Mbunda
/ˈmˌbuːndə/noun
The name of a Bantu-speaking people of western Zambia and southeastern Angola, and of their language.
Did you know?The Mbunda established the historic Mbunda Kingdom, remembered in oral traditions and ceremonies including the annual Likumbi Lya Mize cultural festival in Zambia.
Etymological Timeline
Early first millennium CE
Proto-Bantu
*ba-ntu
“Reconstructed plural form meaning “people”; Mbunda belongs to the wider Bantu linguistic world, though its specific name is not securely derived from this root.”
Medieval period
Bantu languages
Mbunda
“An ethnonym and language name developing within the Bantu-speaking regions of south-central Africa; the word’s precise internal etymology is uncertain.”
17th–18th Century
Mbunda oral tradition
Mbunda Kingdom
“The name is associated with a kingdom traditionally located in the region of present-day southeastern Angola and western Zambia.”
19th Century
European records
Mbunda
“The ethnonym appears in colonial-era geographic and ethnographic accounts concerning peoples west of the upper Zambezi.”
Modern English
English
Mbunda
“A proper noun referring primarily to the Mbunda people, their language, and their historical kingdom.”