karĩgũ

Kikuyu

Alternative forms

• karĩĩgũ

Etymology

Hinde (1904) records karegu as an equivalent of English girl in “Jogowini dialect” of Kikuyu.^[1]

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kàɾèːɣó/

This ĩ is pronounced long.^[2]

As for Tonal Class, Armstrong (1940) classifies this term into ŋgoko class which includes ngũkũ, hiti, icembe, igoko (pl. magoko), ihĩtia (pl. mahĩtia), kĩng'ang'i, maitũ (“my mother”), mbogo, mũkanda, mũthĩgi, nduka, ngingo, rũthanju, Wambũgũ (“man's name”), etc.^[3] Benson (1964) classifies this term into Class 4 with a disyllabic stem, together with kĩng'ang'i, ngũkũ, kĩeha, and so on.

• (Kiambu)

• (Limuru) As for Tonal Class, Yukawa (1981) classifies this term into a group including hiti, icembe, igoko (pl. magoko), ihĩtia (pl. mahĩtia), itumbĩ (pl. matumbĩ), kĩeha, kĩng'ang'i, mũhikania, mũhũmũ, mũkanda, mbica, nduka, ngingo, ngũkũ, rũthanju, tombo, and so on.^[4]

Noun

karĩgũ class 12 (plural tũrĩgũ)

1. little girl

Derived terms

(Proverbs)

• wega warĩire karĩgũ

See also

• karĩgũ < kĩrĩgũ < mũirĩtu < mũtumia

References

1. Hinde, Hildegarde (1904). Vocabularies of the Kamba and Kikuyu languages of East Africa, pp. –. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2. “kĩrĩgũ” in Benson, T.G. (1964). Kikuyu-English dictionary, p. 396. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
3. Armstrong, Lilias E. (1940). The Phonetic and Tonal Structure of Kikuyu. Rep. 1967. (Also in 2018 by Routledge).
4. 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.