Kikuyu edit

Etymology edit

Hinde (1904) records thigirriri as an equivalent of English ant (small black) in “Jogowini dialect” of Kikuyu.[1]

Pronunciation edit

  • IPA(key): /ðìɣíɾìɾíꜜ/
As for Tonal Class, Benson (1964) classifies this term into Class 5 with a tetrasyllabic stem, together with kĩgorogoru, kĩĩhutaatĩ, and so on.
  • (Kiambu)
  • (Limuru) Yukawa (1981:122) classifies this term into a group, whose only remaining member is mũnyiginyigi.[2]

Noun edit

thigiriri class 9/10 (plural thigiriri)

  1. small black garden or sugar ant[3]

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ Hinde, Hildegarde (1904). Vocabularies of the Kamba and Kikuyu languages of East Africa, pp. 4–5. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  2. ^ 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.
  3. ^ “thigiriri” in Benson, T.G. (1964). Kikuyu-English dictionary, p. 508. Oxford: Clarendon Press.