Guthrie was a foremost professor of Bantu languages at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London.
Together with the Belgian linguist Achille Émile Meeussen (1912–1978), he is regarded as one of the two leading Bantu specialists of the second half of the 20th century.
[1] Malcolm Guthrie was born in Hove, Sussex, England, the son of a Scottish father and a mother of Dutch extraction.
The 4 volumes provide not only a genetic classification but also a reconstruction of Proto-Bantu as the Proto-language of the Bantu language family.
[3] Guthrie also published extensively on a wide range of Bantu languages, including Lingala, Bemba, Mfinu, and Teke.