I'm interested in learning to speak/read Kikuyu. Could anyone help me either through email or forum.
Thanks!

Great to know you want to learn our language but for technicalities...it would be a herculean task and a tedious one at that to learn kikuyu(or any other new language) thru email or such a forum.I suggest you hook up with a speaker(of kikuyu & am sure it wont be that hard)and let them taech you.Reason being apart from the written form where different languages are written in a certain way but pronounced in a different way,you need to be coached how to read and speak it though its a generally phonetic language-being bantu. An typical example:Augire-He/She said(Past tense), the same word-Augire-He/she said(past present)as in the earlier referring to something someone said in the distant past and the later being something some1 could have said this morning assuming its the same day in the afternoon.Notice the spelling is the same but the pronounciation?-quite different, and that can only be learnt thru listening which unfortunately isn't possible here!..now you catch my drift when i say its tedious and cumbersome?,and thats just one word,WHAT DO THE PIPS SAY????,"tigwo na wega"-thats Bye in kikuyu literally meaning"be left in peace".

Thanks for your advice. I will try to locate a book to help me learn to read kikuyu. And I will try to get my husband to teach me to speak. He is fluent (his mother never learned any other language), but he doesn't want to teach me. I think he finds the task to tedious. To me it is very important to learn however I can. I haven't had a chance to meet my mother-in-law yet, but when I do, I would like to be able to speak to her.

Karen,
Good luck in your endevour,you are even luckier to have a kikuyu speaker next to you(quite literally!). Am sure your man will yield with more coaxing-you just need to prove to him how serious you are and once he is convinced,Yebo! there you will go.Good luck!

Nyumba

Could i help?

First things first.

I recommend you start with those books we used to study in primary STd 1.

Wirute guthoma
gikuyu gitu
TKK
etc,etc

Thayu nyumba

Talking of which, where can i buy the TKK series, and other Kikuyu books that I was reading while in Lower primary school. Are they still in print?

Sajini,
I'll check for you and let you know. I wonder whether they will be available here in Nyairobi town but I'll ask my friend in the local bookshop where I come from.

Nginjiri,
You always come in handy. Thanks for volunteering to check for me. I think I need to visit your local bookshop to see all that they have to offer. I want to have a good collection of Gikuyu books. Right now I am really ashamed of what I have.

Sajini,
I checked the bookshop and was told that ever since the syllabus was changed, it's hard to find those TKKs. What my friend had in the bookstore is:
1. Wirute guthoma
2. A series titled, "Wanduta" has the following:
a. Wanduta hingo ya paawa
b. Ngwenda unjurage
c. Wanduta na mwanake wa kuririo ni muiritu
d. Wanduta guthitanguo ni muka wa Conjo.

Ha ha ha!! That Wanduta series has very funny titles. Ati Wanduta hindi ya paawa! (power, lol!)

Wagatere are you reading this post?

Ngujiri,

Yes i am and im just wondering who wanduta is especially with pawaa...lol

Nyumba

Papa daad

You might be right, But since there's no school teaching kikuyu where else apart from friends to teach you first step by step or you buy the books.

Sajini

May be i propose you fly in nairobi city and you find these hawkwers at the streets selling old sylabus books @ 20/= per copy.

Either get it scanned and Emailed to you!!

Thayu nyumba

Learning Kikuyu i guess needs a lot determination especially for those who have to attend "ngumbaro". In a language i would assume practise makes perfect.Would suggest hanging aroun with pple who talk kikuyu and ask questions all the time.Guys have you ever tried to read a kikuyu Bible?

Nyumba

Wagatere
Talking of the kikuyu Bible

This is the hardest nightmare i ever go thru'
Yes i know kikuyu very much but when it comes to reading then the nightmare starts.

I can actually read a centense for 2 min.
and once am thru' am eventually lost of the subject.

Thayu Nyumba

Ladies and Gentlemen, you remind me of a vertain man who was told to lead a prayer in Gikuyu and declined saying that it it was hard. I tend to differ.

The Gikuyu Bible was the first written work that I ever read. I did not have access to any other book, so when I learnt how to read, around age eight, reading the Bible, the only available book became my passion. By the time I was 11, I had read the whole of the Old Testament and some parts of the New. Even today, I can say that I owe my literacy in Gikuyu to the Bible. As to whether I trust the stuff in there, that is another story.

Nyumba, there is no difficulty in reading in Gikuyu. It is all in our mind, and of course practice makes perfect. If I ask you how many English books you have read, you would probaly give me a number in the hundreds, if not thousands, hence the ease.

The same applies to Swahili. Very few of us read Swahili books, then we blame the language for being hard to read while we do not invest in it. Without boasting I can say that I am as comfortable in reading in Gikuyu just as I am in Swahili and English. However, I am becoming a bit rusty in Gikuyu because I do not have Gikuyu writings to keep my reading up.

If you really want to perfect your reading in Gikuyu, give yourself a challenge. read a chaper of the bible every daay and it will become easier to read as you get along.

Like, Sajini, I also do not find reading the Gikuyu Bible hard. However, I have heard numerous complaints of people who in an attempt to read it struggle so much that at the end they don't get the message. They typesetting of the Bible is a bit tricky I must admit with the font being too small and closely knit. Chances of reading the same line twice are quite high. I was speaking to the Bible Society of Kenya who informed me that they are coming up with a modern Gikuyu Bible that will use contemporary Gikuyu language. It will be out early next year.