Editing Bantu languages (section)

==Name==
{{further|Bantu peoples#Etymology}}
The similarity among dispersed Bantu languages had been observed as early as the 17th century.<ref>R. Blench, ''Archaeology, Language, and the African Past'' (2006), [https://books.google.com/books?id=esFy3Po57A8C&pg=PA119 p. 119]. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180627091227/https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=esFy3Po57A8C&lpg=PP1&hl=de&pg=PA119 |date=2018-06-27 }}.</ref> The term ''Bantu'' as a name for the group was not coined but "noticed" or "identified" (as ''Bâ-ntu'') by [[Wilhelm Bleek]] as the first European in 1857 or 1858, and popularized in his ''Comparative Grammar'' of 1862.<ref name=":2">{{cite journal |last1=Silverstein |first1=Raymond O. |title=A note on the term 'Bantu' as first used by W. H. I. Bleek |journal=African Studies |date=January 1968 |volume=27 |issue=4 |pages=211–212 |doi=10.1080/00020186808707298}}</ref> He noticed the term to represent the word for "people" in loosely reconstructed [[Proto-Bantu]], from the plural [[noun class]] prefix ''[[:wikt:Appendix:Swahili noun classes#M-wa class|*ba-]]'' categorizing "people", and the [[root (linguistics)|root]] ''*ntʊ̀-'' "some (entity), any" (e.g. Xhosa ''umntu'' "person", ''abantu'' "people"; Zulu ''umuntu'' "person", ''abantu'' "people").

There is no native term for the people who speak Bantu languages because they are not an [[ethnic group]]. People speaking Bantu languages refer to their languages by ethnic [[Endonym and exonym|endonyms]], which did not have an indigenous concept prior to European contact for the larger ethnolinguistic phylum named by 19th-century European linguists. Bleek's identification was inspired by the anthropological observation of groups frequently self-identifying as "people" or "the true people" (as is the case, for example, with the term ''[[Khoikhoi]]'', but this is a ''kare'' "praise address" and not an ethnic name).<ref>R. K. Herbert and R. Bailey in Rajend Mesthrie (ed.), ''Language in South Africa'' (2002), [https://books.google.com/books?id=cqaGb_SEQHUC&pg=PA50 p. 50]. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180627091217/https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=cqaGb_SEQHUC&pg=PA50 |date=2018-06-27 }}.</ref>

The term ''narrow Bantu'', excluding those languages classified as [[Bantoid]] by [[Malcolm Guthrie]] (1948), was introduced in the 1960s.<ref name=":4">''Studies in African Linguistics'': Supplement, Issues 3–4, Department of Linguistics and the African Studies Center, University of California, Los Angeles (1969), p. 7.</ref>

The prefix ''ba-'' specifically refers to people. Endonymically, the term for cultural objects, including language, is formed with the [[:wikt:Appendix:Swahili noun classes#Ki-vi class|''ki-'' noun class]] (Nguni ''[[:wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Nguni/ísi-|ísi-]]''), as in KiSwahili (Swahili language and culture), IsiZulu (Zulu language and culture) and KiGanda (Ganda religion and culture).

In the 1980s, South African linguists suggested referring to these languages as ''KiNtu.'' The word ''kintu'' exists in some places, but it means "thing", with no relation to the concept of "language".<ref>Joshua Wantate Sempebwa, ''The Ontological and Normative Structure in the Social Reality of a Bantu Society: A Systematic Study of Ganda Ontology and Ethics'', 1978, p. 71.</ref> In addition, delegates at the African Languages Association of Southern Africa conference in 1984 reported that, in some places, the term ''Kintu'' has a derogatory significance.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Addendum |journal=South African Journal of African Languages |date=1 January 1984 |volume=4 |issue=Suppl 1 |page=120 |doi=10.1080/02572117.1984.10587452}}</ref> This is because ''kintu'' refers to "things" and is used as a dehumanizing term for people who have lost their dignity.<ref>[[Molefi Kete Asante]], Ama Mazama, ''Encyclopedia of African Religion'' (2009), [https://books.google.com/books?id=B667ATiedQkC&pg=PT173 p. 173]. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180627091157/https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=B667ATiedQkC&pg=PT173 |date= 2018-06-27 }}.</ref>

In addition, ''[[Kintu]]'' is a figure in some mythologies.<ref>David William Cohen, ''The Historical Tradition of Busoga, Mukama and Kintu'' (1972). Joseph B. R. Gaie, Sana Mmolai, ''The Concept of Botho and HIV/AIDS in Botswana'' (2007), [https://books.google.com/books?id=ieiT9tZMqBgC&pg=PA2 p. 2]. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180627091129/https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ieiT9tZMqBgC&pg=PA2 |date=2018-06-27 }}.</ref>

In the 1990s, the term ''Kintu'' was still occasionally used by South African linguists.<ref name=":0">as in Noverino N. Canonici, ''A Manual of Comparative Kintu Studies'', Zulu Language and Literature, University of Natal (1994).</ref> But in contemporary decolonial South African linguistics, the term ''Ntu languages'' is used.<ref name=":0" />

Within the fierce debate among linguists about the word "Bantu", Seidensticker (2024) indicates that there has been a "profound conceptual trend in which a "purely technical [term] without any non-linguistic connotations was transformed into a designation referring indiscriminately to language, culture, society, and race"."<ref name="Seidensticker">{{cite journal |last1=Seidensticker |first1=Dirk |title=Pikunda-Munda and Batalimo-Maluba Archaeological Investigations of the Iron Age Settlement History of the Western and Northern Congo Basin |journal=African Archaeological Review |date=28 March 2024 |volume=41 |issue=2 |pages=5–6 |doi=10.1007/s10437-024-09576-7 |url=https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10437-024-09576-7 |issn=0263-0338 |oclc=10194943180 |s2cid=268802330}}</ref>