quote:

My point is that there is so much material to be learnt in the Kikuyu language, that pseudoexpertism can only cause damage. Imagine the work that has been done in English. As for Kikuyu, its less than 10% of the English work. Wanting to unilaterally change a language is counterproductive. First of all learn the existing works in Kikuyu, then you can fight to change what you dont like. That way you will be arguing from a point of knowledge, not ignorance.

wamax,
I am not calling for unilateral changing of Gikuyu. I am for your second point. There is need for proper documanetation of Gikuyu, and this must begin with reconciling some of the orthographic inconsistencies that were not taken into account at the time that Gikuyu was written. What you call pseudoexpertism are noble efforts of Kikuyus who want to continue promoting Gikuyu in this technological age. If you read Ngugi wa Thiong'o's Murogi wa kagogo, you will be disgusted by his uncalled for innovations, but you cannot fault his committment to Gikuyu.

quote:

Originally posted by sajini:

quote:

My point is that there is so much material to be learnt in the Kikuyu language, that pseudoexpertism can only cause damage. Imagine the work that has been done in English. As for Kikuyu, its less than 10% of the English work. Wanting to unilaterally change a language is counterproductive. First of all learn the existing works in Kikuyu, then you can fight to change what you dont like. That way you will be arguing from a point of knowledge, not ignorance.

wamax,
I am not calling for unilateral changing of Gikuyu. I am for your second point. There is need for proper documanetation of Gikuyu, and this must begin with reconciling some of the orthographic inconsistencies that were not taken into account at the time that Gikuyu was written. What you call pseudoexpertism are noble efforts of Kikuyus who want to continue promoting Gikuyu in this technological age. If you read Ngugi wa Thiong'o's Murogi wa kagogo, you will be disgusted by his uncalled for innovations, but you cannot fault his committment to Gikuyu.

Thats exactly my point. There are no 'orthographic inconsistencies' in the Kikuyu language. Most of what you call inconsistencies is because you view Kikuyu though an English lens. And thats where my recommendation comes. Learn the KIKUYU LANGUAGE, and after that if you still think there are inconsistencies, post them here and we will clear them up for you.

quote:
Originally posted by yeye:
Wamax:

Have you self proclaimed experts of Kikuyu deleted these alphabets? What happened to them, and what are their sounds?

cw, gw, hw, kw, mbw, ndw, ngw, ng’w, njw, nyw, rw, tw, thw.

quote:
Originally posted by Wamax:


My expertise in Kikuyu is limited to the following:
-its my mother tongue.
-it was my language of instruction from nursery to class 3 (it was an examinable subject).
-i do read Kikuyu material once in a while



Wamax:

Then you are a real self proclaimed expert of Kikuyu Language.

quote:

Yeye,
This is very interesting aspect of Gikuyu. w is a semi-vowel produices at the same place as vowel ũ. I think it normally replaces vowels (ũ).I cannot also think of a cse where it appears befor (u) or (i). My guess is that w comes about to break the sequence of ũ or u vowels followed by another vowel.

How do you think Kikuyu would look if we did like the Kambas, i.e. writing (y) to break the vowel sequence where (i) precedes another vowel?

Very interesting!

Sajini:

Do we say guitũ or gwitũ?

Regarding the (ky)in Kikamba, for example, the name Kyalo is pronounced Chalo and not kĩalo and Kyuso is pronounced chuso and not kiuso. I am not very familiar with the Kamba language orthography but I will check. This can be interesting.



.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: yeye,

quote:

Originally posted by yeye:
[QUOTE]Yeye,

Do we say guitũ or gwitũ?

Regarding the (ky)in Kikamba, for example, the name Kyalo is pronounced Chalo and not kĩalo and Kyuso is pronounced chuso and not kiuso. I am not very familiar with the Kamba language orthography but I will check. This can be interesting.



.

Yeye
I posted my "CV" in Kikuyu to show you am an average Joe, not a PhD holder.

About guitu vs gwitu. The accepted spelling of the word is guitu, the gwi-, kwi- etc being corruptions of the original words. However, this alternative spelling has gained acceptability and is also legitimate, but is not universal. gwa, gwe gwi gwo gwu gwi(with tilde) gwu(with tilde) are not in the Kikuyu alphabet.

Lastly, about the Kamba Kyalo. If you know how the language is spoken, which I happen to (you can call me a pseudoexpert), you will know that there is a big difference between how you pronounce chalo and kyalo. To the untrained ear you hear chalo, but in fact, it is a heavier form of 'k' that uses the whole posterior half of the palate and tongue to produce. In contrast, for you to pronounce 'ch' you use anterior palate and tongue. This is the same argument between the Kikuyu 'b' and the English 'b'. Basically the same letters with similar phonetic origin, but distinct vocalisation

quote:

Do we say guitũ or gwitũ?

Yeye
I say gwitũ. I do not think that it is a corruption. Although guitũ is the transparent form, like Wamax says, someone who speaks like that will be told niũrogora. In fast speech, it is usuallty realized as gwitũ. What do you think?

quote:

Originally posted by sajini:
Wamax,
I have no problem with the Gikuyu orthography. All I am saying iss that it is not a big deal if the Mathira guy say 'chai', the Muranga 'shai' and the Kabete guy 'sai'. I do not begrudge those guys who write transcribe their speech manner photemically.

Interesting thing about those two letters. They only exist to distinguisth meaning from the relics of an old writing system.
phonetically, [q] and [x]is represented as [k]and [ks] or one of their allophones depending on the language in question. The absence of q and x in Swahili or Kikuyu is a good thing because it makes our langauges more transparent.

Then how do you explain the absence of the following letters from the Kamba language? Are they relics too?

c

f

p

q

r

x

for the two letter I was refering to, I only ment in reference to English. There are many linguistics signs in universal grammar. Each langauge selects the signs that suits it. It is under no obligation to use all of them.

For the Kamba, [r] is and [f] are also found, but they exist as allophones and they will not distinguish meaning of words, just like you can argue that there are different versions of [r] in Gikuiyu, some sounding almost similar to [l]. You will however not find these phonetic variants in the standard version.

can someone explain what is going on here when Kikuyu nouns are expressed in diminutives and augmentatives. Where do teh letter in brackets come from?
njane.....gacane, gicane [c]
mbuga.....kaboga, kiboga [b]
ng'ombe....kagombe, kigombe [g]
ngi........gaki, giki [k]
nduma......gatuma, gituma [t]

Gentlemen,

It looks like this discussion was closed sometime back but i would want to re-open it partly for selfish reasons.

I am working on gĩkũyũ morphology and some of the issues you discuss here are of importance.

Wa mbere, kĩũria kana tugaga gĩũtũ kana gwitũ. Anja yakwa nĩ atĩ tugaga gwitũ. Gĩtũmi nĩ gĩkĩ,
kugo kĩu kiumĩte harĩ

kũ+itũ, a better example is
kũ+menya -> kũmenya (called the Gerund in English)
Why kũ+itũ becomes gwitũ is this due to vowel assimilation that takes place.
ae - ee e.g. ka_enda-ete, kendete
aĩ - ee e.g. ka-ĩkĩra-aga - geekĩraga e.t.c

Why -k- becomes -g- is due to what is called Dahl's Law, where a voiceless consonant (c,k,t) becomes voiced when it appears before another voiceless consonant-bearing syllable
ka-thomaga - gathomaga
kĩ-cukaga - gĩcukaga
ka -kom-ete - gakomete

Hence kũ+itũ becomes kwitũ due to vowel assimilation (also called Glide formation) and then becomes gwitũ due to Voiceless constant-bearing syllable kwi- coming before another voiceless syllable -tũ

Kirundu,
Just a question

With regard to Dahl's Law, what makes you think that ka or kũ are the underlying morpheme and not ga or gũ?

Is is not also true that some Dahl's law is inapplicable in some Gikuyu dialects or if it applies it is unsystematic?
e/g. Some Kabete people say gibiriti (match box) which violates Dahl's Law.

or would you say that borrowings renders Dahl's Law obsolete? c.f. keki, kotoni/katoni, cuka, (but then gaki (khaki)