•
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. •
dengue – possibly from
Swahili dinga •
goober – possibly from Bantu (
Kikongo and
Kimbundu nguba) •
gilo - from
Kimbundu njilu, via
Portuguese jiló •
gumbo – from Bantu (
Kimbundu ingombo, plural of
kingombo, 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) •
isango –
Zulu meaning gateway •
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. •
tsetse – from a Bantu language (
Tswana tsetse,
Luhya '''') •
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") ==Non-Bantu West African origin==