medieval african language

1. African Language
Introduction
There isn’t much we know about Africa. Most of us only know about the slave trade
when it comes to Africa’s history. However Africa is much more than that. There is a long
history of Africa before the slave trade. One such thing to learn about is the culture. Africa had
an amazing and interesting culture
There are many form of culture but language is the most important of them all. Language
is the most convenient form of communication. The study of this interesting subject is call
linguistics. We will study the linguistics of Africa during the middle ages. Africa during the
middle ages had four main groups of languages. These languages are: Afro-asiatic, Nilo-Saharan,
Congo-Kordofanian, and Koisan. The most common language back was Congo-Kordofanian,
also called Bantu. There are many languages in this language group but they show similarities to
one. Linguists call this one special language, proto-bantu. Proto-Bantu was first spoken in what
is now eastern Nigeria, or Cameroon. Villages that spoke proto-bantu became crowded so protobantu speakers migrated in search of agricultural lands. This migration is referred to as the
Bantu migration. The Bantu migration greatly spread the language of Bantu.
The Migrations
As I said before, the bantu migration was caused because the villages were too crowded.
However, there is controversy to this. It is a theory. the bantu speaking people relied on
fishing,farming, hunting,and trading. They might have migrated for game, or herd cattle. Other
theories are : fear of famine and drought, external pressure from neighboring tribes,
misunderstanding between clans causing pressure, disease, search for fertile land, love for

2. adventure, foul influence, and to export their iron working culture.
Either ways, the Bantu migration started at what is now east Nigeria and started at about
1000 B.C. The first wave of the migration followed 2 paths. the group that took the south paths
came to rain forest along the congo river. The group that went towards the east went toward the
highlands and mountains near Lake victoria. they both formed small villages and farmed at the
river banks. Sadly, there wasn't enough room for farmland because of the rainforest. Also many
bugs invaded their crops or spread disease. Because of this, the Bantu group that went east, went
further south towards open land. This open land held a lot more crops.Here, the Bantu raised
crops. They settled by the zambezi river, the orange river, and the east coast of Africa. The other
group of Bantu speaking people that took the south pass went south as well, way from the
rainforest They settled in the Kalaari desert and the Namib desert. Since it was a dessert, the
landscape wasn't suitable for growing crops. Instead, the people raised livestock such as sheep,
and goats.
The migration had many positive results as well as many negative results. The first of
their positive results are is the spread of the Bantu language. This is probably the most notable
part in this migration. The second of their positive results is the introduction of iron working to
East Africa . Because iron is much stronger than stone iron tools were made to farm design tools
food production bursted. Another one of their positive results is the introduction of new
(yummy) crops like yams and bananas being introduce to the south east. Coming to the negative
effects, the first is that the migration led to depopulation in the original villages. That region had
less labor and soldiers, became weak, and fell apart. Second, since the culture was so spread out,
some of it was lost. Next, some bantu language died out for new versions or an entirely different
language because of other ethnic groups being selective about their culture or the ethnic groups

3. are too well established to be changed. Overall, the migration seem to have been more beneficial
than harmful.
The language Influence of the Migration
The Bantu Migration had a very large influence on Africa. There were several ethnic
groups to influence. The major groups were the Zulu, Xhosa, Tonga, swahili, and the botatwe.
Of course the original language of proto Bantu was changed a little as it was influenced on the
other ethnic groups. That is why there are so many Bantu languages. To compare examples,
person in proto-bantu is muntu and people in proto bantu is Bantu. One ethnic group influenced
by the language, the zulu, translates person to umuntu and people to abantu. The Xhosa group
translates person to umntu and people to abantu.
Conclusion
As you can see, there is a lot of information about this usually overlooked form of culture.
There is much more to know because there are 3 other major languages and even the influence of
arabic on North Africa. We have barely scratched the surface of this interesting form of African
culture