Bantu

The Nuttall Encyclopedia

The name of most of the races, with their languages, that occupy Africa from 6° N. lat. to 20° S.; are negroid rather than negro, being in several respects superior; the name, however, suggests rather a linguistic than an ethnological distinction, the language differing radically from all other known forms of speech—the inflection, for one thing, chiefly initial, not final.