Another set of derivatives is made from the reversive form of the word, as kanga = to tie, mokangi = a tier, kangola = to untie, mokangoli = an untier; and this reversive form can give us derivatives built on its idea, as from kangolela = to untie for another, comes mokangoleli = one who unties for another; and from the causative kangolija = to cause to untie, comes mokangoliji = one who causes to untie; and, again, from the causative of its prepositional form kangolelija = to cause to untie something for someone, comes mokangoleliji = one who causes a person to untie something for or on behalf of another.
One could mention the stative and the passive forms of the verb with their respective prepositional and causative suffixes, each supplying their own series of derivatives; but I fear the reader would weary of them, and the student of African languages has now at his disposal many grammars of Bantu tongues that will fully satisfy his love for comparative language study. My only desire in these few paragraphs is to show that the natives of the Congo do not talk a gibberish like a lot of monkeys, but have at their disposal a magnificent language that excites the admiration of every student. And it will be seen that such complex languages are not to be mastered in a few weeks or months by any globe-trotter who has a fancy for African travel, for they demand time and constant study to appreciate their finesse, and special linguistic ability to master their details and accurately define the words collected, and the various derivatives discovered.
It must not be thought that for every verb all the various derivatives can be found, as for obvious reasons some derivatives are not required from some verbs, and other derivatives are not required from other verbs, e.g. the reversive verb tulola = to undo smithing, can be built on tula = to do smithing; but as such an idea as to undo smithing is ridiculous, hence no derivatives founded on the reversive form tulola are to be met with in the language. Smithing can be spoilt, and for that they have a word, but when once a knife is forged it cannot be unforged, i.e. it cannot be returned to iron ore like a knot that can be untied and the string resume its original form.
Neither do the natives add to every verb all the prefixes and suffixes that can grammatically be affixed to them. It is very apparent that some verbs are complicated with causative, prepositional, tense, and other forms, and it is necessary to know for what the polysyllabic word stands as a phrase, as there is no time to dissect it while a speech is in progress. This is what I think the native does. He has no words for the parts of speech as we have in grammar, he does not know that bakamokangelela ntaba nxinga is made up of the nominative pronominal prefix ba = they, the present tense progressive ka = ing, the objective pronominal prefix mo = him, the verb kanga = tie, the two prepositional suffixes ela = for, and ela = with (the “a” elides before “e”), and two objective nouns ntaba = goat, and nxinga = string; but he knows that bakamokangelela ntaba nxinga means “they are tying the goat for him with string.” And if you, as a white man, while speaking and translating, try to make new polysyllabic words by a new combination of prefixes and suffixes, then you confuse your hearers (or readers) to such an extent that they do not readily follow you. You will have to educate them to a proper understanding of your new phrases, as English folk had to learn Carlyle’s picture-phrases a generation ago before they could appreciate their force and beauty.
It seems that in the course of time the various dialects have become more or less stereotyped in the use of certain verbal suffixes, and if a speaker now creates new combinations the hearers do not at once follow him; or it may be that at some period in the past when a dialect was in the making the minds of the people were very active, and the combinations they formed are fixed and remembered, and no new ones are being made, as the minds of the present generation are less gymnastic; or, again, it may be that a man with some pretensions to intellectual power created new combinations of verbal suffixes, and impressed them on his generation, and thus superseded other word-phrases as Chaucer’s English has been succeeded by a later form, and that by a still later, and the forms of speech used by his characters have given place to later forms that would have been scarcely understood in his day. However, in the Bantu languages there are such possibilities of infinite combinations that as the natives are now being educated it is impossible to foretell what subtleties of thought they will be able to express accurately with so plastic and beautiful a language.
The Boloki dialect, like all the Bantu languages, is alliterative in construction, i.e. the prefix of the nominative of the sentence becomes the prefix of all the words dependent on it, e.g.:
matoko mana mabale manene mamansombela we malaba,
(literally)
spoons those two large (which me/bought for) you they are lost
= those two large spoons which you bought for me, they are lost. The plural prefix ma of the first word which is the nominative is prefixed to all the other words because they are dependent on it. If it had been in the singular it would have been litoko lina, etc. This alliterative concord, as it is called, is very helpful to clearness of meaning.