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.