IN East Asia, there are many words that are of African origin.
These stand as evidence that there were once Africans inhabiting that land.
Many Chinese words sound like chiShona without as much stressing of vowels and some seem to be halved versions of Shona words.
For example, the Chinese word for tree or wood is mu which sounds like muti in chiShona.
The Chinese word for lion is shi which sounds like shumba.
Gu is the Chinese word for drum and sounds like the Shona word ngoma.
There are also words like long which mean emperor/lord in Chinese and sound like lungu/rungu, which means God in Nyanja and lord/master in chiShona.
The Remba word for their sacred object which is thought to be the Ark of the Covenant was lungundu which sounds like the Chinese phrase longde, which literally means the lord’s (object).
Similarly, the word tenzi which means master and is affectionately attributed to messianic figures like Christ is similar to the Chinese word tianzi which means son of heaven.
The Chinese word for stupid person is benzi, which is identical to the Shona word benzi which means mad man/woman.
Baba and mama mean father and mother respectively in both chiShona and Chinese.
In Japan which is further east from China, the word for morning is gozen which sounds like the Shona word kuseni.
The Japanese word for evening is banheru which sounds like the Shona word for evening, namely manheru.
In many cases with the Japanese language, it seems as if antonyms were exchanged between the two languages.
Thus the Japanese word for yes namely hayi, sounds like the Karanga/ Ndebele word for no, hayi.
The Japanese word for no is iye, which sounds like the Shona word for yes, namely ehe.
Koko in Japanese means here (hither) yet in chiShona it would mean there (yonder).
Verbally, Japanese sounds most like chiShona and has words like tanaka (tanake) and amai which mean field and sweet as opposed to ‘we are good’ and mother in chiShona.
Though the meanings are different, like sounding words exist in Shona and this makes Japanese sound very much like Shona.
Words like samurai, oishi, sakana, hataraki, yokohama and so on seem fit to enter the Shona language because of the identical way that the languages are spoken.
Closer to home in India, snakes are called naga which is similar to nyoka. A shaman or genie is called naga which is similar to the Shona word n’anga.
A lion is called simha which is similar to simba, the Swahili/ Ndebele word for lion.
Even closer in Arabia, the word for lion is sumah which is similar to shumba, and is found in names like Osama which mean the lion.
Many Buddhist terms have a Shona derivative.
For example the word buddha which literally means to escape was the derived from buda, which means to get out in Shona.
A Buddha is one who escapes the endless cycle of ignorance and spiritual blindness.
Words such as sadhana which literally mean invoking a spirit are rooted in the Shona word dana which literally means to call upon.
A magic wand is called danda in Sanskrit which means stick or piece of wood in chiShona.
The word for Buddhist law is dharma which resembles the Shona word dama which literally means cheek but functionally means sound advice.
It is one thing to see artifacts of blacks in Asia along with technology and animals from Africa which these blacks apparently introduced to those distant lands.
But to have African words being used by the contemporary inhabitants of Asia after thousands of years is compelling evidence that indeed there were black people living in those lands.
The linguistic connections discussed above can be found in places like India, Nepal, Burma, China, Japan and also Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand.
These places are riddled with statues and images of blacks and even more convincing, the availability of blacks in those lands is still evident.
In Taiwan, short statured blacks that were for some time responsible for darkening the Mongol population of the Saisiyat tribe were reportedly exterminated after acts of ethnic cleansing.
These could still be found during the Qing dynasty (1644 – 1911 CE) and their memory is honoured almost on an annual basis by the above named tribe on the 10th full moon of each lunar year.
They head to their ancestral homelands, they make merry with song and dance and are forbidden from fighting.
The Sasiyat tribe believes that if they seize honouring these blacks they will have bad omen such as no rains.
Seeing that these blacks were reportedly short, it is logical to assume that they were the descendants of the first inhabitants of East Asia who belonged to the early human family comprising the Bushmen and Pygmy races.
It is probably them who left the African words that can now be found in those distant lands. Though the blacks of Taiwan were completely wiped off the face of the earth due to fear that they would darken the population, remnants of them can still be found in Japan, Thailand and Vietnam.
There are short statured blacks in these lands, some now mixed with the Mongol population but still retaining features such as dark skin, broad nostrils and kinky hair.
It is this same stock which would settle in Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand.
After these came another wave of blacks who were described as giants in places like Cambodia.
These were responsible for the emergence of the Naga race from which the Buddhas came from.
These were also indistinguishable to the contemporary African that is called Negro Bantu. These would also have been equally responsible for the introduction of Shona sounding words to Asia and Asian words to Africa.
The existence of words like lungundu (longde) and tenzi (tianzi) which we described earlier and also Changamire (zhang-amir) which is Chinese-Arabic for leader/ lord in Zimbabwe is evidence that suggests that some of these blacks of Asia may have returned to Africa after staying in the Far East.
Groups such as the Remba have this legacy and heritage of hailing from the east.
In so doing, they bury their deceased facing east. Names like Sadiki, Hamisi, Buba, Seremani, Haji, Dhavadhava, Jama and so on which have mostly Shemitic roots are therefore evident among the ancestors of the Remba tribe.