75-498: Bantu Kavirondo is the former name given to some of the Bantu peoples of western Kenya (e.g., the Luhya and Kisii ) under the early colonial regime of British East Africa . Kavirondo Gulf (Winam Gulf) and the surrounding area of "Kavirondo" derive from the same name. They were designated “Bantu" Kavirondo in contradistinction to the “ Nilotic Kavirondo ” ( Luo ). This article about
150-536: A Kenyan ethnicity is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Bantu peoples The Bantu peoples are an indigenous ethnolinguistic grouping of approximately 400 distinct native African ethnic groups who speak Bantu languages . The languages are native to countries spread over a vast area from West Africa, to Central Africa, Southeast Africa and into Southern Africa. Bantu people also inhabit southern areas of Northeast African states. There are several hundred Bantu languages. Depending on
225-556: A Sotho -speaking person would say " ke motho ", which means "he/she is a human". The aspect of this that would be exemplified by a tale told (often, in private quarters) in Nguni " kushone abantu ababili ne Shangaan ", in Sepedi " go tlhokofetje batho ba babedi le leShangane ", in English (two people died and one Shangaan ). In each of these examples, humanity comes from conforming to or being part of
300-585: A catalyst, with our Foreign Service Officers launching new projects in tandem with those NGOs, philanthropies, and corporations at the front lines of foreign affairs to discover untapped potential, inspire fresh ideas, and create new solutions. And we will act as a collaborator, leading interagency coordination here in Washington and cross-sector collaboration in the field, with our Ambassadors working closely with our non-governmental partners to plan and implement projects for maximum impact and sustainability. It takes
375-406: A community population with which individuals empathise and concomitantly, have a vested interest in its collective prosperity. Urbanisation and the aggregation of people into an abstract and bureaucratic state undermines this empathy. African intellectual historians like Michael Onyebuchi Eze have argued, however, that this idea of "collective responsibility" must not be understood as absolute in which
450-566: A community)." The philosophy of uMunthu has been passed on through proverbs such as Mwana wa mnzako ngwako yemwe, ukachenjera manja udya naye (your neighbor's child is your own, his/her success is your success too). Some notable Malawian uMunthu philosophers and intellectuals who have written about this worldview are Augustine Musopole , Gerard Chigona , Chiwoza Bandawe , Richard Tambulasi , Harvey Kwiyani and Happy Kayuni . This includes Malawian philosopher and theologist Harvey Sindima ’s treatment of uMunthu as an important African philosophy
525-450: A full person, a real self or a genuine human being". Ukama , i.e. relationships are important. Among the Shona people, for example, when a person dies, his or her property is shared amongst relatives and there are culturally approved ways of doing this. The practice is called kugova . Samkange (1980)'s maxim on morality says "If and when one is faced with a decisive choice between wealth and
600-501: A harmonious relationship. Second, a broken relationship can be as ethically desirable as a harmonious one. For instance, freedom follows from a break from oppression. Finally, harmonious relations can be as oppressive and false as disharmonious ones. For instance, the cowboy and his horse are in a harmonious relationship." Ubuntu is often presented in short statements called maxims by Samkange (1980). Some of these are: Ubuntu has been in existence in orature (oral literature) and in
675-407: A moral duty – a sort of categorical imperative – that Africans must simply uphold. Mboti cautions against relying on intuitions in attempts to say what Ubuntu is or is not. He concludes that the phrase umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu references a messier, undisciplined relationship between persons, stating that: "First, there is value in regarding a broken relationship as being authentically human as much as
750-696: A proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed. Tutu further explained Ubuntu in 2008:. One of the sayings in our country is Ubuntu - the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can't exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can't be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality - Ubuntu - you are known for your generosity. We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects
825-498: A publication now in the public domain : Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). " Hottentots ". Catholic Encyclopedia . New York: Robert Appleton Company. Ubuntu philosophy Ubuntu ( Zulu pronunciation: [ùɓúntʼù] ) (meaning humanity in some Bantu languages , such as Zulu ) describes a set of closely related Bantu African-origin value systems that emphasize the interconnectedness of individuals with their surrounding societal and physical worlds. "Ubuntu"
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#1733085283546900-576: A result of these interactions. The Bantu migrations, and centuries later the Indian Ocean slave trade, brought Bantu influence to Madagascar , the Malagasy people showing Bantu admixture, and their Malagasy language Bantu loans. Toward the 18th and 19th centuries, the flow of Zanj slaves from Southeast Africa increased with the rise of the Sultanate of Zanzibar . With the arrival of European colonialists,
975-532: A shared, global response to meet the shared, global challenges we face. This is the truth taught to us in an old South African principle, ubuntu, or 'A person is a person through other persons.' As Archbishop Desmond Tutu describes this perspective, ubuntu 'is not, "I think therefore I am." It says rather: "I am a human because I belong. I participate. I share. " ' In essence, I am because you are. We are truly all in this together, and we will only succeed by building mutually beneficial partnerships among civil society,
1050-833: A significant clustered variation of genetic traits among Bantu language speakers by region, suggesting admixture from prior local populations. Bantu speakers of South Africa (Xhosa, Venda) showed substantial levels of the SAK and Western African Bantu AACs and low levels of the East African Bantu AAC (the latter is also present in Bantu speakers from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda). The results indicate distinct East African Bantu migration into southern Africa and are consistent with linguistic and archeological evidence of East African Bantu migration from an area west of Lake Victoria and
1125-449: A social safety net to vulnerable members of society. Common elements include collectivity. The approach helps to "validate worldview and traditions suppressed by Western Eurocentric cultural hegemony". It is against materialism and individualism. It looks at an individual person as holistically. The social interventions done by social workers, welfare workers and development workers should strengthen, not weaken families, communities, society,
1200-479: A vast genomic analysis of more than 2,000 samples taken from individuals in 57 populations throughout Sub-Saharan Africa to trace the Bantu expansion. During a wave of expansion that began 4,000 to 5,000 years ago, Bantu-speaking populations – some 310 million people as of 2023 – gradually left their original homeland West-Central Africa and travelled to the eastern and southern regions of the African continent. During
1275-490: Is unhu or hunhu . In Ndebele, it is known as ubuntu. The concept of ubuntu is viewed the same in Zimbabwe as in other African cultures. The Shona phrase munhu munhu nekuda kwevanhu means a person is human through others while ndiri nekuti tiri means I am because we are. Stanlake J. W. T. Samkange (1980) highlights the three maxims of Hunhuism or Ubuntuism that shape this philosophy: The first maxim asserts that 'To be human
1350-503: Is a need for understanding but not for vengeance, a need for reparation but not for retaliation, a need for ubuntu but not for victimisation". In South Africa, it has come to be used as a contested term for a kind of humanist philosophy, ethic, or ideology, also known as Ubuntuism propagated in the Africanisation (transition to majority rule) process of these countries during the 1980s and 1990s. New research has begun to question
1425-411: Is a philosophy that is applicable in clinical social work in mental health. Ubuntu can guide research objectives, ethics and methodology. Using ubuntu research approach provides researchers with an African oriented tool that decolonises research agenda and methodology. The objectives of ubuntu research are to empower families, communities and society at large. In doing ubuntu research, the position of
1500-485: Is a word in South Africa – Ubuntu – a word that captures Mandela's greatest gift: his recognition that we are all bound together in ways that are invisible to the eye; that there is a oneness to humanity; that we achieve ourselves by sharing ourselves with others, and caring for those around us. We can never know how much of this sense was innate in him, or how much was shaped in a dark and solitary cell. But we remember
1575-450: Is highlighted in his 1995 book Africa’s Agenda: The legacy of liberalism and colonialism in the crisis of African values . In film, the English translation of the proverb lent its hand to forming the title of Madonna 's 2008 documentary, I Am Because We Are , about Malawian orphans. In June 2009, in her swearing-in remarks as US Department of State Special Representative for Global Partnerships, Global Partnership Initiative, Office of
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#17330852835461650-527: Is not embedded in my person solely as an individual; my humanity is co-substantively bestowed upon the other and me. Humanity is a quality we owe to each other. We create each other and need to sustain this otherness creation. And if we belong to each other, we participate in our creations: we are because you are, and since you are, definitely I am . The "I am" is not a rigid subject, but a dynamic self-constitution dependent on this otherness creation of relation and distance. An "extroverted communities" aspect
1725-421: Is not the sine qua non of community formation but guards against instrumentalist relationships. Unfortunately, sincere warmth may leave one vulnerable to those with ulterior motives. "Ubuntu" as political philosophy encourages community equality, propagating the distribution of wealth. This socialisation is a vestige of agrarian peoples as a hedge against the crop failures of individuals. Socialisation presupposes
1800-1786: Is reconstructed as *-ntʊ́ . Versions of the word Bantu (that is, the root plus the class 2 noun class prefix *ba- ) occur in all Bantu languages: for example, as bantu in Kikongo , Kituba , Tshiluba and Kiluba ; watu in Swahili ; ŵanthu in Tumbuka ; anthu in Chichewa ; batu in Lingala ; bato in Duala ; abanto in Gusii ; andũ in Kamba and Kikuyu ; abantu in Kirundi , Lusoga , Zulu , Xhosa , Runyoro and Luganda ; wandru in Shingazidja ; abantru in Mpondo and Ndebele ; bãthfu in Phuthi ; bantfu in Swati and Bhaca ; banhu in kisukuma ; banu in Lala ; vanhu in Shona and Tsonga ; batho in Sesotho , Tswana and Sepedi ; antu in Meru ; andu in Embu ; vandu in some Luhya dialects; vhathu in Venda and bhandu in Nyakyusa . Within
1875-430: Is sometimes translated as "I am because we are" (also "I am because you are"), or "humanity towards others" ( Zulu umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu ). In Xhosa , the latter term is used, but is often meant in a more philosophical sense to mean "the belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity". Although the most popular term referring to the philosophy today is "ubuntu" ( Zulu language , South Africa),
1950-402: Is the most visible part of this ideology. There is sincere warmth with which people treat both strangers and members of the community. This overt display of warmth is not merely aesthetic but enables the formation of spontaneous communities. The resultant collaborative work within these spontaneous communities transcends the aesthetic and gives functional significance to the value of warmth. Warmth
2025-453: Is the plural of the word 'umuntu', meaning 'person', and is based on the stem '--ntu', plus the plural prefix 'aba'. In linguistics, the word Bantu , for the language families and its speakers, is an artificial term based on the reconstructed Proto-Bantu term for "people" or "humans" . It was first introduced into modern academia (as Bâ-ntu ) by Wilhelm Bleek in 1857 or 1858 and popularised in his Comparative Grammar of 1862. The name
2100-444: Is to affirm one's humanity by recognizing the humanity of others and, on that basis, establish respectful human relations with them.' And 'the second maxim means that if and when one is faced with a decisive choice between wealth and the preservation of the life of another human being, then one should opt for the preservation of life'. The third 'maxim' as a 'principle deeply embedded in traditional African political philosophy' says 'that
2175-833: The Congo rainforest by about 1500 BC and the southern savannas by 500 BC, while the eastward dispersal reached the Great Lakes by 1000 BC, expanding further from there as the rich environment supported dense populations. Possible movements by small groups to the southeast from the Great Lakes region could have been more rapid, with initial settlements widely dispersed near the coast and near rivers, because of comparatively harsh farming conditions in areas farther from water. Recent archeological and linguistic evidence about population movements suggests that pioneering groups would have had reached parts of modern KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa sometime prior to
2250-656: The Democratic Republic of the Congo alone. The larger of the individual Bantu groups have populations of several million, e.g.the large majority of West Africa, notably the most populous African nation Nigeria , Rwanda , Tanzania , Uganda , Kenya , Burundi (25 million), the Baganda people of Uganda (5.5 million as of 2014), the Shona of Zimbabwe (17.6 million as of 2020), the Zulu of South Africa (14.2 million as of 2016 ),
2325-667: The Indian Ocean slave trade . The Swahili culture that emerged from these exchanges evinces many Arab and Islamic influences not seen in traditional Bantu culture, as do the many Afro-Arab members of the Bantu Swahili people . With its original speech community centered on the coastal parts of Zanzibar, Kenya, and Tanzania – a seaboard referred to as the Swahili Coast – the Bantu Swahili language contains many Arabic loanwords as
Bantu Kavirondo - Misplaced Pages Continue
2400-676: The Kingdom of Matamba the Kuba Kingdom , the Lunda Empire , the Luba Empire , Barotse Empire , Kazembe Kingdom , Mbunda Kingdom , Yeke Kingdom , Kasanje Kingdom , Empire of Kitara, Butooro , Bunyoro , Buganda , Busoga , Rwanda , Burundi , Ankole , the Kingdom of Mpororo , the Kingdom of Igara , the Kingdom of Kooki , the Kingdom of Karagwe , Swahili city states , the Mutapa Empire ,
2475-690: The Luba of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (28.8 million as of 2010 ), the Sukuma of Tanzania (10.2 million as of 2016 ), the Kikuyu of Kenya (8.1 million as of 2019 ), the Xhosa people of Southern Africa (9.6 million as of 2011), batswana of Southern Africa (8.2 Million as of 2020) and the Pedi of South Africa (7 million as of 2018). Abantu is the Xhosa and Zulu word for people. It
2550-521: The National Party governments adopted that usage officially, while the growing African nationalist movement and its liberal allies turned to the term "African" instead, so that "Bantu" became identified with the policies of apartheid . By the 1970s this so discredited "Bantu" as an ethnic-racial designation that the apartheid government switched to the term "Black" in its official racial categorizations, restricting it to Bantu-speaking Africans , at about
2625-659: The Nelson Mandela presidency in 1994 , the term has become more widely known outside of Southern Africa, notably popularised to English-language readers through the ubuntu theology of Desmond Tutu . Tutu was the chairman of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), and many have argued that ubuntu was a formative influence on the TRC. In the Shona language , the majority spoken language in Zimbabwe , ubuntu
2700-612: The Shona equivalent of Nguni ubuntu ) by Stanlake J. W. T. Samkange . Hunhuism or Ubuntuism is presented as political ideology for the new Zimbabwe, as Southern Rhodesia attained independence from the United Kingdom. The concept was used in South Africa in the 1990s as a guiding ideal for the transition from apartheid to majority rule . The term appears in the Epilogue of the Interim Constitution of South Africa (1993): "there
2775-570: The Zulu Kingdom , the Ndebele Kingdom , Mthethwa Empire , Tswana city states , Mapungubwe , Kingdom of Eswatini , the Kingdom of Butua , Maravi , Danamombe , Khami , Naletale , Kingdom of Zimbabwe and the Rozwi Empire . On the coastal section of East Africa, a mixed Bantu community developed through contact with Muslim Arab and Persian traders, Zanzibar being an important part of
2850-412: The 3rd century AD along the coast and the modern Northern Cape by AD 500. Cattle terminology in use amongst the relatively few modern Bantu pastoralist groups suggests that the acquisition of cattle may have been from Central Sudanic , Kuliak and Cushitic -speaking neighbors. Linguistic evidence also indicates that the customs of milking cattle were also directly modeled from Cushitic cultures in
2925-696: The 9th and 15th centuries, Bantu-speaking states began to emerge in the Great Lakes region and in the savanna south of the Central African rainforests. The Monomotapa kings built the Great Zimbabwe complex, a civilisation ancestral to the Shona people. Comparable sites in Southern Africa include Bumbusi in Zimbabwe and Manyikeni in Mozambique. From the 12th century onward, the processes of state formation amongst Bantu peoples increased in frequency. This
3000-562: The Bantu expansion, Bantu-speaking peoples extirpated and displaced many earlier inhabitants, with only a few modern peoples such as Pygmy groups in Central Africa, the Hadza people in northern Tanzania, and various Khoisan populations across southern Africa remaining in existence into the era of European contact. Archaeological evidence attests to their presence in areas subsequently occupied by Bantu speakers. Researchers have demonstrated that
3075-614: The Khoisan of the Kalahari are remnants of a huge ancestral population that may have been the most populous group on the planet prior to the Bantu expansion. Biochemist Stephan Schuster of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and colleagues found that the Khoisan population began a drastic decline when the Bantu farmers spread through Africa 4,000 years ago. Before the Bantu expansion had been definitively traced starting from their origins in
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3150-484: The Secretary of State, Elizabeth Frawley Bagley discussed ubuntu in the context of American foreign policy , stating: "In understanding the responsibilities that come with our interconnectedness, we realize that we must rely on each other to lift our World from where it is now to where we want it to be in our lifetime, while casting aside our worn out preconceptions, and our outdated modes of statecraft." She then introduced
3225-605: The Zanzibar Sultanate came into direct trade conflict and competition with Portuguese and other Europeans along the Swahili Coast, leading eventually to the fall of the Sultanate and the end of slave trading on the Swahili Coast in the mid-20th century. In the 1920s, relatively liberal South Africans, missionaries, and the native African intelligentsia began to use the term "Bantu" in preference to "Native". After World War II ,
3300-481: The abstract noun humanity . The concept was popularised in terms of a " philosophy " or " world view " (as opposed to a quality attributed to an individual) beginning in the 1950s, notably in the writings of Jordan Kush Ngubane published in the African Drum magazine. From the 1970s, the ubuntu began to be described as a specific kind of "African humanism". Based on the context of Africanisation propagated by
3375-468: The acknowledgment of one's responsibility to their fellow humans and the world around them. It is a philosophy that supports collectivism over individualism . Ubuntu asserts that society gives human beings their humanity. An example is a Zulu -speaking person who when commanding to speak in Zulu would say " khuluma isintu ", which means "speak the language of people". When someone behaves according to custom,
3450-555: The area. Cattle terminology in southern African Bantu languages differs from that found among more northerly Bantu-speaking peoples. One recent suggestion is that Cushitic speakers had moved south earlier and interacted with the most northerly of Khoisan speakers who acquired cattle from them and that the earliest arriving Bantu speakers, in turn, got their initial cattle from Cushitic-influenced Khwe-speaking people. Under this hypothesis, larger later Bantu-speaking immigration subsequently displaced or assimilated that southernmost extension of
3525-485: The community around you to be able to improve? Tim Jackson refers to Ubuntu as a philosophy that supports the changes he says are necessary to create a future that is economically and environmentally sustainable. Judge Colin Lamont expanded on the definition during his ruling on the hate speech trial of Julius Malema . At Nelson Mandela's memorial, United States President Barack Obama spoke about Ubuntu, saying, There
3600-734: The community's good is prior to the individual's good. On this view, ubuntu it is argued, is a communitarian philosophy that is widely differentiated from the Western notion of communitarian socialism. In fact, ubuntu induces an ideal of shared human subjectivity that promotes a community's good through an unconditional recognition and appreciation of individual uniqueness and difference. Audrey Tang has suggested that Ubuntu "implies that everyone has different skills and strengths; people are not isolated, and through mutual support they can help each other to complete themselves." "Redemption" relates to how people deal with errant, deviant, and dissident members of
3675-650: The community. The belief is that man is born formless like a lump of clay. It is up to the community, as a whole, to use the fire of experience and the wheel of social control to mould him into a pot that may contribute to society. Any imperfections should be borne by the community and the community should always seek to redeem man. An example of this is the statement by the African National Congress (in South Africa) that it does not throw out its own but rather redeems. Other scholars such as Mboti (2015) argue that
3750-478: The culture of Bantu peoples. It appeared in South African written sources from as early as the mid-19th century. Reported translations covered the semantic field of "human nature, humanness, humanity; virtue, goodness, kindness". Grammatically, the word combines the root -ntʊ̀ "person, human being" with the class 14 ubu- prefix forming abstract nouns , so that the term is exactly parallel in formation to
3825-412: The definition of "language" or "dialect" , it is estimated that there are between 440 and 680 distinct languages. The total number of speakers is in the hundreds of millions, ranging at roughly 350 million in the mid-2010s (roughly 30% of the population of Africa , or roughly 5% of the total world population ). About 60 million speakers (2015), divided into some 200 ethnic or tribal groups, are found in
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#17330852835463900-478: The environment and peoples's spirituality. These are the five pillars of ubuntu intervention: family, community, society, environment and spirituality. Ubuntu is the current theme for the Global Agenda for Social Work and Social Development and represents the highest level of global messaging within social work profession for the years 2020–2030. Utilising the biopsychosocial and ecological system approaches, ubuntu
3975-421: The exclusive "humanism" framing, and thus to suggest that ubuntu can have a "militaristic" angle – an ubuntu for warriors. In Uganda the term is used in people's everyday language as a way to relate to one another and call for community. The term can also be used to criticize another's actions if one states that they have lost "Obuuntu" (their humanity). Since the transition to democracy in South Africa with
4050-609: The family, community, society, environment and spirituality as sources of knowledge but also as teaching and learning media. The essence of education is family, community, societal and environmental well-being. Ubuntu education is about learners becoming critical about their social conditions. Interaction, participation, recognition, respect and inclusion are important aspects of ubuntu education. Methods of teaching and learning include groups and community approaches. The objectives, content, methodology and outcomes of education are shaped by Ubuntu. This refers to Afrocentric ways of providing
4125-688: 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"." Bantu languages derive from the Proto-Bantu reconstructed language, estimated to have been spoken about 4,000 to 3,000 years ago in West / Central Africa (the area of modern-day Cameroon). They were supposedly spread across Central, East and Southern Africa in
4200-407: The gestures, large and small – introducing his jailers as honored guests at his inauguration; taking a pitch in a Springbok uniform; turning his family’s heartbreak into a call to confront HIV/AIDS – that revealed the depth of his empathy and his understanding. He not only embodied Ubuntu, he taught millions to find that truth within themselves. In Malawi , the same philosophy is called "uMunthu" in
4275-469: The incorporation of Khoekhoe ancestry into several of the Southeast Bantu populations ~1500 to 1000 years ago. Bantu-speaking migrants would have also interacted with some Afro-Asiatic outlier groups in the southeast (mainly Cushitic ), as well as Nilotic and Central Sudanic speaking groups. According to the early-split scenario as hypothesized in the 1990s, the southward dispersal had reached
4350-447: The king owed his status, including all the powers associated with it, to the will of the people under him'. Ubuntu: "I am what I am because of who we all are." (From a definition offered by Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee .) Archbishop Desmond Tutu offered a definition in a 1999 book: A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, based from
4425-568: The larger ethnolinguistic phylum named by 19th-century European linguists. Bleek's coinage was inspired by the anthropological observation of groups self-identifying as "people" or "the true people". That is, idiomatically the reflexes of * bantʊ in the numerous languages often have connotations of personal character traits as encompassed under the values system of ubuntu , also known as hunhu in Chishona or botho in Sesotho , rather than just referring to all human beings. The root in Proto-Bantu
4500-514: The local Chewa language . According to the Catholic Diocese of Zomba bishop Rt. Rev. Fr. Thomas Msusa , "The African worldview is about living as one family, belonging to God". Msusa noted that in Africa "We say 'I am because we are', or in Chichewa kali kokha nkanyama, tili awiri ntiwanthu (when you are on your own you are as good as an animal of the wild; when there are two of you, you form
4575-446: The normative definition of Ubuntu, notwithstanding its intuitive appeal, is still open to doubt. The definition of Ubuntu, contends Mboti, has remained consistently and purposely fuzzy, inadequate and inconsistent. Mboti rejects the interpretation that Africans are "naturally" interdependent and harmony-seeking, and that humanity is given to a person by and through other persons. He sees a philosophical trap in attempts to elevate harmony to
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#17330852835464650-475: The notion of "Ubuntu Diplomacy" with the following words: In 21st-century diplomacy, the Department of State will be a convener, bringing people together from across regions and sectors to work together on issues of common interest. Our work no longer depends on the least common denominator; but rather, we will seek the highest possible multiplier effect for the results we can achieve together. We will also act as
4725-437: The nuances of these values and practices vary across different ethnic groups, they all point to one thing – an authentic individual human being is part of a larger and more significant relational, communal, societal, environmental and spiritual world There are many different (and not always compatible) definitions of what Ubuntu is. Even with the various definitions, Ubuntu encompasses the interdependence of humans on another and
4800-574: The philosophy is believed to stretch back to the beginning of proto-Bantu language and has many other names in other Bantu languages . It is also found in other Bantu countries not mentioned here. There are various definitions of the word "Ubuntu". The most recent definition was provided by the African Journal of Social Work ( AJSW ). The journal defined Ubuntu as: A collection of values and practices that people of Africa or of African origin view as making people authentic human beings. While
4875-421: The political thinkers in the 1960s period of decolonisation , ubuntu was used as a term for a specifically African (or Southern African) kind of humanism found in the context of the transition to majority rule in Zimbabwe and South Africa . The first publication dedicated to ubuntu as a philosophical concept appeared in 1980, Hunhuism or Ubuntuism: A Zimbabwe Indigenous Political Philosophy ( hunhu being
4950-690: The private sector, and the public sector, in order to empower the men and women executing our foreign policy to advance their work through partnerships. The truth and reconciliation council believed in the philosophy of Ubuntu because they believed that Ubuntu was going to help to reform and reconnect the already broken country of South Africa. This is Ubuntu Diplomacy: where all sectors belong as partners, where we all participate as stakeholders, and where we all succeed together, not incrementally but exponentially. In education, Ubuntu has been used to guide and promote African education, and to decolonise it from Western educational philosophies. Ubuntu education uses
5025-782: The range of Cushitic speakers. Based on dental evidence, Irish (2016) concluded: Proto-Bantu peoples may have originated in the western region of the Sahara , amid the Kiffian period at Gobero , and may have migrated southward, from the Sahara into various parts of West Africa (e.g., Benin , Cameroon , Ghana , Nigeria , Togo ), as a result of desertification of the Green Sahara in 7000 BCE. From Nigeria and Cameroon, agricultural Proto-Bantu peoples began to migrate , and amid migration, diverged into East Bantu peoples (e.g., Democratic Republic of Congo ) and West Bantu peoples (e.g., Congo, Gabon ) between 2500 BCE and 1200 BCE. Irish (2016) also views Igbo people and Yoruba people as being possibly back-migrated Bantu peoples. Between
5100-460: The region between Cameroon and Nigeria, two main scenarios of the Bantu expansion were hypothesized: an early expansion to Central Africa and a single origin of the dispersal radiating from there, or an early separation into an eastward and a southward wave of dispersal, with one wave moving across the Congo Basin toward East Africa, and another moving south along the African coast and the Congo River system toward Angola. Genetic analysis shows
5175-438: The researcher is important because it helps create research relationships. The agenda of the research belongs to the community, and true participation is highly valued. Ujamaa is valued, it means pulling together or collaboration. According to this philosophy, "actions are right roughly insofar as they are a matter of living harmoniously with others or honouring communal relationships", "One's ultimate goal should be to become
5250-450: The same time that the Black Consciousness Movement led by Steve Biko and others were defining "Black" to mean all non-European South Africans (Bantus, Khoisan, Coloureds and Indians ). In modern South Africa, the word's connection to apartheid has become so discredited that it is only used in its original linguistic meaning. Examples of South African usages of "Bantu" include: [REDACTED] This article incorporates text from
5325-413: The so-called Bantu expansion , comparatively rapid dissemination taking roughly two millennia and dozens of human generations during the 1st millennium BC and the 1st millennium AD. Scientists from the Institut Pasteur and the CNRS, together with a broad international consortium, retraced the migratory routes of the Bantu populations, which were previously a source of debate. The scientists used data from
5400-442: The tribe. According to Michael Onyebuchi Eze, the core of Ubuntu can best be summarised as follows: A person is a person through other people strikes an affirmation of one’s humanity through recognition of an "other" in his or her uniqueness and difference. It is a demand for a creative intersubjective formation in which the "other" becomes a mirror (but only a mirror) for my subjectivity. This idealism suggests to us that humanity
5475-490: The whole world. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity. Nelson Mandela explained Ubuntu as follows: A traveller through a country would stop at a village and he didn't have to ask for food or for water. Once he stops, the people give him food and attend him. That is one aspect of Ubuntu, but it will have various aspects. Ubuntu does not mean that people should not address themselves. The question therefore is: Are you going to do so in order to enable
5550-557: Was said to be coined to represent the word for "people" in loosely reconstructed Proto-Bantu, from the plural noun class prefix *ba- categorizing "people", and the 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 endonyms, which did not have an indigenous concept prior to European contact for
5625-449: Was the result of several factors such as a denser population (which led to more specialized divisions of labor, including military power while making emigration more difficult); technological developments in economic activity; and new techniques in the political-spiritual ritualisation of royalty as the source of national strength and health. Examples of such Bantu states include: the Kingdom of Kongo , Anziku Kingdom , Kingdom of Ndongo ,
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