List of English words of Niger-Congo origin

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This is a list of English language words that come from the Niger-Congo languages. It excludes placenames except where they have become common words.

Bantu origin[]

  • banjo – probably Bantu mbanza[citation needed]
  • basenji – breed of dog from the Congo
  • boma – probably from Swahili
  • bwana – from Swahili, meaning an important person or safari leader
  • chimpanzee – loaned in the 18th century from a Bantu language, possibly Kivili ci-mpenzi.[1]
  • dengue – possibly from Swahili dinga
  • goober – possibly from Bantu (Kikongo and Kimbundu nguba)
  • gumbo – from Bantu (Kimbundu ngombo meaning "okra")
  • impala – from Zulu im-pala
  • impi – from Zulu language meaning war, battle or a regiment
  • indaba – from Xhosa or Zulu languages – 'stories' or 'news' typically conflated with 'meeting' (often used in South African English)
  • isango – Zulu meaning gateway
  • jumbo – from Swahili (jambo or jumbe or from Kongo nzamba "elephant")
  • kalimba
  • Kwanzaa – recent coinage (Maulana Karenga 1965) as the name of a "specifically African-American holiday", abstracted from a Swahili phrase matunda ya kwanza, meaning "first fruits [of the harvest]".
  • lapa – from Sotho languages – enclosure or barbecue area (often used in South African English)
  • macaque – from Bantu makaku through Portuguese and French
  • mamba – from Zulu or Swahili mamba
  • marimba – from Bantu (Kimbundu and Swahili marimba, malimba)
  • okapi – from a language in the Congo
  • safari – from Swahili travel, ultimately from Arabic
  • sangoma – from Zulu – traditional healer (often used in South African English)
  • Tilapia – Possibly a latinization "thiape", the Tswana word for fish.[2]
  • tsetse – from a Bantu language (Tswana tsetse, Luhya tsiisi)
  • ubuntu – Nguni term for "mankind; humanity", in South Africa since the 1980s also used capitalized, Ubuntu, as the name of a philosophy or ideology of "human kindness" or "humanism".
  • vuvuzela – musical instrument, name of Zulu or Nguni origin
  • zebra – of unknown origin, recorded since c. 1600, possibly from a Congolese language, or alternatively from Amharic.
  • zombie – likely from West African (compare Kikongo zumbi "fetish", Kimbundu nzambi "god")

Non-Bantu West African origin[]

  • azawakh - probably from Fula or Tuareg. A breed of dogs from West and North Africa
  • banana – West African, possibly Wolof banana
  • bongo – West African boungu
  • buckra – "white man or person", from Efik and Ibibio mbakara[3]
  • chigger – possibly from Wolof and/or Yoruba jiga "insect"
  • cola – from West African languages (Temne kola, Mandinka kolo)
  • djembe – from West African languages
  • jazz – from West African languages (Mandinka jasi, Temne yas)
  • jive – possibly from Wolof jev
  • juke, jukebox – possibly from Wolof and Bambara dzug through Gullah
  • kwashiorkor – from Ga language, Coastal Ghana meaning "swollen stomach"
  • Marímbula, plucked musical instrument (lamellophone) of the Caribbean islands
  • merengue (dance) possibly from Fulani mererek i meaning to shake or quiver
  • mumbo jumbo- from mandigo name Maamajombo, a masked dancer
  • mojo – from Kongo “moyo” meaning “spirit”
  • obeah – from West African (Efik ubio, Twi ebayifo)
  • okra – from Igbo ókùrù
  • sambo – Fula sambo meaning "uncle"
  • tango – probably from Ibibio tamgu
  • tote – West African via Gullah
  • vodou – from West African languages (Ewe and Fon vodu "spirit")
  • yam – West African (Fula nyami, Twi anyinam)

References[]

Notes

  1. ^ "chimpanzee" in American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2011.
  2. ^ Tilapia etymology
  3. ^ Mason, Julian (1960). "The Etymology of 'Buckaroo'". American Speech. 35 (1): 51–55. doi:10.2307/453613. JSTOR 453613.

Sources

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