mwatũ

Kikuyu
mĩatũ

Etymology

Hinde (1904) records mwatu “barrel” and mwātu “honey box” in “Jogowini dialect” of Kikuyu, listing also Kamba mwatu (“honey box”) as their equivalent.[1]

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /moàtǒ/
As for Tonal Class, Armstrong (1940) classifies this term into mote class which includes mũtĩ, gĩkwa (pl. ikwa), gĩthaka, kĩnya, kĩrũũmi, mũcinga, mũgate, mũhaka, mũrũthi, njagĩ, njohi, nyũmba, etc.[2] Benson (1964) classifies this term into Class 2 with a disyllabic stem, together with kĩgunyũ, njagĩ, kiugũ, and so on.
  • (Kiambu)

Noun

mwatũ class 3 (plural mĩatũ)

  1. beehive made of tree trunk split in two and hollowed out[4]
    mwatũ wa njũkĩ - hive of bee(s)
  2. cylindrical wooden barrel whose both ends have lids, used for storage in the home[4]

Derived terms

(Proverbs)

  • gĩthũri kĩrĩ mwatũ wa ngotoko
  • kĩrimũ nĩ ta mwatũ
  • thegere igĩrĩ itiremagwo nĩ mwatũ

References
  1. Hinde, Hildegarde (1904). Vocabularies of the Kamba and Kikuyu languages of East Africa, pp. 6–7, 32–33. 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.
  4. “mwatũ” in Benson, T.G. (1964). Kikuyu-English dictionary, p. 18. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
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