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Bantu refers to an African ethnic and linguistic group, numbering c120 million and inhabiting much of Africa south of the river Congo. There are almost a hundred Bantu languages, which include, for example, Swahili and Zulu. Most are tonal. The Bantu group of languages forms a subdivision of the Benue-Niger division of the Niger-Congo branch of the Niger-Kordofanian language family. African languages have been subject to scholarly interest particularly in the 20th century.