Kikuyu

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Etymology

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Borrowed from Swahili kibiriti[1] or kiberiti,[2] from Arabic كِبْرِيت (kibrīt).

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /kèβìɾìːtìꜜ/
The penultimate i is pronounced long.[1]
As for Tonal Class, Benson (1964) classifies this term into Class 1 with a trisyllabic stem, together with kĩberethi, mbogoro, and so on.
  • (Kiambu)

Noun

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kĩbiriti class 7 (plural ibiriti)

  1. matchbox
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(Nouns)

References

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  1. 1.0 1.1 biriti” in Benson, T.G. (1964). Kikuyu-English dictionary, p. 30. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  2. ^ Mugane, John M. (2015) The Story of Swahili (Africa in World History), Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, →ISBN, page 55:And kĩbiriti (matchbox) is from Swahili kiberiti
  3. ^ Yukawa, Yasutoshi (1981). "A Tentative Tonal Analysis of Kikuyu Nouns: A Study of Limuru Dialect." In Journal of Asian and African Studies, No. 22, 75–123.