Bishop reportedly also comprehends a number of foreign languages (5)
I believe the answer is:
bantu
'languages' is the definition.
(I have seen 'African languages' mean 'bantu' so perhaps 'languages' could also mean 'bantu')
'bishop reportedly also comprehends a number of foreign' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'bishop' could be 'b' (abbreviation used in chess) and 'b' is found in the answer.
'a' could be 'an' and 'an' is located in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for bantu that I've seen before include "African language group" , "South African" , "Widely-spoken group of African languages" , "Language group including Swahili, Xhosa and Zulu" , "A language and people of Africa" .)