mpongwe's

Updated: August 10, 2026

Another notable characteristic is the Mpongwe's fondness for the passive voice, never using, if possible, the active; for instance, instead of saying, "He was born thus," he prefers, "The birth that was thus borned by him." The dialect changes the final as well as the initial syllable, a process unknown to the purest types of the South African family.

Sir Richard Francis Burton - Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1