grandparents lived in an area surrounded by Nilotes(Kalenjins to
be more specific) and when the PEV came about, their grandfather was shot with
an arrow in the chest and he died a very painful death. The grandma survived
as she had left earlier before things got thick. She had to relocate and they
lost their land. There were countless similar stories - some more horrific
than others.

I despise negative ethnicity regardless of who's doing it and I think it's
incredibly myopic, just to set the record straight.

Things are relatively calm now but there's an upcoming election in August.
Based on previous experience, I will take a vacation in Tanzania come election
week. I will only return once things are certainly calm.

~~~
JPLeRouzic
I like very much your post. I look forward for your submissions on those
topics!

~~~
slice_of_life
Thank you for that. And besides all that PEV nastiness, Kenya really is a
lovely country. If you're ever here, you might want to visit Mombasa - it has
a very rich heritage and artifacts that are still intact from as early as
1593. Look up fort jesus.

------
t3rseCode
I'm another bantu on Hacker News but living in the US. The migration
continues...

~~~
babayega2
Lol. I'm another one from Burundi. East Africa.

------
buyx
One of the more pernicious myths that continues to sustain ideological racism
in South Africa (and its more vile outposts on the internet) is the _terra
nullius_ equivalent: that whites and Bantu-speaking blacks arrived in South
Africa at the same time, and therefore large-scale dispossession of the black
population didn't take place with the outward expansion of white colonials.
The point about intermarriage with the San is interesting as well, because it
falsifies another myth: that the dispossession of the San/Bushmen is an
indication of moral equivalence between colonialists and the Bantu blacks.

Hopefully these sorts of studies, and some well constructed timelines clarify
things and lay some of the self-delusion to rest.

~~~
nroets
The Khoisan have occupied much of Africa for much of human history. [1] I
don't know exactly how the Bantus displaced the people that they came across,
but I suspect some form of foul play.

1:
[http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms6692](http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms6692)

~~~
buyx
How would you explain the integration of Khoisan click consonants in Bantu
languages if foul play was involved?

~~~
mveety
Things like that come from "cultural contact" which can be peaceful or
violent.

------
NicoJuicy
Since we also talk about languages here. I once found a post in African (
Afrikaans), I thought it was strangely written Dutch, then saw the tld and
looked it up.

Then learned that Afrikaans is based on Dutch. It's really funny that you can
read the main language of a country so far away, since Dutch isn't that spoken
by that many people ( 28 million)

~~~
buyx
Afrikaans isn't the "main language" of South Africa. It is 1 of 11 official
languages, 9 of which are Bantu languages.

Until 1994, it was one of two official languages (along with English). I've
also never seen it referred to by the name "African". One of the main causes
of the 16 June 1976 Soweto riots was an attempt by the apartheid government to
change the medium of instruction in black schools from English to Afrikaans.
Although it has never been the first language of the vast majority of black
Africans, it is the first language of a large percentage of whites, and mixed-
race people (the Coloureds), and especially in rural areas, was a popular
second language, however it seems to have been displaced as a second language
by English, and most Afrikaans universities and many Afrikaans-medium schools
now also offer instruction in English.

That said, I learned it at school, and it was fairly straightforward to pick
up as a native English speaker.

~~~
_0ffh
IIRC "Afrikaans" literally means "African" (in Dutch and, uhm, Afrikaans).

~~~
caio1982
It does, but it may sound derogatory because African has a much wider and
broad meaning than a specific Dutch word (used in a singular colonized area).

~~~
wavefunction
And in any case, it's Afrikaans in English as well as Dutch, so 'African'
while perhaps a literal translation into English is not really something with
meaning in English.

------
Street_Bounty
Very inspirational Story

------
sft
Isn't this similar to the Proto Indo European expansion across the Eurasian
steppe?

