The Bantu languages : an appraisal

The fact that the Bantu languages are related was first mentioned in a short publication by Martin Heinrich Lichtenstein (Berlin) in 1811. Very few Bantu languages were known at that time: only Kongo (Kikongo) as it was spoken at the mouth of the Zaire river, and some languages of southern Africa, on which a few notes were published in the Narrative of an Expedition by Captain J. K. Tucker in 1818, but which were written originally by William Marsden (probably in 1808) and possibly published separately.