The Kikuyu Language

For those who expect kikuyu to sound like they want, it does not. The kikuyu alphabet is:

a b c d e g h i ĩ j k m n o r t u ũ w y

Any word containing f l p q s v x z is not a kikuyu word, and thus cannot be expected to be pronounced by a native of the language.

The canonical word order of Gĩkũyũ is SVO (subject–verb–object). It uses prepositions rather than postpostions, and adjectives follow nouns.

The complete language map can be found in this link:

it’s total vowels and consonnats are as follows:

2 Likes

Still doesn’t make sense that there’s no f while so many kikuyu words have that pronunciation

1 Like

We use b in writing instead of f. For example the name Kibaki should be read as Kifaki or Kivaki in some places

1 Like

Kikuyu word like “fastofo” so in written Kikuyu language, it’s written as “bastobo”

Cc: @ChifuMbitika

2 Likes

That’s not a Kikuyu word. I mean natural Kikuyu words.

1 Like

Obviously yes, but mbona hawangeweka f ikuwe kifaki. Juu sasa b pronunciation is written mb in kikuyu. Very unnecessary moves

1 Like

Because it is actually a consonant sound that combines the stop ‘b’ and the fricative ‘f’ is the affricate sound /b͡v/ or /b͜v/, which is often represented in IPA as a combination of the two letters, as I indicated in the language map
You can find how to pronounce it in this link. Saa zingine learn to accept new information as fact and avoid seeming a moron

Ni kama French words which sound very different from how they are written ama English words with silent letters.
On the “f” issue what about ‘fangi’ na ‘fushia’(blink).

2 Likes

What’s this sudden interest in linguistics? Is it because of a certain app?

Because I need hard capital, not hints.

Gai fafa ?? Has letter f.

obviously, swahili has had an influence on how words are pronounced causing a drift in pronunciation. If you went back 100 years, you wold probably sound very strange to the people back then

You can clearly here the voiced labiodental affricate ([b̪͡v] in this recording, which sounds close to f but is clearly not f