Ubuntu (philosophy)

Ubuntu (/ʊˈbuːntʊ/ uu-BOON-tuu; Zulu pronunciation: [ùɓúntʼù]) is a Nguni Bantu term meaning "humanity". It is often also translated as "humanity towards others", but is often used in a more philosophical sense to mean "the belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity".

In Southern Africa, it has come to be used as a term for a kind of humanist philosophy, ethic, or ideology, also known as Ubuntuism propagated in the Africanisation (transition to majority rule) process of these countries during the 1980s and 1990s.

Since the transition to democracy in South Africa with the Nelson Mandela presidency in 1994, the term has become more widely known outside of Southern Africa, notably popularised to English language readers by Desmond Tutu.

The term ubuntu appears in South African sources from as early as the mid-19th century. Reported translations covered the semantic field of "human nature, humanness, humanity; virtue, goodness, kindness". Grammatically, the word combines the root "person, human being" with the class 14 prefix forming abstract nouns, so that the term is exactly parallel in formation to the abstract noun .

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