AmaNdebele are an ethnic group native to South Africa who speak isiNdebele. They mainly inhabit the provinces of Mpumalanga, Gauteng and Limpopo, all of which are in the northeast of the country.
In academia this ethnic group is referred to as the Southern Ndebele to differentiate it from their relatives the Northern Ndebele people of Limpopo and Northwest.
The women of Loopspruit Cultural Village, near Bronkhorstspruit, in front of a traditionally-painted Ndebele dwelling.
Traditional Ndebele architecture at Lesedi Cultural Village.
Bantu peoples of South Africa
Black South Africans also known as 'South African Bantu-speaking peoples represent the majority of people in South Africa and who have lived in what is now South Africa for thousands of years as an indigenous people alongside other indigenous groups like Khoisans. Occasionally grouped as Bantu, the term itself is derived from the English word "people", common to many of the Bantu languages. The Oxford Dictionary of South African English describes "Bantu", when used in a contemporary usage or racial context as "obsolescent and offensive", because of its strong association with the "white minority rule" with their Apartheid system. However, Bantu is used without pejorative connotations in other parts of Africa and is still used in South Africa as the group term for the language family.
One of the seven terracotta artifacts referred to as the Lydenburg heads (c. 500 CE)
Nelson Mandela (1918–2013), was a former and the first democratically elected president of South Africa, a Thembu (Xhosa ethnicity), one of the Bantu-speaking peoples of South Africa
The composition of the syllables of the words "Xilo" [ʃiːlɔ] "thing" in Xitsonga, "Vhathu" [βaːtʰu] "people" in Tshivenḓa and "Ho tlêtse" [hʊt͜ɬ’ɛːt͜s’ɪ] "It is full" in Sesotho, using Ditema syllabary
A Southern Ndebele artist signs her work on a finished wall.