Gikuyu language

Gîkûyû or Kikuyu (Gikuyu: Gĩkũyũ, pronounced [ɣēkōjó]) is a language of the Bantu family spoken primarily by the Gĩkũyũ people of Kenya. Numbering about 6 million (22% of Kenya's population),^[4] they are the largest ethnic group in Kenya. Gĩkũyũ is spoken in the area between Nyeri and Nairobi. Gĩkũyũ is one of the five languages of the Thagichu subgroup of the Bantu languages, which stretches from Kenya to Tanzania. The Gĩkũyũ people usually identify their lands by the surrounding mountain ranges in Central Kenya which they call Kîrînyaga.

Gĩkũyũ has four main mutually intelligible dialects. The Central Province districts are divided along the traditional boundaries of these dialects, which are Kîrînyaga, Mûranga, Nyeri and Kiambu. The Gĩkũyũ from Kîrînyaga are composed of two main sub-dialects – the Ndia and Gichũgũ who speak the dialect Kĩ-Ndia and Gĩ-gĩcũgũ. The Gĩcũgũs and the Ndias do not have the "ch" or "sh" sound, and will use the "s" sound instead, hence the pronunciation of "Gĩcũgũ" as opposed to "Gĩchũgũ". To hear Ndia being spoken, one needs to be in Kerugoya, the largest town in Kîrînyaga. Other home towns for the Ndia, where purer forms of the dialect are spoken, will be in the tea-growing areas of Kagumo, and the cool Kangaita hills. Lower down the slopes is Kutus, which is a bustling dusty town with too many influences from the other dialects to be able to differentiate.

The unmistakable sing-song Gichugu dialect (which sounds like Embu, a sister language to Gĩkũyũ) can be heard in the coffee growing areas of Kianyaga, Gĩthũre, Kathũngũri, Marigiti. The Gichugu switch easily to the other plainer Gĩkũyũ dialects in conversation with the rest of the Gĩkũyũ.

The Mwea division, which is part of the Kîrînyaga District, is an amalgam of Gĩkũyũ, mostly from Kîrînyaga, settled in the mid to late 1960s, soon after independence, by displaced Gĩkũyũ whose lands had been taken by the colonialists.

Phonology

Symbols shown in parentheses are those used in the orthography.

Vowels

Consonants

The nasal sounds indicated by the raised letters are often not pronounced, so that /ⁿd/ is heard as [d], etc.

Tones

Gĩkũyũ has two level tones (high and low), a low-high rising tone, and downstep.^[5]

Grammar

The canonical word order of Gĩkũyũ is SVO (subject–verb–object). It uses prepositions rather than postpostions, and adjectives follow nouns.^[6]

Written Gĩkũyũ

Alphabet

Gĩkũyũ is written with a modified Latin alphabet. Compared with English:

• It does not use the following letters: f l p q s v x z
• It denotes seven vowel sounds; in addition to a e i o u, there are i-tilde and u-tilde

The alphabet letters then are: a b c d e g h i ĩ j k m n o r t u ũ w y

Some sounds are represented by digraph combinations such as ng for the velar n (ŋ).

The full alphabet is shown in a French-language table here.

Sample phrases

The full alphabet is shown in a French-language table here.

Literature

There is a notable literature written in the Gĩkũyũ language. For instance, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's Mũrogi wa Kagogo (Wizard of the Crow) is the longest book written in a sub-Saharan African language. Other authors writing in Gĩkũyũ include Mwangi wa Mûtahi, Gatua wa Mbûgwa and Waithĩra wa Mbuthia. Mbuthia has published various works in different genres—essays, poetry, children stories and translations—in the Gĩkũyũ language. The late Wahome Mûtahi also wrote some of his literature in Gĩkũyũ.

References

Bibliography

External links

Kikuyu edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia