Bantu languages

The Bantu languages (or Narrow Bantu languages) are a branch of the Niger-Congo languages. There are about 520 languages in the Bantu family, 670 languages in the Southern Bantoid branch which includes Bantu, and 1,532 in Niger-Congo.Ethnologue report for Southern Bantoid Bantu languages are spoken largely east and south of the present day country of Cameroon; i.e., in the regions commonly known as central Africa, east Africa, and southern Africa. Parts of the Bantu area include languages from other language families (see map). The Bantu language with the largest total number of speakers is Swahili.

The Bantu language with the largest number of native speakers is Shona with 13.8 million speakers in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Botswana and Zambia. Zulu comes second with 10.3 million speakers.

The Bantu languages came from the region of eastern Nigeria or Cameroon. About 2000 years ago the Bantu people spread southwards and eastwards, introducing agriculture and iron working and colonizing much of the continent..

Bantu words popularised in western cultures
Some words from various Bantu languages have been borrowed into western languages. These include: 

 Bwana 
 Kwanzaa
 Marimba
 Safari
 Samba

Bibliography

 Maho, Jouni F. 2001. The Bantu area: (towards clearing up) a mess. Africa & Asia, 1:40–49 .
 Maho, Jouni F. 2002. Bantu lineup: comparative overview of three Bantu classifications . Göteborg University: Department of Oriental and African Languages.
 Piron, Pascale. 1995. Identification lexicostatistique des groupes Bantoïdes stables. Journal of West African Languages, 25(2): 3–39.

References

Other websites
 Comparative Bantu Online Dictionary - includes a comprehensive bibliography.
 Bantu online resources by Jacky Maniacky, including
 List of Bantu noun classes with reconstructed Proto-Bantu prefixes (in French)
 Contini-Morava, Ellen. Noun Classification in Swahili . 1994.
 List of Bantu language names with synonyms ordered by Guthrie number).
 Introduction to the languages of South Africa
 Etymology Dictionary
  Adaptation of English loanwords in Chichewa 
 Bemba Phonology 
 Journal of West African Languages: Narrow Bantu 
  Bantu Languages of Uganda