mũratina

Kikuyu

FWOTD – 24 February 2018

Alternative forms

• mũraatina, muratina

Etymology

From a Kalenjin language.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mòɾáːtìnáꜜ/

The first a is pronounced long.^[1]

As for Tonal Class, Benson (1964) classifies this term into Class 8 with a trisyllabic stem, together with ngũngũni, batĩrĩ, and so on.

• (Kiambu)

• (Limuru) Yukawa (1981:123) classifies this term into a group, whose remaining members are mũnyongoro, gĩtarũrũ, and thungura.^[2]

Noun

mũratina class 3 (plural mĩratina)

1. sausage tree; its ripe fruits are used for fermenting sugar-cane beverage and in Nyeri County, decoction of the leaves, barks and fruits is allegedly used for treating gonorrhoea, syphilis, measles, etc.^[3]
2. a type of alcoholic beverage,^[4][5] especially made from sugar-cane fermented with a thoroughly dried sausage tree fruit^[6]

   Synonym: njohi^[6]

Related terms

(Nouns)

• kĩratina class 7

References

1. “mũratina” in Benson, T.G. (1964). Kikuyu-English dictionary, p. 372. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
2. 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.
3. Kamau, Loice Njeri and Peter Mathiu Mbaabu and James Mucunu Mbaria and Peter Karuri Gathumbi and Stephen Gitahi Kiama (2016). "Ethnobotanical survey and threats to medicinal plants traditionally used for the management of human diseases in Nyeri County, Kenya", p. 6.
4. Bennett, Patrick R. and Ann Biersteker and Waithira Gikonyo and Susan Hershberg and Joel Kamande and Carolyn Perez and Martha Swearingen (1985). Gĩkũyũ nĩ Kĩoigire: Aria-i na Aagĩkũyũ, p. 331. African Studies Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
5. Mwangi, Douglas Macharia (2015). "Publishing outposts on the Kenyan literary landscape: a critique of Busara, Mũtiiri and Kwani?", p. 166.
6. Steinkraus, Keith H. (ed.) (1996). Handbook of Indigenous Fermented Foods, 2nd ed., rev. and expanded, pp. 373–374. New York: Marcel Dekker. →ISBN