In earlier lessons we have learned the words bokonzi and bolingo. Along with the word bomoi, these words are nouns that are an abstract idea, that is they don’t physically exist as things so as a human or a car does.
In many cases, abstract are formed from other words in Lingala. You can see that those three words have the prefix bo– and generally they don’t have a different plural form.
The word bolingo is derived from the word –ling– meaning to love. Therefore bolingo means is the quality of love. Similarly, the word bokonzi comes from one of our new vocabulary words: mokonzi, meaning chief or king. These two examples show us that abstract nouns are normally formed by simply replacing the prefix of the original word with the bo– prefix.
n the following table notice some other abstract nouns that can be formed:
| malamu | good, well | bolamu | goodness |
| monene | great, big | bonene | greatness, bigness |
| elenge | young person, youth | bolenge | youth (abstract – i.e. in our youth) |
| moko | one | bomoko | oneness, unity |
| moto | person | bomoto | personality, character |
Notice in the last two examples, the prefix bo– is put in front of the regular prefix mo-. This only happens occasionally in Lingala and is often done when the word is a shorter word in length.
Many other words can be formed in this way. Look out for others in the coming lessons.
Note: The word bomoi doesn’t have a word that is is derived from, but it does share the same abstract idea as life is not a physical thing we can point to.