Ethnically, three main groups have to be distinguished, each speaking a Bantu language: the Ovimbundu who represent 37 % of the population, the ( Ambundu ) with 25 %, and the Bakongo 13 %.

The Bantu language with the largest total number of speakers is Swahili ; however, nearly all speakers know it as a second language.

** List of Bantu noun classes with reconstructed Proto-Bantu prefixes ( in French )

* List of Bantu language names with synonyms ordered by Guthrie number.

In his work, Meinhof looked at noun classes with all Bantu languages having at least 10 classes and with 22 classes of nouns existing throughout the Bantu languages, though his definition of noun class differs slightly from the accepted one, considering the plural form of a word as belonging to a different class from the singular form ( thus leading, for example, to consider a language like French as having four classes instead of two ).

Earlier Khoisan populations were absorbed by Bantu peoples, such as the Sotho and Nguni, but the Bantu expansion stopped at the region with winter rainfall.

The Khoisan traded with their Bantu neighbors, providing cattle, sheep, and hunted items.

Although the western stream Kalundu tradition was ancestral to Shona ceramic wares, the closest relationships of the ancestral Shona language according to many linguists were with a southern division of eastern Bantu – such languages as the southeastern languages ( Nguni, Sotho-Tswana, Tsonga ), Nyasa and Makwa.

While the term " impi " has become synonymous with the Zulu nation in international popular culture, it appears in various video games such as Civilization III, Civilization IV: Warlords and Civilization: Revolution, where the Impi is the unique unit for the Zulu faction with Shaka as their leader and also as an appearance as unique unit of the Bantu nation in Rise of Nation ( Zulus are among many tribes who make up the Bantu people ).

Swahili, a Bantu language with many Arabic loan words, developed as a lingua franca for trade between the different peoples.

It is primarily inhabited by Bantu and Nilotic populations, with some Cushitic ethnic minorities in the north.

The majority of the country's population belongs to various Bantu sub-groups, with a significant number of Nilotes.

The Swahili people are descended from Bantu peoples that intermarried with immigrant Arab and Persian traders.

While there have been some race-related tensions with the local Bantu and Nilotic majority, Indians nonetheless form one of the most prosperous communities in the region.

As with some Bantu groups, the Kipsigis and other Nilotes in the Great Lakes region have through interaction adopted many customs and practices from neighboring Southern Cushitic groups, including the age set system of social organization, circumcision, and vocabulary terms.

In this period a relation between Bantu and languages with Bantu-like ( but less complete ) noun class systems began to emerge.

The Meinhof numbering tends to be used in scientific works dealing with comparisons of different Bantu languages.

As with some Bantu groups, Nilotes in East Africa have through interaction adopted many customs and practices from neighboring Southern Cushitic groups.

As with some Bantu groups, the Kalenjin and other Nilotes in the Great Lakes region have through interaction adopted many customs and practices from neighboring Southern Cushitic groups.

As I dug in behind one of the bales we were using as protection, I grudgingly found myself agreeing with Oso's logic, especially when I imagined what would have happened to Missy if Old Knife's large party of screeching warriors had overrun our company.

An hour before, with the children asleep and nothing but the strange darkness, he would have appreciated company.

I have it with me, right here.

He couldn't afford to have anyone mess around with them, he said.

As he lowered himself on the chair behind his desk I wondered what this dapper, slightly ridiculous man could possibly have to do with the workings of the hall.

His presence would have interfered with her duty.

His face took on a sudden pallor, became beaded with sweat, and he seemed to have trouble with his breathing.

With Rod on his way and Matilda visiting with Mrs. Jackson while they searched out familiar names on the face of the cliff, Harmony settled on the edge of the grub box, to ease the pressure of her swollen body on her bone-weary legs, and worried about all that might have happened to Sally.

with more time I could have loosened a small burr or cotter pin --

Her form was silhouetted and with the strong light I could see the outlines of her body, a body that an artist or anyone else would have admired.

`` I might have starved, but at least I wouldn't be fried to a crisp and soaked with dirt ''!!

I'm sure that males have something to do with that process ''!!

I must have a powerful representative here, a firm with a national distribution and ten, twenty thousand dollars to advertise my products.

The only drawback now to the plan he'd decided on was that someone else might fail to do his work, too, and the teacher would have that person stay late along with Jack.

He must have fallen in with evil companions, for he was a simple youth and quite trusting and inexperienced.

They have pulled out all my teeth and now she will carve out my tongue with her hacksaw!!

Slug the kid, grab his dough -- at least enough to get to Philadelphia -- and then have a rockin' ball with the doll.

A Southerner married to a New Englander, I have lived for many years in a Connecticut commuting town with a high percentage of artists, writers, publicity men, and business executives of egghead tastes.

-- liberal considers that the need for a national economy with controls that will assure his conception of social justice is so great that individual and local liberties as well as democratic processes may have to yield before it.

Among Bourbons the racial issue may have less to do with their remaining unreconstructed than other factors.

Thus, to cite but one example, the Pax Britannica of the nineteenth century, whether with the British navy ruling the seas or with the City of London ruling world finance, was strictly national in motivation, however much other nations ( e.g., the United States ) may have incidentally benefited.

I have just asked these questions in the Pentagon, in the White House, in offices of key scientists across the country and aboard the submarines that prowl for months underwater, with neat rows of green launch tubes which contain Polaris missiles and which are affectionately known as `` Sherwood Forest ''.

Only one rule prevailed in my conversations with these men: The more highly placed they are -- that is, the more they know -- the more concerned they have become.