List of English words of Niger-Congo origin

This is a list of English language words that come from the Niger-Congo languages. It excludes placenames except where they have become common words.

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Bantu origin

• azawakh - probably from Fula or Tuareg. A breed of dog from West and North Africa
• banjo – probably Bantu mbanza
• basenji – breed of dog from the Congo
• boma – probably from Swahili
• bwana – from Swahili, meaning an important person or safari leader
• chimpanzee – loaned in the 18th century from a Bantu language, possibly Kivili ci-mpenzi.^[1]
• dengue – possibly from Swahili dinga
• gerenuk - from Somali
• gnu – from Bushman !nu through Khoikhoi i-ngu and Dutch gnoe
• goober – possibly from Bantu (Kikongo and Kimbundu nguba)
• gumbo – from Bantu (Kimbundu ngombo meaning "okra")
• impala – from Zulu im-pala
• impi – from Zulu language meaning war, battle or a regiment
• indaba – from Xhosa or Zulu languages – 'stories' or 'news' typically conflated with 'meeting' (often used in South African English)
• jumbo – from Swahili (jambo or jumbe or from Kongo nzamba "elephant")
• kalimba
• Kwanzaa – recent coinage (Maulana Karenga 1965) as the name of a "specifically African-American holiday", abstracted from a Swahili phrase matunda ya kwanza, meaning "first fruits [of the harvest]".
• lapa – from Sotho languages – enclosure or barbecue area (often used in South African English)
• macaque – from Bantu makaku through Portuguese and French
• mamba – from Zulu or Swahili mamba
• marimba – from Bantu (Kimbundu and Swahili marimba, malimba)
• okapi – from a language in the Congo
• safari – from Swahili travel, ultimately from Arabic
• sangoma – from Zulu – traditional healer (often used in South African English)
• Tilapia – Possibly a latinization "thiape", the Tswana word for fish.^[2]
• tsetse – from a Bantu language (Tswana tsetse, Luhya tsiisi)
• ubuntu – Nguni term for "mankind; humanity", in South Africa since the 1980s also used capitalized, Ubuntu, as the name of a philosophy or ideology of "human kindness" or "humanism".
• vuvuzela – musical instrument, name of Zulu or Nguni origin
• zebra – of unknown origin, recorded since c. 1600, possibly from a Congolese language, or alternatively from Amharic.
• zombie – likely from West African (compare Kikongo zumbi "fetish", Kimbundu nzambi "god"), but alternatively derived from Spanish sombra "shade, ghost".

Non-Bantu West African origin

• banana – West African, possibly Wolof banana
• bongo – West African boungu
• buckra – "white man or person", from Efik and Ibibio mbakara ^[3]
• chigger – possibly from Wolof and Yoruba jiga "insect")
• cola – from West African languages (Temne kola, Mandinka kolo)
• djembe – from West African languages
• jazz – from West African languages (Mandinka jasi, Temne yas)
• jive – possibly from Wolof jev
• juke, jukebox – possibly from Wolof and Bambara dzug through Gullah
• kwashiorkor – from Ga language, Coastal Ghana meaning "swollen stomach"
• Marímbula, plucked musical instrument (lamellophone) of the Caribbean islands
• merengue (dance) possibly from Fulani mererek i meaning to shake or quiver
• mumbo jumbo- from mandigo name Maamajombo, a masked dancer
• mojo – from Fula moco'o "medicine man" through Louisiana Creole French or Gullah
• obeah – from West African (Efik ubio, Twi ebayifo)
• okra – from Igbo ókùrù
• sambo – Fula sambo meaning "uncle"
• tango – probably from Ibibio tamgu
• tote – West African via Gullah
• voodoo – from West African languages (Ewe and Fon vodu "spirit")
• yam – West African (Fula nyami, Twi anyinam)

References

Notes

1. "chimpanzee" in American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2011.
2. Tilapia etymology
3. The Etymology of 'Buckaroo', Julian Mason, American Speech, Vol. 35, No. 1 (Feb., 1960), pp. 51–55,

Sources

• Online Etymology Dictionary
• Common words of African origin-William Megenney, University of California, Riverside
• The Impact of African Languages on American English
• African American Vernacular English Vocabulary
• English words have African roots