irigũ
Kikuyu
Etymology
Hinde (1904) records marigu as an equivalent of English banana in “Jogowini dialect” of Kikuyu, listing also Kamba maīyu as its equivalent.[1]
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ìɾìɣòꜜ/[2]
- As for Tonal Class, Armstrong (1940) classifies this term into moondo class which includes mũndũ, huko, igego, igoti, inooro, 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, 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
irigũ class 5 (plural marigũ)
- banana
Derived terms
(Proverbs)
- mbũri ti marigũ
- mũthii ndoimbĩkaga irigũ
See also
- igoto
- mwahũ
- mũcuuru, mbiri, mbũũ, mũraru, mũtahato, mũtore, gatumia/nyoro
References
- Hinde, Hildegarde (1904). Vocabularies of the Kamba and Kikuyu languages of East Africa, pp. 4–5. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Clements, George N. and Kevin C. Ford (1979). "Kikuyu Tone Shift and Its Synchronic Consequences", p. 188. In Linguistic Inquiry, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 179–210.
- 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.
- “irigũ” in Benson, T.G. (1964). Kikuyu-English dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
External links
- Bananas in the life of the Kikuyu people. (Retrieved 2 February 2018)