Bemba

Southern Africa

The Bemba are Zambia’s largest ethnic group, roughly a fifth of the population, concentrated in the country’s Northern, Luapula, and Copperbelt provinces. Oral tradition traces their origin to the Luba and Lunda states of the upper Congo basin, from which their ancestors migrated into present-day Zambia before 1740.

Did you know?

Bemba is Zambia's most widely spoken indigenous language and functions as a lingua franca among Zambians whose first languages differ, even though it's the mother tongue of only about a third of the population.

Proverbs (3)

Whatever you eat in the darkness of night will be seen in your vomit.

Whatever is eaten under cover of night still shows up later, in the open. The proverb applies that same logic to secrets and wrongdoing: what's done in the dark doesn't stay hidden, it just waits for the moment it becomes impossible to conceal.

One hand cannot pick lice from the head.

Picking lice out of hair takes more than one hand working alone, no matter how careful that hand is. The proverb uses this small, physical task to make a larger point: some work simply can't be finished by a single person, and pretending otherwise just leaves it undone.

To beat the head of a drum again, and again, and again.

One strike doesn't make music; it takes the same motion repeated, over and over, before the drum actually says anything. This proverb applies that same patient repetition to any goal worth reaching: consistency, not a single burst of effort, is what gets you there.

Names (4)

First names

Chilufya

Bemba for "the one who is lost".

Kasuba

Bemba for "sun".

Mumba

Bemba for "inside the house", a common Bemba and wider-Zambian given name and surname.

Ntanda

Bemba for "star".

Open in the app →