Bantoid

Bantoid is a Benue-Congo division of the Niger-Congo family; its southern branch contains Bantu languages that give the group its name and spread across most of subequatorial Africa. Its homeland lies in the borderlands of eastern Nigeria and western Cameroon, around the Benue valley.

From this nucleus the ancestors of the Bantu began a prehistoric migration: farming villages with pottery traditions existed in the region by 5000 BC, and iron working is attested by about 400 BC. Moving in two streams through and around the Congo rainforest, Bantu speakers had reached central Angola and the country west of Lake Victoria by around 500 BC and the south of the continent by about 300 AD.

Bantoid languages are built around elaborate noun-class systems, and the closely related grammars and shared root words of Bantu tongues bear witness to this common origin.