ndemwa

Kikuyu edit

Etymology edit

From gũtema (“to cut (with a knife)”).^[1]

Hinde (1904) records mdemua as an equivalent of English tattoo in “Jogowini dialect” of Kikuyu.^[2]

Pronunciation edit

IPA^(key): /ⁿdɛ́moáꜜ/

As for Tonal Class, Benson (1964) classifies this term into Class 7 with a disyllabic stem, together with njata, and so on.

(Kiambu)

(Limuru) As for Tonal Class, Yukawa (1981) classifies this term into a group including biribiri, cibũ (“chief”), gĩkabũ (pl. ikabũ), gĩtara, ithanwa, ithandũkũ, kĩng'aurũ, mũthigari, mũthũ, mwatũka, mbũkũ, ndigithũ, njata, rũbutu (pl. mbutu), thaburia, and so on.^[3]

Noun edit

ndemwa class 9/10 (plural ndemwa)

tattoo
letter (of alphabet)

Related terms edit

(Nouns)

mũtemi class 1

(Verbs)

gũtemwo

See also edit

(letter): mwandĩko

References edit

^ “ndemwa” in Benson, T.G. (1964). Kikuyu-English dictionary, p. 291. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
^ Hinde, Hildegarde (1904). Vocabularies of the Kamba and Kikuyu languages of East Africa, pp. 58–59. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
^ 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.

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