mwĩrĩ

Kikuyu

Etymology

Hinde (1904) records mwiri as an equivalent of English body in “Jogowini dialect” of Kikuyu, listing also “Ulu dialect” (spoken then from Machakos to coastal area) of Kamba mwi, “Nganyawa dialect” (spoken then in Kitui District) of Kamba mwili and mwiakwa, and Swahili mwili (pl. miilī) as its equivalents[1].

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /mòèrè(ꜜ)/
As for Tonal Class, Benson (1964) classifies this term into Class 1 with a disyllabic stem, together with ndaka, and so on.
  • (Kiambu) IPA(key): /mòèrě/
Yukawa (1981, 1985) classifies this term into a group including mũka, ngitĩ, kĩroboto, nyũmba, and so on.[2][3]

Noun

mwĩrĩ class 3 (plural mĩĩrĩ)

  1. body

Proverbs
  • mũrimũ ndũrĩ hinya ũgĩtonya mwĩrĩ ta ũkiuma
  • mwĩrĩ ti icoya atĩ nĩ ũgũtembũka
  • mwĩrĩ ũrĩ thakame gũtirĩ ũtarwaraga

References
  1. Hinde, Hildegarde (1904). Vocabularies of the Kamba and Kikuyu languages of East Africa, pp. 8–9. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  2. 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.
  3. Yukawa, Yasutoshi (1985). "A Second Tentative Tonal Analysis of Kikuyu Nouns." In Journal of Asian and African Studies, No. 29, 190–231.
  • “mwĩrĩ” in Benson, T.G. (1964). Kikuyu-English dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
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