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class="post-22239 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-adjectives category-lessons">
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Adjectives and their Plurals

As we have already seen with both nouns and verbs, plural forms of adjectives in Lingala also change the prefix of a word. In the case of adjectives the prefix is mo– which becomes mi-, if the adjective can be pluralized. Additionally, the adjective usually is plural if the noun is plural. Notice the following examples:

moto monene
bato minene

Notice in the first example we have the singular moto and then monene, meaning great person (literally: person great). In the second we pluralise: moto becomes bato and monene becomes minene to harmonise with the plural noun and the meaning becomes great people (literally: people great). This is a little unusual for English speakers, but with a little practice it becomes natural to do.

In Lingala there are few ‘proper’ adjectives. One of the others is moke, meaning small or little. However, even though there are few adjectives, Lingala solves this problem by using nouns in a way to pass the meaning of the noun as a description of the main object or subject. Notice this example using another one of our new words for this lesson:

moto ya bolingo

Here, bolingo means love, not as a verb, but as a noun, as a quality. So the phrase means literally a person of love. But because we use the word ya we are passing the noun bolingo as if it is descriptive of the subject noun moto. In this way the phrase means a loving person.

Occasionally Lingala will also use proper adjectives along with the word ya. Notice the following phrases:

moto mabe
moto ya mabe

Both these phrases can be used to mean a bad person or wicked person. They are used interchangeably in Lingala, though at times using ya provides more emphasis of the adjective.

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Using the Dictionary

An important part to learning any language is the ability to learn what new words mean. For Lingala this can be a challenge, as there are few published dictionaries, and many that are fall into two categories: old or incomplete.

As you will have already seen, we have an online dictionary available on this website, which is being updated continually. Understanding how it and other dictionaries work is important for us to make good use of them.

In a Lingala dictionary, it is normal for words to be listed in their singular form. The exception to this is verbs which are normally listed by their root, often with an ‘a’ placed on the end. They often have a hyphen (-) placed before the root.

Let’s demonstrate some examples of this:

Word to DefineWord to Search
nalingi–linga
batomoto
kokufa–kufa
minenemonene
mokemoke

In some electronic dictionaries (online or electronic files) it is possible to search. Using the search feature is the quickest way of finding the word you want to learn.

On this site, you can search for both English and Lingala words, and the system will also try and help with plural forms of words, as well as handle verbs where possible.

Practice using it to help you get more familiar with what it contains.

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Vocabulary – Part 3

This lesson introduces some words that will let us add a few more verbs and nouns. Don’t forget that you now know all the adjectives and nouns you have learned in the previous two lessons.

bolingolovenoun
bukubooknoun
esengojoynoun
–kufato dieverb
lisusuagain, in addition toadverb
–lobato speak, talkverb
mabeléearth, ground, soilnoun
makasistrong, hardadjective
mamamothernoun
mingivery, many, muchadjective
mokesmall, littleadjective
mosusuother, anotheradjective
nguyapowernoun
nzelaway, route, roadnoun
–pesato giveverb
–sepelato enjoyverb
solotruth, truenoun
–tangato read, countverb
tatafathernoun
–teyato teachverb
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Noun Prefix Classes (Plurals)

We have already learned a number of nouns in the preceding two lessons, but so far they have all been in the singular form. How do we say the plural form of nouns in Lingala?

Lingala (as is true of a number of African languages) makes changes not to the suffix – or end – of a word, but rather to the prefix – or start – of a word. Notice the following examples:

bomoi lifebomoi lives
likambo thingmakambo things
mobali man/husbandmibali men/husbands
moto personbato persons/people
mwana childbana children
mwasi woman/wifebasi women/wives
nkombo namebankombo names
nsango news (singular)bansango news (plural)
ntango timentango times
nzambe godbanzambe gods

Notice the way the prefix changes to make the word plural. Though it may at first seem random and unrelated, there is a consistency in how most plural nouns are created in Lingala. The following table which breaks down these plural classes or groups:

Singular
Prefix		Plural
Prefix		TypeExample
mo–ba–person/peoplemoto / bato
mo-mi–object (thing)motó / mitó
li–ma–idea (thing)likambo / makambo
e–bi–object (thing)eloko / biloko
–ba–thing (nasal, nz-, mb-, etc.)nzambe / banzambe
lo–n–thinglokasa / nkasa
lo–ma–thingloboko / maboko

There are a few variations of these combinations, but generally most fall into one of these categories.

When we take the numbers that we learned earlier, we can start to use these plural nouns along with plural verbs (when needed) to create new sentences. See how the numbers are placed after the noun, just as we do with adjectives:

tozali na bana misatowe have three childrenwe are with children three
bato mibale basalitwo people workedpeople two they worked
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Important Verbs – Part 1


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