Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A large and widely dispersed language family of sub-Saharan Africa that includes the Mande, Atlantic, and Volta-Congo branches.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- proper noun linguistics A major
language family ofsub-Saharan Africa noted for the use of anoun class system.
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Spoken in a large area of sub-Saharan East Africa, initially in coastal trading zones and on the influential island of Zanzibar, but later used inland as well, Swahili is a Bantu language from the widely dispersed Niger-Congo family of languages.
The English Is Coming! Leslie Dunton-Downer 2010
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Spoken in a large area of sub-Saharan East Africa, initially in coastal trading zones and on the influential island of Zanzibar, but later used inland as well, Swahili is a Bantu language from the widely dispersed Niger-Congo family of languages.
The English Is Coming! Leslie Dunton-Downer 2010
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Like the idea of the Creator, the reasons for their prevalence across the region is rooted in supple yet enduring epistemologies deriving from early Niger-Congo history.
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Because Niger-Congo people believed that their ancestors influenced the regenerative potential of their societies at many levels, they knew it was necessary to make offerings of goods and prayer to them, particularly in seeking help in times of need brought about by crises, but also as messages of gratitude in times of good fortune. 14
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In all likelihood, these health practitioners have been important since as early as the Niger-Congo period. 65 Their continuing predominance in Ruvu-speaking communities, and across Bantu-speaking societies more generally, may thus reflect continuity in community health specialists that is over ten thousand years old.
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Just as modern-day Christianity is expressed in diverse ways owing to the passing of nearly two millennia, so too were early Northeast-Coastal Bantu religious expressions varied because they were deeply rooted in Niger-Congo and Bantu history.
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I then explain how Ruvu history is part of the longer eras of Bantu and Niger-Congo history.
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Because of the various historical turns societies took, they sometimes acquired or innovated different words to convey the idea of the ancient Niger-Congo Creator, and they now and again added new nuances to it.
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Rather, it highlights that core epistemologies anchored in Bantu and sometimes even more ancient Niger-Congo eras endured because they were continuously and collectively reinterpreted and expressed in any given moment. 1
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Using this understanding as the lens through which we examine Ruvu history, it becomes clear that ancient precepts concerning the power of spirit forces, those that sustained their Niger-Congo ancestors, were carried forward throughout myriad Bantu diasporas.
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