mũrũthi
Kikuyu
Alternative forms
- mũrũũthi
Etymology
Hinde (1904) records muruthi and mulozi as equivalents of English lion in “Jogowini dialect” of Kikuyu.[1]
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /mòɾòːðǐ/
- The second ũ is pronounced long.[2]
- As for Tonal Class, Armstrong (1940) classifies this term into mote class which includes mũtĩ, gĩkwa (pl. ikwa), gĩthaka, kĩnya, kĩrũũmi, mũcinga, mũgate, mũhaka, njagĩ, njohi, nyũmba, etc.[3] Benson (1964) classifies this term into Class 2 with a disyllabic stem, together with kĩgunyũ, njagĩ, kiugũ, and so on. 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, ndaraca, ndirica, njohi, nyũmba, thĩ, and so on.[4]
Noun
mũrũthi class 3 (plural mĩrũthi)
- lion
- gĩcuthĩ kĩa mũrũthi - lion's tail[3]
Synonyms
- (Northern) ngatia[5]
See also
- (maneless one) ndũ
References
- Hinde, Hildegarde (1904). Vocabularies of the Kamba and Kikuyu languages of East Africa, pp. 36–37. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- “mũrũthi” in Benson, T.G. (1964). Kikuyu-English dictionary, p. 421. Oxford: Clarendon 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.
- Barlow, A. Ruffell (1960). Studies in Kikuyu Grammar and Idiom, p. 257