Bemba
/ˈbɛm.bɑː/noun
A Bantu language of Zambia and a related ethnic group; also a surname and place name in some contexts.
Did you know?Bemba is a genuine ethnonym and language name in Zambia, but its deeper prehistory is not securely reconstructible in standard reference works, so the safest etymology is historical-linguistic rather than mystical.
Etymological Timeline
Modern English
English
Bemba
“The name of a people and language in Zambia, and by extension a proper noun in English usage.”
19th–20th Century
English
Bemba
“Adopted into English through colonial and ethnographic records as the name of an ethnic group and language.”
Precolonial period
Bantu languages
Bemba
“The ethnonym used by the Bemba people themselves in Central Africa.”
Unknown / not securely reconstructed
Proto-Bantu
*bemba
“No standard scholarly reconstruction is securely established for this ethnonym.”