English words of African origin

• azawakh - probably from Fula or Tuareg. A breed of dog from West and North Africa
• banjo – probably Bantu mbanza
• basenji – breed of dog from Central Africa - Congo, Central African Republic etc. Also visible on Ancient Egyptian stelae.
• boma – from Swahili
• bwana – from Swahili, meaning a husband, important person or safari leader.
• chemistry - from Ancient Egyptian khemia meaning transmutation of earth
• chimpanzee – loaned in the 18th century from a Bantu language, possibly Kivili ci-mpenzi.^[1]
• dengue – possibly from Swahili dinga
• ebony - from Ancient Egyptian hebeni
• gerenuk - from Somali. A long-necked antelope in Eastern Africa (Kenya, Somalia, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Djibouti).
• gnu – from Khoisan !nu through Khoikhoi i-ngu and Dutch gnoe
• goober – possibly from Bantu (Kikongo and Kimbundu nguba)
• gumbo – from Bantu (Kimbundu ngombo 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)
• isis - from an Ancient Egyptian name for a god. Isis is a Greek transliteration. Asa occurs as the name for God in Kenyan languages. Isis appears in West Africa as Osu.
• jenga - from the Swahili word for 'build.'
• jumbo – from Swahili (jambo (hello) or from Kongo nzamba "elephant")
• kalimba—a type of thumb piano.
• Kwanzaa – recent coinage (Maulana Karenga 1965) as the name of an African American holiday, abstracted from a Swahili phrase matunda ya kwanza, meaning "first fruits [of the harvest]".
• kijiji - from Swahili for 'village,' 'hamlet' or 'small town.'
• laibon – from Maasai medicine-man. Used in Kenyan English.
• 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
• manyatta – from Maasai enclosure or compound
• marimba – from Bantu (Kimbundu and Swahili marimba, malimba)
• moran – from Maasai class structure for warrior. Used in Kenyan English.
• okapi – from a language in the Congo
• osiris - from an Ancient Egyptian god. Osiris is a Greek transliteration. Osiris occurs in the Luhya of Kenya as Siira - to cross and among the Kisii of Kenya as Osoro.
• 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.^[2]
• tsetse – from a Bantu language (Tswana tsetse, Luhya tsiisi)
• 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"), but alternatively derived from Spanish sombra "shade, ghost".

References