Kikuyu edit

Alternative forms edit

Etymology edit

Cognate to Kamba kĩatũ.[1]

Pronunciation edit

This a is pronounced long.[2]
As for Tonal Class, Armstrong (1940) classifies this term into ðiimbo class which includes thimbũ, thani, gĩthitũ, itũũra (pl. matũũra), mũbira, mwatũka, etc.[3] Benson (1964) classifies this term into Class 8 with a disyllabic stem, together with matũũra, thani, kiuga, and so on.
  • (Kiambu)

Noun edit

kĩratũ class 7 (plural iratũ)

  1. shoe

References edit

  1. 1.0 1.1 Clements, George N. and Kevin C. Ford (1979). "Kikuyu Tone Shift and Its Synchronic Consequences", p. 196. In Linguistic Inquiry, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 179–210.
  2. ^ ratũ” in Benson, T.G. (1964). Kikuyu-English dictionary, p. 372. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  3. ^ Armstrong, Lilias E. (1940). The Phonetic and Tonal Structure of Kikuyu. Rep. 1967. (Also in 2018 by Routledge).
  4. ^ 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.