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95-525: Lebowa was a bantustan ("homeland") located in the Transvaal in northeastern South Africa . Seshego initially acted as Lebowa's capital while the purpose-built Lebowakgomo was being constructed. Granted internal self-government on 2 October 1972 and ruled for much of its existence by Cedric Phatudi , Lebowa was reincorporated into South Africa in 1994. It became part of the Limpopo province. The territory

190-645: A United States House of Representatives resolution urging the President not to recognise Transkei, the South African government intensely lobbied lawmakers to oppose the bill. Arbitrary and unrecognized amateur radio call signs were created for the independent states and QSL cards were sent by operators using them, but the International Telecommunication Union never accepted these stations as legitimate. Each TBVC state extended recognition to

285-421: A V- syllable at the start). In other words, a strong claim for this language family is that almost all words end in a vowel, precisely because closed syllables (CVC) are not permissible in most of the documented languages, as far as is understood. This tendency to avoid consonant clusters in some positions is important when words are imported from English or other non-Bantu languages. An example from Chewa :

380-655: A designation referring indiscriminately to language, culture, society, and race"." The Bantu languages descend from a common Proto-Bantu language , which is believed to have been spoken in what is now Cameroon in Central Africa . An estimated 2,500–3,000 years ago (1000 BC to 500 BC), speakers of the Proto-Bantu language began a series of migrations eastward and southward, carrying agriculture with them. This Bantu expansion came to dominate Sub-Saharan Africa east of Cameroon, an area where Bantu peoples now constitute nearly

475-414: A distant third place with 8.2 million speakers ( South Africa and Zimbabwe ), and Shona with less than 10 million speakers (if Manyika and Ndau are included), while Sotho-Tswana languages ( Sotho , Tswana and Pedi ) have more than 15 million speakers (across Botswana , Lesotho , South Africa, and Zambia ). Zimbabwe has Kalanga, Matebele, Nambiya, and Xhosa speakers. Ethnologue separates

570-459: A general blueprint for the stages of constitutional development of all homelands (except Transkei) from the establishment of Territorial Authorities up to full independence. By 1984, all ten homelands in South Africa had attained self-government and four of them ( Transkei , Boputhatswana , Venda and Ciskei ) had been declared fully independent between 1976 and 1981. The following table shows

665-480: A handful of other ostensible homelands never being given autonomy. A new constitution effectively abolished the Bantustans with the complete end of apartheid in South Africa in 1994. Beginning in 1913, successive white-minority South African governments established "reserves" for the black population in order to racially segregate them from the white population , similar to the creation of Indian reservations in

760-513: A homeland; Afrikaans : Bantoestan ) was a territory that the National Party administration of South Africa set aside for black inhabitants of South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia ), as a part of its policy of apartheid . The term, first used in the late 1940s, was coined from Bantu (meaning "people" in some of the Bantu languages ) and -stan (a suffix meaning "land" in

855-496: A number of affairs like land tenure, agriculture, education up to the level of primary school teachers' training, health services and social welfare and pensions) on the basis of ethnicity only and no longer based on geographically defined areas. Building upon institutions that had already been in existence since 1925 and 1962, respectively, representative authorities were also instituted for the white and Coloured population groups. No such representative authorities were established for

950-442: A principle remained in force, and the apartheid regime went on to rely on the Bantustans as one of the main pillars of its policy in dealing with the black population. Until 1990, attempts continued to urge self-governing homelands to opt for independence (e.g. Lebowa, Gazankulu and KwaZulu) and on occasion the governments of self-governing homelands (e.g. KwaNdebele) themselves expressed interest in obtaining eventual independence. It

1045-546: A rejection of the Bantustan system in general: the goal of the apartheid regime during the second half of the 1980s was to "modernize" the organisational framework of apartheid while leaving its fundamental principles, including the homelands, unchanged. The government was forced to accept the permanent presence of blacks in urban areas as well as the practical unfeasibility of the hitherto very strict forms of "influx control" (replacing it by "softer" means of control), not to mention

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1140-518: A role in South African politics since their abolition. Some had entered their own parties into the first non-racial election while others joined the ANC. Mangosuthu Buthelezi was chief minister of his KwaZulu homeland from 1976 until 1994. In post-apartheid South Africa he has served as president of the Inkatha Freedom Party and Minister of Home Affairs. Bantubonke Holomisa , who was a general in

1235-631: A series of "grand apartheid" measures such as the Group Areas Acts and the Natives Resettlement Act, 1954 that reshaped South African society such that whites would be the demographic majority. The creation of the homelands or Bantustans was a central element of this strategy, as the long-term goal was to make the Bantustans independent. As a result, blacks would lose their South African citizenship and voting rights, allowing whites to remain in control of South Africa. The term "Bantustan" for

1330-399: A society relatively free from racial discrimination. The leaders of the Bantustans, despite their collaboration with the apartheid regime, occasionally criticized the South African government's racial policies and called for the repeal or softening of apartheid laws (most of which were repealed in nominally independent states). Various plans for a federal solution were at times mooted, both by

1425-475: A spirit of friendship and collaboration. In their own areas, black citizens would enjoy full rights." Verwoerd argued that the Bantustans were the "original homes" of the black peoples of South Africa. In 1951, the government of Daniel François Malan introduced the Bantu Authorities Act to establish "homelands" allocated to the country's black ethnic groups. These amounted to 13% of the country's land,

1520-488: A time. On the other hand, only 40% of Bophuthatswana's population worked outside the 'homeland' because the homeland was able to create industrial sites like Zone 15 and Babelegi. The homelands were extremely unpopular among the urban black population, many of whom lived in squalor in slum housing . Their working conditions were often equally poor, as they were denied any significant rights or protections in South Africa proper. The allocation of individuals to specific homelands

1615-669: Is Swahili , with 16 million native speakers and 80 million L2 speakers (2015). Most native speakers of Swahili live in Tanzania , where it is a national language, while as a second language, it is taught as a mandatory subject in many schools in East Africa, and is a lingua franca of the East African Community . Other major Bantu languages include Lingala with more than 20 million speakers ( Congo , DRC ), followed by Zulu with 13.56 million speakers ( South Africa ), Xhosa at

1710-493: Is estimated at between 440 and 680 distinct languages, depending on the definition of "language" versus "dialect" . Many Bantu languages borrow words from each other, and some are mutually intelligible . Some of the languages are spoken by a very small number of people, for example the Kabwa language was estimated in 2007 to be spoken by only 8500 people but was assessed to be a distinct language. The total number of Bantu speakers

1805-551: Is estimated to be around 350 million in 2015 (roughly 30% of the population of Africa or 5% of the world population ). Bantu languages are largely spoken southeast of Cameroon , and throughout Central , Southern , Eastern , and Southeast Africa . About one-sixth of Bantu speakers , and one-third of Bantu languages, are found in the Democratic Republic of the Congo . The most widely spoken Bantu language by number of speakers

1900-1174: Is hampered by insufficient data. Simplified phylogeny of northwestern branches of Bantu by Grollemund (2012): A40-50-60-70: Basaa languages , Bafia languages , Mbam languages , Beti language A10-20-30: Sawabantu languages , Manenguba languages A80-90: Makaa–Njem languages B20: Kele languages B10: Myene language B30: Tsogo languages C10-20-30: Ngondi–Ngiri languages , Mboshi languages , Bangi–Ntomba languages C40-D20-D32: Bati–Angba languages , Lega–Binja languages , Bira language B80-C60-70-80: Boma–Dzing languages , Soko languages , Tetela languages , Bushoong languages B40-H10-30-B50-60-70: Sira languages , Kongo languages , Yaka languages , Nzebi languages , Mbete languages , Teke languages L10-H40: Pende languages , Hungana language C50-D10: Soko languages , Lengola language D10-20-30-40-JD50: Mbole–Enya languages , Komo–Bira languages , Shi–Havu languages Other computational phylogenetic analyses of Bantu include Currie et al. (2013), Grollemund et al. (2015), Rexova et al. 2006, Holden et al., 2016, and Whiteley et al. 2018. Glottolog ( 2021 ) does not consider

1995-661: Is likely the innovative line cladistically . Northwest Bantu is not a coherent family, but even for Central Bantu the evidence is lexical, with little evidence that it is a historically valid group. Another attempt at a detailed genetic classification to replace the Guthrie system is the 1999 "Tervuren" proposal of Bastin, Coupez, and Mann. However, it relies on lexicostatistics , which, because of its reliance on overall similarity rather than shared innovations , may predict spurious groups of conservative languages that are not closely related . Meanwhile, Ethnologue has added languages to

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2090-543: Is mainly geographic. The term "narrow Bantu" was coined by the Benue–Congo Working Group to distinguish Bantu as recognized by Guthrie, from the Bantoid languages not recognized as Bantu by Guthrie. In recent times, the distinctiveness of Narrow Bantu as opposed to the other Southern Bantoid languages has been called into doubt, but the term is still widely used. There is no true genealogical classification of

2185-454: Is the extensive use of affixes (see Sotho grammar and Ganda noun classes for detailed discussions of these affixes). Each noun belongs to a class , and each language may have several numbered classes, somewhat like grammatical gender in European languages. The class is indicated by a prefix that is part of the noun, as well as agreement markers on verb and qualificative roots connected with

2280-468: The Bantu homelands was intended to draw a parallel with the creation of Pakistan and India (" Hindustan "), which had taken place just a few months before at the end of 1947, and was coined by supporters of the policy. However, it quickly became a pejorative term, with the National Party preferring the term "homelands". As Nelson Mandela explained in a 1959 article: The newspapers have christened

2375-851: The Cape Province for the Xhosa nation. KwaZulu, for the Zulu nation in the Province of Natal , was headed by a member of the Zulu royal family chief Mangosuthu ("Gatsha") Buthelezi in the name of the Zulu king. Lesotho and Eswatini (formerly known as Swaziland) were not Bantustans; they have been independent countries and former British protectorates. These countries are mostly or entirely surrounded by South African territory and are almost totally dependent on South Africa. They have never had any formal political dependence on South Africa and were recognised as sovereign states by

2470-567: The Himba and San peoples (mainly occupying their former homelands of Kaokoland and Bushmanland). These ethnic second-tier governments were de facto suspended in May 1989, at the start of the transition to independence , and de jure abolished on 21 March 1990 (the day Namibia became independent) in accordance with Schedule 8 of the Constitution of Namibia . The Basters lobbied unsuccessfully to maintain

2565-581: The Inkatha Freedom Party , which was the ruling party of KwaZulu. But since especially the African National Congress made it clear that the principles of "one man - one vote" and a unitary state were non-negotiable, confederal schemes were eventually dropped. Because of this, the Inkatha Freedom Party threatened to boycott the April 1994 general election that ended apartheid and decided only in

2660-661: The Maluti a Phofung council where it is the largest opposition party. The Ximoko Party , which ruled Gazankulu, has a presence in local government in Giyani . Similarly, the former KwaNdebele chief minister George Mahlangu and others formed the Sindawonye Progressive Party which is one of the major opposition parties in Thembisile Hani Local Municipality and Dr JS Moroka Local Municipality (encompassing

2755-451: The Persian language and some Persian-influenced languages of western , central , southern Asia and Eastern Europe ). It subsequently came to be regarded as a disparaging term by some critics of the apartheid-era government's homelands . The Pretoria government established ten Bantustans in South Africa, and ten in neighbouring South West Africa (then under South African administration), for

2850-539: The bantustans , and the remainder of the land was called the Police Zone . Forthwith, all non-white people employed in the Police Zone became migrant workers , and pass laws were established to police movement in and out of the bantustans. The combined territory of all bantustans was roughly equal in size to the Police Zone. However, all bantustans were predominantly rural and excluded major towns. All harbours, most of

2945-486: The first democratic elections began) in terms of section 1(2) and Schedule 1 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1993 ("Interim Constitution"). The drive to achieve this was spearheaded by the African National Congress (ANC) as a central element of its programme of reform. Reincorporation was mostly achieved peacefully, although there was some resistance from the local elites, who stood to lose out on

Lebowa - Misplaced Pages Continue

3040-431: The (Narrow) Bantu languages. Until recently most attempted classifications only considered languages that happen to fall within traditional Narrow Bantu, but there seems to be a continuum with the related languages of South Bantoid. At a broader level, the family is commonly split in two depending on the reflexes of proto-Bantu tone patterns: many Bantuists group together parts of zones A through D (the extent depending on

3135-454: The Bantustan governments and by opposition parties in South Africa as well as circles inside the white ruling National Party. In January 1985, State President P. W. Botha declared that blacks in South Africa proper would no longer be deprived of South African citizenship in favour of Bantustan citizenship and that black citizens within the independent Bantustans could reapply for South African citizenship; F. W. de Klerk stated on behalf of

3230-434: The Bantustans differed from those in South Africa proper. The South African elite often took advantage of these differences, for example by constructing large casinos , such as Sun City in the homeland of Bophuthatswana . Bophuthatswana also possessed deposits of platinum , and other natural resources, which made it the wealthiest of the Bantustans. However, the homelands were only kept afloat by massive subsidies from

3325-740: The Bantustans. The government made clear that its ultimate aim was the total removal of the black population from South Africa. Connie Mulder , the Minister of Plural Relations and Development, told the House of Assembly on 7 February 1978: If our policy is taken to its logical conclusion as far as the black people are concerned, there will be not one black man with South African citizenship ... Every black man in South Africa will eventually be accommodated in some independent new state in this honourable way and there will no longer be an obligation on this Parliament to accommodate these people politically. But this goal

3420-541: The Executive Chief Minister of Lebowa. The following year of 1973 on 3 May Mokgoma's Lebowa National Party lost the first elections of the homeland to the Lebowa People's Party and Dr. Cedric Phatudi took over. He went on to win two more re-elections in 1978 and 1973 but died in his third term in 1987. ZT Seleka was announced as the interim leader of the homeland. After elections, Mogoboya Nelson Ramodike became

3515-587: The Executive Chief Minister until 1989 when the office became the Prime Ministry. On 24 April 1994 Nelson Ramodike resigned and the homeland had no active administration until 27 April when it was reintegrated into South Africa. The overwhelming majority of its territory became part of the newly formed province of the Northern Transvaal (now Limpopo) and a smaller portion formed the newly created Eastern Transvaal province (now Mpumalanga ). Districts of

3610-586: The Guthrie classification which Guthrie overlooked, while removing the Mbam languages (much of zone A), and shifting some languages between groups (much of zones D and E to a new zone J, for example, and part of zone L to K, and part of M to F) in an apparent effort at a semi-genetic, or at least semi-areal, classification. This has been criticized for sowing confusion in one of the few unambiguous ways to distinguish Bantu languages. Nurse & Philippson (2006) evaluate many proposals for low-level groups of Bantu languages, but

3705-577: The Motsweda Ba hurutshe-Boo-Manyane tribe of the Tswana and head of Bophuthatswana is president of the United Christian Democratic Party , effectively a continuation of the ruling party of the homeland. Oupa Gqozo , the last ruler of Ciskei , entered his African Democratic Movement in the 1994 elections but was unsuccessful. The Dikwankwetla Party , which ruled Qwaqwa , remains a force in

3800-569: The National Party during the 1987 general election that "every effort to turn the tide [of black workers] streaming into the urban areas failed. It does not help to bluff ourselves about this. The economy demands the permanent presence of the majority of blacks in urban areas... They cannot stay in South Africa year after year without political representation." In March 1990, de Klerk, who succeeded Botha as State President in 1989, announced that his government would not grant independence to any more Bantustans. However, These remarks were not meant as

3895-734: The Nationalists' plan as one for "Bantustans". The hybrid word is, in many ways, extremely misleading. It relates to the partitioning of India , after the reluctant departure of the British, and as a condition thereof, into two separate States, Hindustan and Pakistan. There is no real parallel with the Nationalists' proposals, for (a) India and Pakistan constitute two completely separate and politically independent States, (b) Muslims enjoy equal rights in India ; Hindus enjoy equal rights in Pakistan , (c) Partition

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3990-572: The Sesotho sa Lebowa word "Lebowa" which means "where you come from ". The name was chosen as a compromise between the various Sotho Sa Lebowa groups for which it was designed. The North Sotho National Unit was founded on 1 June 1960 in pursuance of separate development. It was created to be a homeland for Northern Sotho peoples such as Bapedi , Batlokwa , Babirwa, Banareng, Bahananwa, Balobedu , Bakone, Baroka, Bakgakga, Bahlaloga, Batau , Bakwena , Baphuthi, Batlou and many others. On 2 October 1972 it

4085-544: The South African Bantustans were independent— Transkei , Bophuthatswana , Venda , and Ciskei (the so-called "TBVC States"), but this declaration was never recognised by anti-apartheid forces in South Africa or by any international government. Other Bantustans (like KwaZulu , Lebowa , and QwaQwa ) were assigned "autonomy" but never granted "independence". In South West Africa, Ovamboland , Kavangoland , and East Caprivi were declared to be self-governing, with

4180-483: The South African government; for instance, by 1985 in Transkei , 85% of the homeland's income came from direct transfer payments from Pretoria . The Bantustans' governments were invariably corrupt and little wealth trickled down to the local populations, who were forced to seek employment as "guest workers" in South Africa proper. Millions of people had to work in often appalling conditions, away from their homes for months at

4275-562: The TBVC states) were intended to be fully sovereign. These areas received little attention from the colonial and later South African governments however, and were still very undeveloped. This greatly decreased these states' ability to govern and made them very reliant on the South African government. Throughout the existence of the independent Bantustans, South Africa remained the only country to recognise their independence. The South African government lobbied for their recognition. In 1976, leading up to

4370-491: The United States. The Natives Land Act, 1913 , limited blacks to seven percent of the land in the country. In 1936 the government planned to raise this to 13.6 percent of the land, but it was slow to purchase land and this plan was not fully implemented. When the National Party came to power in 1948, Minister for Native Affairs (and later Prime Minister of South Africa ) Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd built on this, introducing

4465-480: The Whites. The term "Bantustan" is therefore a complete misnomer, and merely tends to help the Nationalists perpetrate a fraud. "While apartheid was an ideology born of the will to survive or, put differently, the fear of extinction, Afrikaner leaders differed on how best to implement it. While some were satisfied with segregationist policies placing them at the top of a social and economic hierarchy, others truly believed in

4560-510: The adjective prefix ki- (representing the diminutive form of the word) and the verb subject prefix a- . Then comes perfect tense -me- and an object marker -ki- agreeing with implicit kitabu 'book' (from Arabic kitab ). Pluralizing to 'children' gives Vitoto vidogo vimekisoma ( Vana vadoko varikuverenga in Shona), and pluralizing to 'books' ( vitabu ) gives vitoto vidogo vimevisoma . Bantu words are typically made up of open syllables of

4655-580: The apartheid state apparatus and radical pro-apartheid groups like the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging . With the demise of the apartheid regime in South Africa in 1994, all Bantustans (both nominally independent and self-governing) were dismantled and their territories reincorporated into the Republic of South Africa with effect from 27 April 1994 (the day on which the Interim Constitution, which formally ended apartheid, came into force and

4750-465: The author) as Northwest Bantu or Forest Bantu , and the remainder as Central Bantu or Savanna Bantu . The two groups have been described as having mirror-image tone systems: where Northwest Bantu has a high tone in a cognate, Central Bantu languages generally have a low tone, and vice versa. Northwest Bantu is more divergent internally than Central Bantu, and perhaps less conservative due to contact with non-Bantu Niger–Congo languages; Central Bantu

4845-487: The autonomous status of Rehoboth , which had previously been autonomous under German rule , and Basterland. In the former Bantustan of East Caprivi , Lozi nationalists in 1999 launched an unsuccessful insurgency in an attempt to gain independence from Namibia. The land in the Bantustan territories fell to the Namibian state, and is today called "Communal Areas". Bantu languages The total number of Bantu languages

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4940-601: The beginning of a syllable can be readily observed in such languages as Shona, and the Makua languages . With few exceptions, such as Kiswahili and Rutooro , Bantu languages are tonal and have two to four register tones. Reduplication is a common morphological phenomenon in Bantu languages and is usually used to indicate frequency or intensity of the action signalled by the (unreduplicated) verb stem. Well-known words and names that have reduplication include: Repetition emphasizes

5035-471: The concept of "language". In addition, delegates at the African Languages Association of Southern Africa conference in 1984 reported that, in some places, the term Kintu has a derogatory significance. This is because kintu refers to "things" and is used as a dehumanizing term for people who have lost their dignity. In addition, Kintu is a figure in some mythologies. In the 1990s,

5130-473: The concept of 'separate but equal'. For the latter, the ideological justification for the classification, segregation, and denial of political rights was the plan to set aside special land reserves for black South Africans, later called 'bantustans' or 'homelands'. Each ethnic group would have its own state with its own political system and economy, and each would rely on its own labour force. These independent states would then coexist alongside white South Africa in

5225-424: The development of different "joint" institutions charged with mutual consultation, deliberation and a number of executive functions in relation to "general affairs" common to all population groups, insofar as these institutions would pose no threat to apartheid and the preservation of overall white rule. This "confederation" would include the so-called "common area"—meaning the bulk of South African territory outside of

5320-491: The entire population. Some other sources estimate the Bantu Expansion started closer to 3000 BC. The technical term Bantu, meaning "human beings" or simply "people", was first used by Wilhelm Bleek (1827–1875), as the concept is reflected in many of the languages of this group. A common characteristic of Bantu languages is that they use words such as muntu or mutu for "human being" or in simplistic terms "person", and

5415-603: The homeland of Transkei from 1987, has served as the president of the United Democratic Movement since 1997. General Constand Viljoen , an Afrikaner who served as chief of the South African Defence Force , sent 1,500 of his militiamen to protect Lucas Mangope and to contest the termination of Bophuthatswana as a homeland in 1994. He founded the Freedom Front in 1994. Lucas Mangope, former chief of

5510-472: The homelands was expanded in 1959 with the passage of the Bantu Self-Government Act , which set out a plan called " Separate Development ". This enabled the homelands to establish themselves in the long term as self-governing territories and ultimately as nominally fully "independent" states. This process was to be achieved in a series of four major steps for each homeland: This general framework

5605-450: The homelands—under continued white-minority rule and limited power-sharing arrangements with the segregated Coloured and Indian / Asian population groups, the independent and self-governing homelands as well as possible additional black entities in urban areas. From 1990 to 1994, these "confederational" ideas were in principle still entertained by large parts of the National Party (and in various forms also by certain parties and groups of

5700-480: The impossibility of a total removal of all blacks to the homelands even in the long run. It was hoping to "pacify" the black urban population by developing various plans to confer upon them limited rights at the local level (but not the upper levels of government). Furthermore, the urban (and rural) residential areas remained segregated based on race in accordance with the Group Areas Act . "Separate development" as

5795-489: The independence of their homelands: a majority was sceptical, remained cautious and avoided a definite decision, some outright rejected it due to their rejection of "separate development" and a professed commitment to "opposing apartheid from within the system", whilst others believed that nominal independence could serve to consolidate their power bases (to an even higher degree than the status they enjoyed as rulers of self-governing homelands) and presented an opportunity to build

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5890-504: The international community from the time they were granted their independence by the UK in the 1960s. In the 1960s, South Africa , which was administering South West Africa under a League of Nations mandate , came under increased international pressure regarding its minority white rule over the majority black population. The solution envisaged by South Africa—the Odendaal Plan —was to separate

5985-426: The largely mutually intelligible Kinyarwanda and Kirundi , which together have 20 million speakers. The similarity among dispersed Bantu languages had been observed as early as the 17th century. The term Bantu as a name for the group was not coined but "noticed" or "identified" (as Bâ-ntu ) by Wilhelm Bleek as the first European in 1857 or 1858, and popularized in his Comparative Grammar of 1862. He noticed

6080-445: The larger ethnolinguistic phylum named by 19th-century European linguists. Bleek's identification was inspired by the anthropological observation of groups frequently self-identifying as "people" or "the true people" (as is the case, for example, with the term Khoikhoi , but this is a kare "praise address" and not an ethnic name). The term narrow Bantu , excluding those languages classified as Bantoid by Malcolm Guthrie (1948),

6175-539: The last minute to participate in them after concessions had been made to them and as well as to the still-ruling National Party and several white opposition groups. In the period leading up to the elections in 1994, several leaders in the independent and self-governing homelands (e.g. in Boputhatswana ), who did not wish to relinquish their power, vehemently opposed the dismantling of the Bantustans and, in doing so, received support from white far-right parties, sections of

6270-489: The noun. Plurality is indicated by a change of class, with a resulting change of prefix. All Bantu languages are agglutinative . The verb has a number of prefixes, though in the western languages these are often treated as independent words. In Swahili , for example, Kitoto kidogo kimekisoma (for comparison, Kamwana kadoko karikuverenga in Shona language ) means 'The small child has read it [a book]'. kitoto 'child' governs

6365-553: The number of black citizens of South Africa. The process of creating the legal framework for this plan was completed by the Black Homelands Citizenship Act of 1970, which formally designated all black South Africans as citizens of the homelands, even if they lived in "white South Africa", and cancelled their South African citizenship, and the Bantu Homelands Constitution Act of 1971, which provided

6460-414: The older geographic classification by Guthrie relevant for its ongoing classification based on more recent linguistic studies, and divides Bantu into four main branches: Bantu A-B10-B20-B30 , Central-Western Bantu , East Bantu and Mbam-Bube-Jarawan . Guthrie reconstructed both the phonemic inventory and the vocabulary of Proto-Bantu. The most prominent grammatical characteristic of Bantu languages

6555-480: The opportunities for wealth and political power provided by the homelands. The dismantling of the homelands of Bophuthatswana and Ciskei was particularly difficult. In Ciskei, South African security forces had to intervene in March 1994 to defuse a political crisis. From 1994, most parts of the country were constitutionally redivided into new provinces . Nevertheless, many leaders of former Bantustans or Homelands have had

6650-507: The other independent Bantustans while South Africa showed its commitment to the notion of TBVC sovereignty by building embassies in the TBVC capitals. The Bantustans were generally poor, with few local employment opportunities. However, some opportunities did exist for advancement for blacks and some advances in education and infrastructure were made. The four Bantustans which attained nominal independence (Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda, and Ciskei) repealed all apartheid legislation. Laws in

6745-522: The peoples involved were Khoisan , not Bantu, and the Rehoboth Basters are a complex case. Of these ten South West African homelands, only three were granted self-government (comparable to the Bantustans in South Africa) between 1973 and 1976. In July 1980, the system was changed to one of separate governments ("representative authorities") as second-tier administrative units (responsible for

6840-407: The plural prefix for human nouns starting with mu- (class 1) in most languages is ba- (class 2), thus giving bantu for "people". Bleek, and later Carl Meinhof , pursued extensive studies comparing the grammatical structures of Bantu languages. The most widely used classification is an alphanumeric coding system developed by Malcolm Guthrie in his 1948 classification of the Bantu languages. It

6935-415: The province and population at the 1991 census. Moutse district was seized from Lebowa in 1980 and was, despite violent resistance, officially integrated into KwaNdebele . 24°18′26″S 29°34′45″E  /  24.30722°S 29.57917°E  / -24.30722; 29.57917 Bantustan A Bantustan (also known as a Bantu homeland, a black homeland, a black state or simply known as

7030-631: The purpose of concentrating the members of designated ethnic groups, thus making each of those territories ethnically homogeneous as the basis for creating autonomous nation states for South Africa's different black ethnic groups . Under the Bantu Homelands Citizenship Act of 1970, the government stripped black South Africans of their South African citizenship, depriving them of their few remaining political and civil rights in South Africa, and declared them to be citizens of these homelands. The government of South Africa declared that four of

7125-514: The railway network and the tarred road infrastructure, all larger airports, the profitable diamond areas and the national parks were situated in the Police Zone. Beginning in 1968, following the 1964 recommendations of the commission headed by Fox Odendaal , ten homelands similar to those in South Africa were established in South West Africa (present-day Namibia ). The term "Bantustan" is somewhat inappropriate in this context, since some of

7220-425: The remainder being reserved for the white population. The homelands were run by cooperative tribal leaders, while uncooperative chiefs were forcibly deposed. Over time, a ruling black elite emerged with a personal and financial interest in the preservation of the homelands. While this aided the homelands' political stability to an extent, their position was still entirely dependent on South African support. The role of

7315-496: The repeated word in the context that it is used. For instance, "Mwenda pole hajikwai," means "He who goes slowly doesn't trip," while, "Pole pole ndio mwendo," means "A slow but steady pace wins the race." The latter repeats "pole" to emphasize the consistency of slowness of the pace. As another example, "Haraka haraka" would mean "hurrying just for the sake of hurrying" (reckless hurry), as in "Njoo! Haraka haraka" [come here! Hurry, hurry]. In contrast, there are some words in some of

7410-464: The result is not a complete portrayal of the family. Glottolog has incorporated many of these into their classification. The languages that share Dahl's law may also form a valid group, Northeast Bantu . The infobox at right lists these together with various low-level groups that are fairly uncontroversial, though they continue to be revised. The development of a rigorous genealogical classification of many branches of Niger–Congo, not just Bantu,

7505-410: The term Kintu was still occasionally used by South African linguists. But in contemporary decolonial South African linguistics, the term Ntu languages is used. Within 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

7600-546: The term 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

7695-500: The territory of the former homeland). The homelands are listed below with the ethnic group for which each homeland was designated. Four were nominally independent (the so-called TBVC states of the Transkei , Bophuthatswana , Venda and the Ciskei ). The other six had limited self-government: The first Bantustan was the Transkei, under the leadership of Chief Kaiser Daliwonga Matanzima in

7790-417: The time-frame of the institutional and legal development of the ten South African Bantustans in light of the above-mentioned four major steps: In parallel with the creation of the homelands, South Africa's black population was subjected to a massive programme of forced relocation. It has been estimated that 3.5 million people were forced from their homes from the 1960s through the 1980s, many being resettled in

7885-449: The type CV (consonant-vowel) with most languages having syllables exclusively of this type. The Bushong language recorded by Vansina , however, has final consonants, while slurring of the final syllable (though written) is reported as common among the Tonga of Malawi. The morphological shape of Bantu words is typically CV, VCV, CVCV, VCVCV, etc.; that is, any combination of CV (with possibly

7980-541: The white and the non-white population, grant self-government to the isolated black territories, and thus make whites the majority population in the vast remainder of the country. Moreover, it was envisaged that, by separating each ethnic group and confining people by law to their restricted areas, discrimination by race would automatically disappear. The inspiration for the Odendaal Plan came, in part, from South African anthropologists. The demarcated territories were called

8075-429: The white liberal opposition), but their overtly race-based foundations gradually became less pronounced in the course of the negotiations to end apartheid, and the focus shifted to securing "minority rights" (having in mind primarily the white population in particular) after an expected handover of power to the black majority. Federalist plans also met with support from some homeland governments and parties, most importantly

8170-406: The word "school", borrowed from English, and then transformed to fit the sound patterns of this language, is sukulu . That is, sk- has been broken up by inserting an epenthetic -u- ; -u has also been added at the end of the word. Another example is buledi for "bread". Similar effects are seen in loanwords for other non-African CV languages like Japanese . However, a clustering of sounds at

8265-441: Was also contemplated in circles of the ruling National Party to create additional nominally independent entities in the urban areas in the form of "independent" black "city-states". The long-term vision during this time was the creation of some form of a multi-racial "confederation of South African states" with a common citizenship, but separated into racially defined areas. Plans were made (of which only very few were realised) for

8360-515: Was granted internal self-governance and renamed Lebowa. Beginning in the 1950s through to the 1970s, thousands of people were forcibly removed from their communities and relocated to Lebowa. The first black leader of the territory was Mokgoma Maurice Matlala who was handpicked by the apartheid authorities. He first led the North Sotho National Unit as its Executive Chief Councillor from August 1969 to 2 October 1972 at which point he became

8455-552: Was introduced in the 1960s. The prefix ba- specifically refers to people. Endonymically, the term for cultural objects, including language, is formed with the ki- noun class (Nguni ísi- ), as in KiSwahili (Swahili language and culture), IsiZulu (Zulu language and culture) and KiGanda (Ganda religion and culture). In the 1980s, South African linguists suggested referring to these languages as KiNtu. The word kintu exists in some places, but it means "thing", with no relation to

8550-563: Was not achieved. Only a minority (about 39% in 1986 ) of South Africa's black population lived in the Bantustans; the remainder lived in South Africa proper, many in townships , shanty-towns and slums on the outskirts of South African cities. Bantustans within the borders of South Africa were classified as "self-governing" or "independent". In theory, self-governing Bantustans had control over many aspects of their internal functioning but were not yet sovereign nations. Independent Bantustans (Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda and Ciskei; also known as

8645-567: Was not contiguous, being divided into two major and several minor portions. Even though Lebowa included large swathes of Sekukuniland and was seen as a home for the Northern Sotho speaking ethnic groups such as the Pedi people , it was also home to various non-Northern Sotho speaking tribes, including the Northern Ndebele , Batswana and VaTsonga . The name "Lebowa" is an archaic spelling of

8740-409: Was not in each case followed in a clear-cut way, but often with a number of intermediate and overlapping steps. The homeland of Transkei served in many regards as a "testing ground" for apartheid policies; its institutional development started already before the 1959 act, and its attainment of self-government and independence were therefore implemented earlier than for the other homelands. This plan

8835-444: Was often quite arbitrary. Many individuals were assigned to homelands they did not originate from, and the designation of an individual as part of a particular ethnic group was often arbitrary, especially for individuals with mixed ancestry. Bantustan leaders were widely perceived as collaborators with the apartheid system, although some were successful in acquiring a following. Most homeland leaders had an ambivalent stance regarding

8930-437: Was stepped up under Verwoerd's successor as prime minister, John Vorster , as part of his "enlightened" approach to apartheid. However, the true intention of this policy was to fulfill Verwoerd's original plan to make South Africa's blacks nationals of the homelands rather than of South Africa—thus removing the few rights they still had as citizens. The homelands were encouraged to opt for independence, as this would greatly reduce

9025-455: Was submitted to and approved by both parties, or at any rate fairly widespread and influential sections of each. The Government's plans do not envisage the partitioning of this country into separate, self-governing States. They do not envisage equal rights, or any rights at all, for Africans outside the reserves. Partition has never been approved of by Africans and never will be. For that matter it has never been really submitted to or approved of by

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