Lemba people
Sena | |
|---|---|
A Lemba man from the Gutu District | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| South Africa (esp. Limpopo Province), Malawi, Mozambique, | |
| Languages | |
| Presently Venda, IsiNdebele, Karanga and Pedi (Previously Old South Arabian languages) | |
| Religion | |
| Christianity, Islam, Judaism | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Swahili, Shirazi, Hadhrami |
The Lemba (Sena) are an ethnic group currently residing in South Africa, Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, tracing their paternal ancestry to Arabian traders from the Hadhramaut region of Yemen who established long-distance commercial networks along the East African coast from approximately the ninth century CE.
Genetic Y-DNA analyses have established a paternal West Asian origin for the majority of the Lemba male lineage, with the closest similarities found among Hadhrami Arab populations of Yemen. Matrilineal origins are exclusively sub-Saharan African. The most recent peer-reviewed genetic study (Soodyall, 2013) identifies Arab maritime traders rather than Jewish migrants as the most probable paternal ancestors.”