Welcome to the South Bantu Etymological Dictionary, which traces the history of words in 30 languages from Malawi to South Africa. The 500 languages in the Bantu language family share a core vocabulary derived from a common ancestral language called Proto-Bantu, which scholars think was spoken around 4000-5000 years ago in the area of modern Cameroon. The Bantu population then spread east and south, eventually reaching the area where 100 million people now speak South Bantu languages like Chewa, Makhuwa, Shona, Northern and Southern Sotho, Tswana, Xhosa and Zulu.
Using the dictionary: in the search box, choose a language and supply a word or English gloss. From the results, click on a word for more information. Modern language forms use standard orthographies — see the Languages tab for an overview and sources on specific languages.
Note: This sample version only includes about 200 reconstructions for demonstration, mostly those beginning with a-, e- or i-, e.g. the words for 'eye', 'steal', 'be pregnant'. The full database includes over 13000 modern-language forms related to over 2000 reconstructions, and all entries which involve the South Bantu languages from Bantu Lexical Reconstructions (BLR3) or Guthrie’s Comparative Bantu have been incorporated. When available, data from a few other Bantu languages is also included. The public search currently only accesses reconstructed stems which have been edited with historical notes, i.e. about 10% of the stems. A fuller version will be accessible in early 2027.
Using the dictionary: in the search box, choose a language and supply a word or English gloss. From the results, click on a word for more information. Modern language forms use standard orthographies — see the Languages tab for an overview and sources on specific languages.
Note: This sample version only includes about 200 reconstructions for demonstration, mostly those beginning with a-, e- or i-, e.g. the words for 'eye', 'steal', 'be pregnant'. The full database includes over 13000 modern-language forms related to over 2000 reconstructions, and all entries which involve the South Bantu languages from Bantu Lexical Reconstructions (BLR3) or Guthrie’s Comparative Bantu have been incorporated. When available, data from a few other Bantu languages is also included. The public search currently only accesses reconstructed stems which have been edited with historical notes, i.e. about 10% of the stems. A fuller version will be accessible in early 2027.