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Kikuyus, Please Come (Here)
Rank: Elder Joined: 2/7/2007 Posts: 11,935 Location: Nairobi
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The Clown wrote:I decided to post on this thread when I saw @seppuku parading his ignorance in public.
FYI there IS a Gikuyu alphabet. Just as there are English, French, Mandarin, Maragoli and Nandi ones.
I am one of those who studied in a native tongue in primary school so I happen to know a little about the language.
The language is Gikuyu. Non-Gikuyus will call it Kikuyu and that's due to the influence of Swahili.
An alphabet is about phonetics, reading and writing so you can't pick one one aspect and disregard the others.
Gikuyu alphabet has 21 letters (no f,l,p,q and x). There are also accents which modify the pronunciations of vowels such as 'i', 'o' and 'u'. Because I'm typing from an office keyboard ya wazungu I can't show you the accents here. But I have enabled them on my home computer.
To answer the OP, the 'f' in 'Kifaki' and 'fafa' is represented by the letter 'b' in writing.
'B' appearing alone is always pronounced as 'f'.
The 'b' sound in mboco (beans) is written as 'mb'. In fact, some Gikuyus wazees from Murang'a and Nyeri pronounce the 'm' in 'mb' like mburi, mbembe etc.
In short, Gikuyu differs from Swahili in that the pronunciation of the words is not literal. I believe the same is true of English, French and many other languages. That is just how they developed.
I do not think Gikuyus will be OK revising the alphabet as it will mean having to reprint all written material such as bibles, books and such.  I like that and i can only add a few things. 1.The word Kikuyus does not exist.I know of Agikuyu. 2.The Gikuyu language has 7 vowels,thus a,e,i,o,u,ĩ,ŭ.The last two are pronounced as AY and AWE and so it's really annoying when you hear people pronounce the word cucu thus shosho......WRONG  !! Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
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Rank: Veteran Joined: 1/4/2010 Posts: 1,668 Location: nairobi
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Am wrote:a4architect.com wrote:Most kikuyu words are similar to xhoha, swahili and rwandese eg Ngombe, kuku, maji.
The interahamwe in rwandese is directly translated to turihamwe in kikuyu, meaning we are together.
The Bostwana/setswana language, a cow is ngombe, meat is nyama, chicken is kuku,water is metsi ,similar to kikuyu.
Haiya. Muru wa maitu. No ukomentaga kinya debate ta ishi?? @am,hehe..ngoraguo guothe kuria ndirona tutopic tuega twa kuaririria.. As Iron Sharpens Iron, So one Man Sharpens Another.
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Rank: Member Joined: 12/17/2009 Posts: 121 Location: Nairobi
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Njung'e wrote:The Clown wrote:I decided to post on this thread when I saw @seppuku parading his ignorance in public.
FYI there IS a Gikuyu alphabet. Just as there are English, French, Mandarin, Maragoli and Nandi ones.
I am one of those who studied in a native tongue in primary school so I happen to know a little about the language.
The language is Gikuyu. Non-Gikuyus will call it Kikuyu and that's due to the influence of Swahili.
An alphabet is about phonetics, reading and writing so you can't pick one one aspect and disregard the others.
Gikuyu alphabet has 21 letters (no f,l,p,q and x). There are also accents which modify the pronunciations of vowels such as 'i', 'o' and 'u'. Because I'm typing from an office keyboard ya wazungu I can't show you the accents here. But I have enabled them on my home computer.
To answer the OP, the 'f' in 'Kifaki' and 'fafa' is represented by the letter 'b' in writing.
'B' appearing alone is always pronounced as 'f'.
The 'b' sound in mboco (beans) is written as 'mb'. In fact, some Gikuyus wazees from Murang'a and Nyeri pronounce the 'm' in 'mb' like mburi, mbembe etc.
In short, Gikuyu differs from Swahili in that the pronunciation of the words is not literal. I believe the same is true of English, French and many other languages. That is just how they developed.
I do not think Gikuyus will be OK revising the alphabet as it will mean having to reprint all written material such as bibles, books and such. I like that and i can only add a few things. 1.The word Kikuyus does not exist.I know of Agikuyu. 2.The Gikuyu language has 7 vowels,thus a,e,i,o,u,ĩ,ŭ.The last two are pronounced as AY and AWE and so it's really annoying when you hear people pronounce the word cucu thus shosho......WRONG !! What was so hard then for the brits to just have ĩ written as ay? or ai? and ŭ as ow? So cucu is actually showshow? On Christ Alone
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Rank: Veteran Joined: 7/3/2007 Posts: 1,634
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Money Whisperer wrote:The fewer the 'hard' sounds that remain in a language or dialect, the more consonant drift it has undergone. Therefore that language is considered older. Some factors can interfere with this process (eg writing, external enforcement, influence of other languages etc) but we can ignore these factors here.
Kikamba has much fewer 'hard' sounds than Gikuyu and the derivation - as in Kirinyaga/Kenyaa is very easy to show.
This is where we part ways. The less the hard sounds in a language the newer it is. Look at sheng as a dialect of Swahili the better a speaker of sheng is the younger he is right? An older guy will say Nilitengeneza gari. a younger person finding the phrase/clause "nilitengeneza" too long and hard replaces it with the English word "make" and say Nilimake (isha) gari yangu I think you are confusing some things here: 1. Consonant drift is a linear process - from hard to soft (or, to use your Sheng example, from lengthy words and phrases to compressed ones). 2. The drift never goes in reverse - unless through external interference (eg the Gikuyu hard 'r' sound is a fairly new development in the language, caused by external influence, but this is a minor exception). Using this logic, Kikamba was once full of 'hard' sounds like present day Gikuyu. It drifted to what it is now. How then can Gikuyu be older? It is like arguing that you resemble your son. The question I would be willing to concede (only slightly) is this: if Gikuyu is derived from Kikamba, how come it did not inherit the soft sounds of Kikamba? Now that is an interesting point to consider. "The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth." (Niels Bohr)
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Rank: Member Joined: 4/24/2012 Posts: 331 Location: Vantage point
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mindigo wrote:Quote:By the way consonant drift provides persuasive proof that Gikuyu is a derivative of Kikamba. In fact the Gikuyu tribe is a recent creation - as recent as 200 years ago - created for 'political' reasons. (Some of the bigots from Nyumba ya Muumbi and elsewhere need to remember this Correct,but that's only a small paragraph in a very LOOOOOOng history involving Nubia,Egypt and the Middle East. Fyi,Kyukes had a writing system as recently as a 100 years ago. As soon as the missionaries arrived it was forgotten. It was hieroglyphic, considered to be a debasement of a true alphabetical script and resembled Ibo nsibidi.  The original kyuke script was called gicandi and its very hard nearly impossible to find. I had saved a sample. Will post it up when I find it. Strange! I see "ICC mwisho" and then pa! the sound of droppings. what! Anyone else? 
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Rank: Member Joined: 8/7/2010 Posts: 728 Location: Wazuaville
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Wakanyugi wrote:
I think you are confusing some things here:
1. Consonant drift is a linear process - from hard to soft (or, to use your Sheng example, from lengthy words and phrases to compressed ones).
2. The drift never goes in reverse - unless through external interference (eg the Gikuyu hard 'r' sound is a fairly new development in the language, caused by external influence, but this is a minor exception).
Using this logic, Kikamba was once full of 'hard' sounds like present day Gikuyu. It drifted to what it is now.
How then can Gikuyu be older?
It is like arguing that you resemble your son.
The question I would be willing to concede (only slightly) is this: if Gikuyu is derived from Kikamba, how come it did not inherit the soft sounds of Kikamba? Now that is an interesting point to consider.
that is the crux of my premise. Let us put language in its context. Language is part of an intricate and dynamic system through which a commonwealth of people with shared ancestry and histry interact with themselves (intra-communally), with other communities (inter-communally) and with the environment. This system is what we call culture. Now let us bring in other cultural studies and behavioral psychology into this discussion. Who are the custodians of culture, the older generation (elders) or the youth? definitely the elders. as custodians of culture, the elders strive to conserve it and pass it on "untainted" to the younger generation, but this is always an exercise in futility because every generation infuses in a culture (including language) their own idiosyncrasies and experiences. Therefore an older generation is closer to the root culture than a younger generations. Now focus on language, the closer a dialect is to the root the older it is. From what we are agreed here Kikamba is further from the root than Gikuyu. Now if Gikuyu still retains the hard consonants and Kikamba drifted from the hard consonants what did they (Kamba) change from? definitely an older dialect that still retains the hard consonants. This explains the shift from Kirinyaga to Keenyaa "Money never sleeps"
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Rank: Elder Joined: 3/18/2011 Posts: 12,069 Location: Kianjokoma
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a4architect.com wrote:Most kikuyu words are similar to xhoha, swahili and rwandese eg Ngombe, kuku, maji.
The interahamwe in rwandese is directly translated to turihamwe in kikuyu, meaning we are together.
The Bostwana/setswana language, a cow is ngombe, meat is nyama, chicken is kuku,water is metsi ,similar to kikuyu.
Interahamwe in Kinyarwanda means those who fight together. Sounds like Ita ri hamwe in Gikuyu. When they count, you'd think you're in Wakulima. 50 is mirongo itanu, 100 is Ijana(j is like the French one here, 200 magana bibiri, 500 magana atanu, 600 magana atandatu..etc The Mzungu studied the Gikuyu and their cousins around the mountain and concluded that they belong to one group the Bantu(from Abantu meaning people or watu or Andu in some Bantu dialects) If the Bantu have similar words even with cousins thousands of kms away, why isn't the same case applying for Nilotes?
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Rank: Veteran Joined: 7/3/2007 Posts: 1,634
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Money Whisperer wrote:
. From what we are agreed here Kikamba is further from the root than Gikuyu. Now if Gikuyu still retains the hard consonants and Kikamba drifted from the hard consonants what did they (Kamba) change from? definitely an older dialect that still retains the hard consonants. This explains the shift from Kirinyaga to Keenyaa
Some neat circular logic here  But it doesn't change anything. After all linguistics is not the only evidence we have that the Kamba are ancestors of the Agikuyu. The Agikuyu themselves say as much. "Muthoniwa" - in law, which is what the Kamba are to the Agikuyu - is not just a description of the family that gave you a wife. It also means 'the place where my lineage began.' Without the Kamba, the Gikuyu would not be. "The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth." (Niels Bohr)
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Rank: Elder Joined: 3/18/2011 Posts: 12,069 Location: Kianjokoma
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jguru wrote:I have a question.
If Gikuyu was derived from Kamba, how then is it that a person who speaks in the tongue cannot easily comprehend a conversation in Kamba, yet that person can comprehend a conversation in other Bantu languages (Meru, Embu, Kisii, Buganda, Kinyarwanda etc)?
German, Afrikaans, Dutch and English have similarities because they belong to the same language family. aiiii? Kikamba is close to Kikuyu. So close that someone who speaks the Kikuyu language can guess a lot of what the Wakamba are saying. The words are just easier or with v sound in place of f sound. e.g Kikuyu Kikamba Witagwo atia Witawa ata Ndiraigua toro Niiwa too Njau Nza Watinda atia? Watinda ata Wanja Wanza Some names are also shared without varying pronunciation e.g. Muthama, Munyaka
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Rank: Elder Joined: 3/18/2011 Posts: 12,069 Location: Kianjokoma
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Wakanyugi wrote:Money Whisperer wrote:
. From what we are agreed here Kikamba is further from the root than Gikuyu. Now if Gikuyu still retains the hard consonants and Kikamba drifted from the hard consonants what did they (Kamba) change from? definitely an older dialect that still retains the hard consonants. This explains the shift from Kirinyaga to Keenyaa
Some neat circular logic here But it doesn't change anything. After all linguistics is not the only evidence we have that the Kamba are ancestors of the Agikuyu. The Agikuyu themselves say as much. "Muthoniwa" - in law, which is what the Kamba are to the Agikuyu - is not just a description of the family that gave you a wife. It also means 'the place where my lineage began.' Without the Kamba, the Gikuyu would not be. yur theory is funny. The language logic is faulty. No way a derived language can be more complicated. The Agikuyu do not claim that they are descended from the Kamba. This is a new theory.
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Rank: Veteran Joined: 11/19/2010 Posts: 1,308 Location: nairobi metropolitan
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Money Whisperer wrote:mukiha wrote:nesta wrote:seppuku wrote:
The problem is that it is not very practical especially in cosmopolitan neighborhoods. What's more annoying is that the British somehow got it into our heads that speaking in our local languages is inferior or dumb or backward.
It's not really that hard...schools that are located in predominantly one area can teach the Local language. For example, Alliance High school (depending on the mount of resources, ) May teach Kikuyu language+Anthropology, They may also teach other languages such as Luoa, Luhya and so on. Non-Kikuyus in Alliance will then choose to do either Kikuyu luo or Double Swahili. There's a very detailed Kenya swahili that we can use to expand the knowlegde of the Swahili culture. For example, the original Mvita dialect may say, "Swiswi ndiswi swiswi," instead of Sisi ndisi sisi. @Seppuku @Jaggernaut @Simonkabz... please it's not polical correctness. Just that i'm usually very active in a Somali forum where people are so full of clanism and threads are usually titled "Marexaan, come here," "Ogaden, let's discuss," "Hawiye,, Why this!!!" When someone raised a request that the topic be broadened to include alphabets from other tribes, i thought that maybe i was too abrasive having been used to the bare-knackles Qabil-based discussions of the somalians. @nesta, that's the wrong way to go about it. A better approach is to start with getting teachers of the various languages. Then offer the languages as electives depending on availability of teachers - the same way we do with the European languages. If Alliance High has a Maa teacher, then it offers Maa [aka, Kimaasai], If Maseno High has a Kamba teacher, then it offers Kikamba etc. But please note, I am not saying that any Maa speaking teacher or Kamba speaking teacher can teach Maa or Kikamba, respectively. NO! After all, not all English speaking teachers can teach English - not even in England! The Maa teacher at Alliance might very well be a Luo by tribe, in the same way that the English teacher there might be a Mumeru! Exactly what I'm talking about, a teacher not a native speaker John Kamau B.Ed (Luo and Geography) like this. Democracy does not belong to the dead
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Rank: Elder Joined: 10/4/2006 Posts: 13,821 Location: Nairobi
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who cares? Kambas are here, Kyuks are here we both came from TZ and migrated north!! All Mushrooms are edible! Some Mushroom are only edible ONCE!
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Rank: Veteran Joined: 11/19/2010 Posts: 1,308 Location: nairobi metropolitan
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S Wakanyugi wrote:Money Whisperer wrote:The fewer the 'hard' sounds that remain in a language or dialect, the more consonant drift it has undergone. Therefore that language is considered older. Some factors can interfere with this process (eg writing, external enforcement, influence of other languages etc) but we can ignore these factors here.
Kikamba has much fewer 'hard' sounds than Gikuyu and the derivation - as in Kirinyaga/Kenyaa is very easy to show.
This is where we part ways. The less the hard sounds in a language the newer it is. Look at sheng as a dialect of Swahili the better a speaker of sheng is the younger he is right? An older guy will say Nilitengeneza gari. a younger person finding the phrase/clause "nilitengeneza" too long and hard replaces it with the English word "make" and say Nilimake (isha) gari yangu I think you are confusing some things here: 1. Consonant drift is a linear process - from hard to soft (or, to use your Sheng example, from lengthy words and phrases to compressed ones). 2. The drift never goes in reverse - unless through external interference (eg the Gikuyu hard 'r' sound is a fairly new development in the language, caused by external influence, but this is a minor exception). Using this logic, Kikamba was once full of 'hard' sounds like present day Gikuyu. It drifted to what it is now. How then can Gikuyu be older? It is like arguing that you resemble your son. The question I would be willing to concede (only slightly) is this: if Gikuyu is derived from Kikamba, how come it did not inherit the soft sounds of Kikamba? Now that is an interesting point to consider. Been following the interesting conversation between you. I get @WaKanyugi's theory. From a layman's perspective, I think @ Whisperer has a more logical inference: That since the Kamba have they have soft sounding words as per your illustrations , then it follows that they could have inherited the same from Kikuyu whose have hard sounds i. e From parents to children. Democracy does not belong to the dead
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Rank: Elder Joined: 3/18/2011 Posts: 12,069 Location: Kianjokoma
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exactly @ githundi. It's like comparing American with British English. American is lighter...I do not think however that either of the 2 came from the other. Maybe they were once one together with the Aembu, Ambeere and Ameru
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Rank: Elder Joined: 7/11/2012 Posts: 5,222
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wanyuru wrote:radio wrote:Mukiri wrote:Wish I had anything of substance to contribute, sadly I'm 'born town' and speak pidgin Kikuyu. But 'Reminisce' with Mike Murimi(Not pronounced as written) makes for good practice... when they sing 'Gospel' Of interest, is the difference between the pronounciation of 'No' Asha asa. And other similar words. Is it personal differences or is it regional, Kiambu Nyeri? Aca is pronounced differently between Kiambu & Nyeri Agîkûyû. Those from Kiambu say ASA while the ones from Nyeri ASHA. Same applies to Cai- tea. ...and in some parts of Nyeri (karatina/mathira/othaya) Aca= ACHA, cukari= chukari, cai-chai and "th" is pronounced as "s/c" e.g. Ma thomo= ma soomo/ma coomo, O thaya=ù caya/ù caya Why the differences? Na niki mwikarire utahanana? Wa Agikuyu a Kiambu ti ta wa Agikuyu a Nyere? Kana a Murang'a kana Naikuru? For example Amwe ni ahaoreru, mundu arakara ni kuraga an ange ni inegene?
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Rank: Member Joined: 4/25/2011 Posts: 368 Location: Nairobi
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I know that most of us do not know that Gikuyu language has no letter "S" and I see most of us using it here. Other letter that you will not see in Gikuyu some of which have already been mentioned are f, l, p, q, v, x and z
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Rank: Member Joined: 4/25/2011 Posts: 368 Location: Nairobi
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Lolest! wrote:jguru wrote:I have a question.
If Gikuyu was derived from Kamba, how then is it that a person who speaks in the tongue cannot easily comprehend a conversation in Kamba, yet that person can comprehend a conversation in other Bantu languages (Meru, Embu, Kisii, Buganda, Kinyarwanda etc)?
German, Afrikaans, Dutch and English have similarities because they belong to the same language family. aiiii? Kikamba is close to Kikuyu. So close that someone who speaks the Kikuyu language can guess a lot of what the Wakamba are saying. The words are just easier or with v sound in place of f sound. e.g Kikuyu Kikamba Witagwo atia Witawa ata Ndiraigua toro Niiwa too Njau Nza Watinda atia? Watinda ata Wanja Wanza Some names are also shared without varying pronunciation e.g. Muthama, Munyaka I agree. But Embu might be the closest language to Kikuyu followed by Kikamba. But I find that language spoken in Rwanda, I guess it's Kinyarwanda closer to Kikuyu than any other language spoken in Kenya especially the counting of numbers.
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Rank: Member Joined: 5/1/2013 Posts: 106
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Wakanyugi wrote:Money Whisperer wrote:
. From what we are agreed here Kikamba is further from the root than Gikuyu. Now if Gikuyu still retains the hard consonants and Kikamba drifted from the hard consonants what did they (Kamba) change from? definitely an older dialect that still retains the hard consonants. This explains the shift from Kirinyaga to Keenyaa
Some neat circular logic here But it doesn't change anything. After all linguistics is not the only evidence we have that the Kamba are ancestors of the Agikuyu. The Agikuyu themselves say as much. "Muthoniwa" - in law, which is what the Kamba are to the Agikuyu - is not just a description of the family that gave you a wife. It also means 'the place where my lineage began.' Without the Kamba, the Gikuyu would not be. Money's argument makes more sense here. Perhaps Wakanyungi you can give us better examples coz the consonant drift one doesn't prove your argument clearly.
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Rank: Member Joined: 8/7/2010 Posts: 728 Location: Wazuaville
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Wakanyugi wrote:Money Whisperer wrote:
. From what we are agreed here Kikamba is further from the root than Gikuyu. Now if Gikuyu still retains the hard consonants and Kikamba drifted from the hard consonants what did they (Kamba) change from? definitely an older dialect that still retains the hard consonants. This explains the shift from Kirinyaga to Keenyaa
Some neat circular logic here But it doesn't change anything. After all linguistics is not the only evidence we have that the Kamba are ancestors of the Agikuyu. The Agikuyu themselves say as much. "Muthoniwa" - in law, which is what the Kamba are to the Agikuyu - is not just a description of the family that gave you a wife. It also means 'the place where my lineage began.' Without the Kamba, the Gikuyu would not be. I'm simply applying your logic to prove my point. I could go further and use other theories like Derridean deconstruction and study the palimpsests in Kikamba that denote previous older dialect (Gikuyu) that is under erasure. As for the athoniwa angle you need to study the Agikuyu mythology to see the narrative of Wamuyu the youngest of Gikuyu's daughters who got married by foreigners and her clan became the athoni (in-laws) who are the Akamba "Money never sleeps"
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Rank: Elder Joined: 3/2/2007 Posts: 8,776 Location: Cameroon
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Njung'e wrote:The Clown wrote:I decided to post on this thread when I saw @seppuku parading his ignorance in public.
FYI there IS a Gikuyu alphabet. Just as there are English, French, Mandarin, Maragoli and Nandi ones.
I am one of those who studied in a native tongue in primary school so I happen to know a little about the language.
The language is Gikuyu. Non-Gikuyus will call it Kikuyu and that's due to the influence of Swahili.
An alphabet is about phonetics, reading and writing so you can't pick one one aspect and disregard the others.
Gikuyu alphabet has 21 letters (no f,l,p,q and x). There are also accents which modify the pronunciations of vowels such as 'i', 'o' and 'u'. Because I'm typing from an office keyboard ya wazungu I can't show you the accents here. But I have enabled them on my home computer.
To answer the OP, the 'f' in 'Kifaki' and 'fafa' is represented by the letter 'b' in writing.
'B' appearing alone is always pronounced as 'f'.
The 'b' sound in mboco (beans) is written as 'mb'. In fact, some Gikuyus wazees from Murang'a and Nyeri pronounce the 'm' in 'mb' like mburi, mbembe etc.
In short, Gikuyu differs from Swahili in that the pronunciation of the words is not literal. I believe the same is true of English, French and many other languages. That is just how they developed.
I do not think Gikuyus will be OK revising the alphabet as it will mean having to reprint all written material such as bibles, books and such. I like that and i can only add a few things. 1.The word Kikuyus does not exist.I know of Agikuyu. 2.The Gikuyu language has 7 vowels,thus a,e,i,o,u,ĩ,ŭ.The last two are pronounced as AY and AWE and so it's really annoying when you hear people pronounce the word cucu thus shosho......WRONG !! wakanyugi was claiming its full of errors, yeye hajui hii lugha. This should be lesson one. TULIA.........UFUNZWE!
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