thiirĩ
Kikuyu
editAlternative forms
editEtymology
editCf. Maasai e-sile (“debt”).[1]
Hinde (1904) records thiire as an equivalent of English debt in “Jogowini dialect” of Kikuyu.[2]
Pronunciation
edit- 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.[3] Benson (1964) classifies this term into Class 1 with a disyllabic stem, together with ndaka, and so on.
- (Kiambu)
- (Limuru) As for Tonal Class, Yukawa (1981) classifies this term into a group including cindano, huko, iburi, igego, igoti, ini (pl. mani), inooro, irigũ, irũa, iturubarĩ (pl. maturubarĩ), kĩbaata, kĩmũrĩ, kũgũrũ, mũciĩ, mũgeni, mũgũrũki, mũmbirarũ, mũndũ, mũri, mũthuuri, mwaki (“fire”), mwario (“way of speaking”), mbogoro, nda, ndaka, ndigiri, ngo, njagathi, njogu, nyondo (“breast(s)”), and so on.[4]
Noun
editthiirĩ class 14 (plural mathiirĩ)[1]
Derived terms
edit(Proverbs)
- haaro nĩ ya mũka ũrĩ thiirĩ
- kũrĩa thiirĩ wene nĩ kũrĩha
- kũrua, kũgũrana na kũrĩha thiirĩ gũtiĩriragwo
- ngĩa ĩtarĩ thiirĩ ti ngĩa
References
edit- ↑ 1.0 1.1 “thiirĩ” in Benson, T.G. (1964). Kikuyu-English dictionary, p. 509. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
- ^ Hinde, Hildegarde (1904). Vocabularies of the Kamba and Kikuyu languages of East Africa, pp. 18–19. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- ^ Armstrong, Lilias E. (1940). The Phonetic and Tonal Structure of Kikuyu. Rep. 1967. (Also in 2018 by Routledge).
- ^ 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.