African language families

the Niger-Congo, or Bantu, family

of languages native to, and spoken in, southern and western Africa, is the largest family of languages in Africa, and includes:

  • the Nguni subfamily, which includes the following languages (just as French, Spanish, and Portuguese are Romance languages):

    • Ndebele
    • Swazi
    • Xhosa
    • Zulu

In Niger-Congo or Bantu languages, nouns are divided into different classes. Each class has various prefixes. Combining these prefixes with various stems makes sentances. Possesives, plurals, etc. are formed at the beginning of the word.

  • I : Ndi- (ndi does not mean "I"; it is a prefix.)
  • woman : umfazi
  • women : abafazi
  • dog : inja
  • dogs : izinja
  • see : -bona

  • I see a dog : Ndibona inja.
  • I see it : Ndiyayibona.
  • I see dogs : Ndibona izinja.
  • I see them : Ndiyazibona.
  • I see a women : Ndibona umfazi.
  • The women sees me : Babona mna.
  • The women see them (dogs) : Bayazibona.
  • The women see my dog : Babona abafazi inja yam.

    Contributed 1998/10/24 by Gabriel Raviv (graviv@hotmail.com) of ComputerWare in Berkeley, CA, USA.

    © 1998–2007 by Arden Schaeffer, 1932-2032?, author & webster
    at URL http://www.nola.house.name/lang/en/i/idiom/germanic.html
    Edition of 2007/06/04
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