mweri
Kikuyu
Etymology
Hinde (1904) records mweri “moon, month” and mweli “month” as equivalents of English moon and month in “Jogowini dialect” of Kikuyu, listing also “Ulu dialect” (spoken then from Machakos to coastal area) of Kamba mwei (“moon”) and Swahili mwezi (“moon, month”) (pl. miezi, only in the sense “month”) as their equivalents[1].
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /moɛ̀ɾíꜜ/
- As for Tonal Class, Armstrong (1940) classifies this term into mbori class which includes mbũri, ikinya (pl. makinya), itimũ, kĩhaato, maguta, mbembe, mũgeka, mũrata, nyaga, ũhoro, riitho, riũa, rũrĩmĩ, Kamau (“man's name”), etc.[2] Benson (1964) classifies this term into Class 3 with a disyllabic stem, together with kĩhaato, mbembe, kiugo, and so on.
- (Kiambu)
- (Limuru) As for Tonal Class, as mũeri, Yukawa (1981) classifies this term into a group including bũrũri (pl. mabũrũri), ikara, ikinya, itimũ, kanitha (pl. makanitha), kiugo, kĩhaato, maguta, mũgeka, mũkonyo, mũrata, mwana, mbembe, mbũri, nyaga, riitho, riũa, rũrĩmĩ (pl. nĩmĩ), ũhoro (pl. mohoro), and so on.[3]
References
- Hinde, Hildegarde (1904). Vocabularies of the Kamba and Kikuyu languages of East Africa, pp. 40–41. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Armstrong, Lilias E. (1940). The Phonetic and Tonal Structure of Kikuyu. Rep. 1967. (Also in 2018 by Routledge).
- 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.
- “mweri” in Benson, T.G. (1964). Kikuyu-English dictionary, p. 95. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
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