kĩgwa
Kikuyu
Etymology
Hinde (1904) records kigŏă as an equivalent of English sugar cane in “Jogowini dialect” of Kikuyu, listing also Kamba iwa as its equivalent.[1]
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /kèɣwǎ/, /kèɣoǎ/
- As for Tonal Class, Armstrong (1940) classifies this term into mote class which includes mũtĩ, gĩkwa (pl. ikwa), gĩthaka, kĩnya, kĩrũũmi, mũcinga, mũgate, mũhaka, mũrũthi, njagĩ, njohi, nyũmba, etc.[2] Benson (1964) classifies this term into Class 2 with a monosyllabic stem, together with mũtĩ, and so on.
- (Kiambu)
- (Limuru) As for Tonal Class, Yukawa (1981) classifies this term into a group including gĩkwa (pl. ikwa), ithangũ (pl. mathangũ), kiugũ, kĩboko, kĩgunyũ, kĩnya, kĩroboto, kĩrũũmi, mbogo, mũcinga, mũgate, mũhaka, mũrangi, mũrũthi, ndaraca, ndirica, njohi, nyũmba, thĩ, and so on.[3]
Noun
kĩgwa class 7 (plural igwa)
- sugar cane; Kikuyu people use its juice for making alcoholic drink (njohi)
Hyponyms
- (kĩgwa kĩa) nyamũirũ
See also
- cukari
References
- Hinde, Hildegarde (1904). Vocabularies of the Kamba and Kikuyu languages of East Africa, pp. 56–57. 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.
- “kĩgwa” in Benson, T.G. (1964). Kikuyu-English dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Anagrams
- gĩkwa