Bemba Language - History

History

The Bemba people are descendants of inhabitants of the Luba kingdom, which existed in what is now the Katanga province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and in north-eastern Zambia.

Since British rule, English has been Zambia's main literary language, and is now its only official language. However, the Bemba language has played a prominent political role. Zambia's first president, Kenneth Kaunda, though Malawian by descent, was raised in a Bemba-speaking community, and every Zambian president since has been a Bemba-speaker. In the years after the MMD took power in 1991, it was accused numerous times of promoting Bemba over other regional languages in the country.

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