Kikuyu

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Etymology

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From Proto-Bantu *kɪ̀ntʊ̀. Hinde (1904) records kiindu as an equivalent of English thing and anything in “Jogowini dialect” of Kikuyu, listing also Kamba kiindu (anything), kiindu (thing) (“Ulu dialect”; spoken then from Machakos to coastal area), kinduki (thing) (“Nganyawa dialect”; spoken then in Kitui District) and Swahili kitu as its equivalents.[1]

Pronunciation

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As for Tonal Class, Armstrong (1940) classifies this term into moondo class which includes mũndũ, huko, igego, igoti, inooro, irigũ, irũa, kĩbaata, kĩmũrĩ, kũgũrũ, mũciĩ, mũgeni, mũri, mwaki (fire), ndaka, ndigiri, njagathi, njogu, Mũrĩmi (man's name), etc.[2] Benson (1964) classifies this term into Class 1 with a monosyllabic stem, together with mũri, ngo, and so on.
  • (Kiambu)

Noun

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kĩndũ class 7 (plural indo)[4]

  1. thing
  2. (in the plural) property
  3. (in the plural) livestock
    Synonym: mahiũ
    Hypernym: nyamũ
    Hyponyms: mbũri, ngũrũe, ng'ombe, ng'ondu

Derived terms

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(Nouns)

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(Nouns)

References

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  1. ^ Hinde, Hildegarde (1904). Vocabularies of the Kamba and Kikuyu languages of East Africa, pp. 4–5, 64–65. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  2. ^ Armstrong, Lilias E. (1940). The Phonetic and Tonal Structure of Kikuyu. Rep. 1967. (Also in 2018 by Routledge).
  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.
  4. ^ ndũ” in Benson, T.G. (1964). Kikuyu-English dictionary, p. 300. Oxford: Clarendon Press.