nyaga

Kikuyu

Etymology

Hinde (1904) records nyaga as an equivalent of English ostrich in “Jogowini dialect” of Kikuyu, listing also Kamba nya as its equivalent.[1]

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /ɲàɣáꜜ/
As for Tonal Class, Armstrong (1940) classifies this term into mbori class which includes mbũri, ikinya (pl. makinya), itimũ, kĩhaato, maguta, mbembe, mũgeka, mũrata, 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. 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, riitho, riũa, rũrĩmĩ (pl. nĩmĩ), ũhoro (pl. mohoro), and so on.[3]

Noun

nyaga class 9/10 (plural nyaga)

  1. ostrich

References
  1. Hinde, Hildegarde (1904). Vocabularies of the Kamba and Kikuyu languages of East Africa, pp. 44–45. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  2. Armstrong, Lilias E. (1940). The Phonetic and Tonal Structure of Kikuyu. Rep. 1967. (Also in 2018 by Routledge).
  3. 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.
  • “nyaga” in Benson, T.G. (1964). Kikuyu-English dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
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