Wananyumba,
In the literature, atiriri i describes as "I say to you...". I am not satisfied with this translation, yet, I can not offer a better translation. Can someone help?

Now this is a tough one but I'll give it a try.
First let us break the word down;

Ati:? = What?

Riri = It is

e.g
Question:Icembe riakwa ri ha? (where is my icembe?)
Answer: Ri riri, ri nyumba. (it is...it's
in the house)

Now let's combine;

Ati riri ! = What it is !

Obviously it's a phrase meant to call for attention. Like the Americans say "tell you what!","it's like this" etc.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Njau ya Mbogo,

Njau ya Mbogo,
I agree with you on the derivation of Atiriri from ati + riri, but then how do we explain its shortened form atiri.

I also think its literal translation would probably work if the word appeared at the begining of a sentence.

Consider the translation these phrases.

njira atiriri...
ndirauga atiriri...

Do you think the word riri is actually not a demonstrative but a duplication of an irregular copula 'ri'; but then if that were the case, the meaning becomes more obscure.

Finally, just a thought; Could the name be related to "kirira"

Atĩrĩ-i andu aitu! Ngwenda kuga atĩrĩrĩ, the word atĩrĩrĩ is an interjection. It plays the same role as salaala. Atĩrĩrĩ, when it comes at the end of a sentence, it may be equated to the word eh. You know, when it comes at the beginning of a sentence, it may be equated, to the phrase, “you know”, “hey” or “I say”.

There are several other usage of the word.

Niwega Yeye,
In other words, it is better to treat atiriri as a discourse marker with an ambiguous meaning...rather than trying to understand its morphology?

I think it is important to understand the morphology of the word atĩrĩrĩ. One constraint of analyzing the word atĩrĩrĩ from English perspective the limitations in the English language. One point to note is that English language, unlike kikuyu is not agglutinative. Even though I may be wrong the word atĩrĩrĩ is a compound word. Look at these words that may have been combined to form the word atĩrĩrĩ (atĩ; atĩrĩ; rĩ; rĩrĩ). Please note atĩrĩ, by be clipped form of atĩrĩrĩ.

If we assume atĩrĩrĩ is a compound word, then two root words are atĩ and rĩrĩ. I highly doubt these two words are ambiguous. I may not claim the word atĩ has an English equivalent, but in our language it is used in several questions. Nĩ wega tũmenye atĩ (we better know that). Here atĩ may be translated to mean that.

So unless you are inclined so much towards prescriptive approach them I may agree with you that atĩrĩri has an ambiguous meaning. However if you are inclined so much towards descriptive approach, I would invite you to morphologically analyze the word atĩrĩrĩ.

It is up to you Sajini.

Yeye,
Thank you for your explanations. I ams also interested with the social connotations of the word, when used by Kikuyus and non-Kikuyus. If someone call you atĩrĩrĩ, how do you feel?

Atĩrĩrĩ Sajini, this is turning to an interesting angle. I am not very sure if, apart from Kalenjins and Luhyas, there are other communities that refer to Kikuyu as atĩrĩrĩ. About the feelings, that will depend on individuals. As for me, I don’t care much. I also refer to Luos as “mera” and, hopefully, they don’t care about it. I call Kambas, “Wakanesa”, and hope they also don’t care. The list is long, and includes sofa for maasai, walia, for Somali, mulembe for Luhyas.