80 Gibraltar: Language Situation

Bibliography
Ballantine S (2000). English and Spanish in Gibraltar: development and characteristics of two languages in a
bilingual community. Gibraltar Heritage Journal 7,
115124.
Cal Varela M (2001). Algunos aspectos sociolingusticos del
ingles gibraltareno: analisis cuantitativo de tres variables
en el nivel fonico. Santiago de Compostela: Universidad
de Santiago de Compostela Servicio de Publicaciones
e Intercambio.
Fernandez Martn C (2003). Valoracion de las actitudes
lingusticas en Gibraltar. Madrid: Umi-ProQuest Information on Learning.

Garca Martn J M (1997). El espanol en Gibraltar. Panorama general. Demofilo. Revista de cultura tradicional
de Andaluca 22, 141154.
Kellermann A (2001). A new new English: language, politics and identity in Gibraltar. Heidelberg: Herstellung.
Levey D (2004). English pronunciation and production tendencies in Gibraltar. Ph.D. diss., University of
Cadiz.
Moyer M (1998). Bilingual conversation strategies in
Gibraltar. In Auer P (ed.) Codeswitching in conversation, language and identity. London: Routledge.
215234.

Gikuyu
C Githiora, University of London, London, UK
2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Gecaga (1953) and Mugane (1997). A KikuyuEnglish dictionary by Benson (1964) is still in print.

Introduction

Phonology

Gkuyu (alternate names: Kikuyu, Gikuyu) is spoken

as a first language by about one-third of Kenyas
population, or about 10 million people. The speakers
are known as the Agkuyu (singular Mugkuyu)
and they refer to their language as Ggkuyu. The
geographical dialects of Gkuyu correspond to four
administrative districts, which are Mt. Kenya (Krnyaga), Northern (Nyr), Central (Muranga), and
Southern (Kambu), but there is minimal differentiation among them. Gkuyu is classified as a Thagicu
language (Guthries zone E51) of the Central Northern Bantu family, and ultimately the Niger-Congo
superfamily. Gkuyu has borrowed significantly
from Maasai (Purko and Ukwavi dialects), Swahili,
and English. Gkuyu is one of Kenyas most thriving
languages with a vibrant presence in mass media and
publications. It is broadcast on a number of community radio stations, and on national radio, KBC.
Pamphlets, journals, and magazines are published
regularly in this language, and books written in
Gkuyu are published each year in Kenya and abroad.
The renowned writers Ngugi wa Thiongo and
Gakaara Wanjau maintain the languages international visibility by publishing major literary works in
Gkuyu. A standardized orthography was first published by the United Kikuyu Language Committee
(UKLC) in 1947. It was revised and updated by
UKLCs successor, UUGI (U`urumwe na ukuria wa
Ggkuyu) in 1984 and 2002. Two significant studies
on the language have been done by Barlow (1960)
and Armstrong (1967), and two grammar sketches by

Gkuyu is a tone language, where the syllable is the

tone-bearing unit. In autosegmental terms, the syllable is the licenser of tone, i.e., it assigns one tone
per syllable, regardless of its length (weight). These
tones, however, are not marked in standard Gkuyu
orthography.
Gkuyu has three levels of tone: high (H), mid (M)
and low (L), as illustrated in the following examples:
gthiitu (MHL) charm, muthungu (MHL) European person, ikuua (LLM) load, njingiri (HMH)
musical rattles.
Lexical tone in Gkuyu changes the meaning of
words: for example, aka (HH) build vs. aka (MM)
wives; iria (HHM) sea vs. iria (MML) milk; ira
(ML) yesterday vs. ira (LM) snow. Grammatical
tone changes sentence or phrase meaning: for example, nmaakaga (MMHL) (habitual tense) they
build; nmaakaga (HMML) (past habitual) they
used to build.
Syllables are always open, minimally consisting of
a vowel (V) or a consonant-vowel (CV) sequence,
and there are heavy and light syllables. Examples: V o
they; VV ooki newcomers, immigrants; CVV
tr soil; CV ke take, ma truth, ha? where?;
NCwV ngwa thunder; NCyV ndya feast; NCV nda
stomach.
Vowels

Gkuyu has seven vowels: a, e, i, , o, u, u. There

is contrastive vowel length so each vowel can be
either long or short: for example, tata drip/taata

Gikuyu 81

aunt; kana or/kaana child; kara etch/kaara

little finger. At the phonemic level, the two high
vowels and u are more centralized than the cardinals, i and u respectively. Examples: ira yesterday/
ra tell; uga say/u ra run away. Derived vowels,
both long and short, are numerous in the language.
The most common ones result from assimilation
across morpheme boundaries, and reduplication of
certain stems also induces V-length. Examples:
Githiora u kra ! Gthiorookra Githiora, wake
up; hiti igr ! hitiigr two hyenas; anake er !
anakeer two warriors; te discard ! teeateea
waste; ra eat ! rara pick at food; aria
talk ! araaria talk a bit.
Diphthongs and triphthongs can also occur within
stem boundaries, in normal speech, e.g., ku ina sing,
kiuga half calabash, or across phrase/morpheme
boundaries, e.g., kmwreoke then tell him/her to
come, mbu ku ikumi ten rabbits, rekeambeoime let
him/her come out first.
The glides y, w result predominantly from vowel
sequences across morpheme boundaries, whereby
becomes y and u becomes w, as the following examples illustrate: k-u ria ! kyu ria question; u -othe !
wothe all; u -athani ! wathani reign. The high
cardinal vowels i and u do not produce glides.
Consonants

Gku yu s inventory is made up of the following

consonants:
nasals:
glides:
stops:
fricatives:

n m ny ng
w y r (voiced alveolar flap)
tk
th c h b g

As in most Bantu languages, prenasalized consonants, nd, mb, ny, ng, ng, nj, occur very frequently
in Gku yu . Sometimes they occur as derived segments: for example, when an N-morpheme (prefix)
comes into contact with an obstruent, it must produce

a nasal consonant, as in the following examples

involving the 1st person singular subject prefix N-:
rega refuse ! ndega refuse me; kora find ! ngora
find me; tu ma send ! ndu ma send me; cuna
lick ! njuna lick me, etc.

Noun Classes
Gku yu is no exception to the chief characteristic
feature of Bantu languages, namely the grouping of
nouns into noun classes (see Table 1). These are based
primarily on concordial properties, but there are discernible semantic relationships among members of
each noun group.
The Concord System and Morphosyntax

The classification of nouns into these groups has important bearing on the languages grammar. Adjectives must agree with the number (singular or plural)
and class of the head noun, somewhat like the behavior of the gender system in Romance languages. The
noun also must be mapped onto the verb phrase by use
of a marker or prefix whose form is determined by
the nouns class. In the illustrating examples in Table 2,
the head noun is underlined, and its concordial
prefixes highlighted in bold.
When coordinate phrases involve head nouns that
belong to different classes, it becomes necessary to
resolve the clash of subject concords. Two strategies
are possible in such cases. One strategy opts for use of
the human subject plural marker for final agreement
or concord on the verb phrase, irrespective of the
order of the coordinating clauses, e.g., mwarimu
(a-/ma-) na huria (-/i-) magcemania the teacher
and the rhino met; huria na mwarimu magcemania
njra the rhino and the teacher met. The second
strategy takes advantage of the plural subject prefix
of inanimate, nonhuman nouns of the k-/i-/ci-noun
group, e.g., muti (u -/-) na karamu (ga-/tu -) cikiunika
stick and pen broke.

Table 1 G kuyu noun classes

Noun prefix singular/plural

Examples

General semantic content

mu-/amu-/mi-/mak-/i-/ci-/ruka-/tuu-/uku-/
ha-/; ku-/

mundu, mur mi, mwarimu

mut , mubar ki, mutungu
ibuku, iniuru, igongona, iruga
Kmbaruuhia, Gthweri, gthiitu
thonjo, thigiriri, ngi, ndutuura, huria, njogu
ruu , runyeki
kamundu, gatu, kanyumba
uthaka, ucoorua, wagi; ucuru
kugura; guthambia, kuiya
haaha, kwene, kwao

human; kinships; professionals

trees, plants; diseases; parts of body
inanimates; parts of the body; ceremony
ceremonial, religious objects; liquids; languages
birds, insects, animals
long objects
diminutives
abstracts; miscellaneous
verbal nouns; miscellaneous
locatives

82 Gikuyu
Table 2 Examples of concord in G kuyu
Singular

Plural

Gloss (in plural)

u u yu
mund
mu kuh n
arathoma ibuku
u gaaka
kamund
gakuh
karathooma
ibuku
riitho rake rnene
rrona wega
muno

andu aya aniini n

marathooma
mabuku
und
u tu utu
tum
tu rkuh
turathooma
mabuku
maitho maake
manene
maroona wega
muno
mabuku makwa
makuru
maror ire kuu

these short people

are reading
books
these (dim.) small
people are
reading books

ibuku rakwa
rkuru riror ire
kuu

his/her big eyes

are seeing very
well
my old books got
lost there

Word Order in Gkuyu: Subject-VerbObject (SVO)

The chief elements of the verb phrase or sentence
occur according to the following template:
n (focus) SM TAM (k) (OM) (RF) stem
FV (O)

RF reflexive marker which may alternately occupy

object marker position (OM). FV stands for final
vowel and O for object. The latter is actually outside
the main template, but is necessary for a fully formed
sentence.
For example:
Kamau n-ari-ngi-re
Kamau FOC-hit-TAM-FV
Kamau hit the ball
S
V

mu biira
the.ball
O

Verb morphology is very rich in an agglutinating

language such as Gku yu . Derivation in the verb system, for example, is a highly productive process involving the use of extensions (infixes) inserted before
the final vowel to create additional senses or meaning
to the base verb. These are highlighted in bold in the
following examples:
-ia/-thia (causative) e.g., koma sleep ! komia/
komithia make sleep
-ra/-era (applicative/prepositional) e.g., thooma
read ! -thoomera read for/to
-u ra (reversive) e.g.,-hinga close ! -hingu ra open
-ka/-eka (stative) e.g., hingka be closed, thoomeka
readable
-ana (reciprocal) e.g., enda like, love ! -endana
love each other
-anga (diffusive) e.g., ita pour ! itanga pour all
over.

A verb may have more than one extension in a

single sequence, e.g., hinga close ! hingu ra open
! hingurithia cause to open ! hingu rithania
cause each other to open, etc.
Doubling the verb stem or reduplication diminishes
the force of the action expressed by the verb. It also
indicates repetition, e.g., ru ma bite ! ru maru ma
nibble/mince; rekia let go ! rekarekia let go little
by little. In the case of verb stems consisting of more
than two syllables, only the first two are repeated,
e.g., hingu ra open ! hingahingu ra open a little;
tindka push ! tindatindka push a little.
For negation, the marker -ti- is inserted in the verb
phrase, immediately after the subject marker, e.g.,
tu tigaathi naake we will not go with him/her. However, the negative form in subordinate phrases is
marked with -ta-, e.g., tu gaathi tu tar naake we
shall go without him/her.

Tense and Aspect Marking

The tense-aspect system is very complex in Gku yu .
Tense combines with aspect to produce a wide variety
of temporal notions, in the order of TS-VB-AS-FV.
(TS (tense); VB (verb); AS (aspect); FV (final vowel)
which may differ according to aspect of the verb
phrase). There are 9 major tenses, whose markers
are highlighted in bold below:
-ra-: present progressive, current, e.g., narathooma
/-ra-: current past (within a day), e.g., nathoomire
-a-: near past, e.g., nathoomire
-raa-: remote past, e.g., naraathomire
-aa-: current past/future (within a day), e.g.,
nagathooma
-ku -: near future (within the next few days), e.g.,
neku rthooma
-r-: remote future, e.g., nndrthooma
-ka-: present consecutive, e.g., nagaathooma
-k-:parallel, e.g., neku gthooma

There are three aspect markers, which are -ag(stative/imperative/subjunctive), -t- (perfect), and -ir(completive). Twenty-seven combinations are possible
in theory, but only about 20 are clearly attested in the
language because some combinations are constrained
by semantic considerations.

Nominal Derivation
Two broad types of noun can be distinguished in
Gku yu . The first type consisting of a basic noun
and its prefix only. This type of noun is not further
divisible, e.g., irigu banana, mu cinga gun, krma
mountain. Like the others, these nouns can derive
postpositional phrases using the locative suffix, -in,

Gillie ron, Jules (18541926) 83

e.g., irigu in in the banana, mu cingain on/in the

gun, krmain on/at the mountain, etc.
Derived nouns in Gku yu are easily and creatively
generated by use of prefixation and/or suffixation. The
former consists of such prefixes as: the diminutive
prefixes ka-/ga-/tu -, e.g., kamu ici little thief, tu mu ndu
little people; the augmentative prefix k-, e.g., kmu ici
big thief, kmu ndu big (gigantic) person; and the
collective class prefix ma-, e.g., mamu ici group of big
thieves.
Deverbal nouns are distinct in that they are formed
through both prefixation and suffixation using the
formula mu verb i, e.g., mu tegi trapper tega
trap; mwaniki dryer anka put to dry; mu korori cougher korora cough. Verbs can also function as simple verbal nouns, e.g. gu u ka gwake ti
kwega his coming is not good, kwaria ku u n
ku u ru that talk is bad.
Compound nouns are many in Gku yu , and two
very significant words in the speakers cosmology are
nouns of this category, that is, Mwene Nyaga
Owner of Majesty [God], who habitually graces
Kr Nyaga Mountain of Majesty or Mt. Kenya.
Other such nouns include mwaki nyu mba housebuilder and mutua uhoro arbiter. Other complex
nominals involve use of the associative marker -a,
e.g., mwaki wa nyu mba builder of houses; nyu mba
ya toro sleeping room [bedroom].
There are a large number of nominal derivations,
creating nouns each expressing a unique meaning
which is determined by the semantic argument. Such
thematic roles include agent, patient, manner, result,
occasion, or locative. For example, agent nominalization is very productive. It involves a nominalizing
suffix -i, and an appropriate noun class prefix. A
number of proper names of Agku yu are thus derived,
e.g., Mwaniki one who cures skins or Mu rithi one
who herds. The agent type of nominalization is
also the source of many synthetic compounds such
as mu enda-andu a person who is kind to people.
Patient nominalization involves transitive verb stems
with the suffix -o to describe the act of, e.g., mwiro

telling oneself, self-deception, while reflexive -- can

be added to the stem, e.g.mwendo state of liking
oneself, selfishness. Product nominalization uses
the mu - prefix or k-/g-, and the final vowel changes
from a to o. Intransitive verbs mostly participate in
this process, e.g., gcaambio defamation caambia
defame; gthoomo education thooma read;
mwandko handwriting andka write. Location-type nominalization involves the i-prefix for consonant-initial stems, and r-for V-initial stems, e.g.,
ikuuro place of loading kuua carry; ithu iro
sunset
thu a go down. Nominalization of
manner involves prefixation with mu - and suffixation
with -re, e.g., mu kuure manner of carrying kuua
carry; mwandkre writing style andka write.
Occasion nominalization can occur with any verb
type by prefixing with i- and leaving the final vowel
unchanged. The resulting noun refers to occasions
of an event specified by the verb stem, e.g., iceera
visit ceera visit; iruga feast ruga cook.

See also: Academies: Dictionaries and Standards; Affixation; Applied Linguistics in Africa; Assimilation; Dissimilation; Inflection and Derivation; Kenya: Language
Situation; Language Education: Grammar; Morpheme;
Mother Tongue Education: Standard Language; Nominalization; Productivity; Template Morphology; Tense,
Mood, Aspect: Overview; Tone in Connected Discourse;
Verbs; Word Formation.

Bibliography
Armstrong L (1967). Phonetic and tonal structure of
Gku yu . London: Dawsons of Pall Mall.
Barlow A H (1960). Studies in Kikuyu grammar and idiom.
Edinburgh: Blackwood & Sons.
Benson T G (1964). Kikuyu-English dictionary. London:
Oxford University Press.
Gecaga B M (1953). A short Kikuyu grammar. Nairobi:
Macmillan.
Mugane J M (1997). A paradigmatic grammar of Gku yu .
Stanford, CA: CSLI.

Gillie ron, Jules (18541926)

W H Veith, Universitat Mainz, Mainz, Germany
2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Jules Gillie ron was born in La Neuveville, canton of

Berne, Switzerland. He studied in Neucha tel and
Basle, Switzerland, and finally at the famous E cole

pratique des Hautes E tudes, Paris, where he became

a professor of dialectology [in the French system,
matre de confe rence] in 1883. He acquired French
citizenship in 1886.
Gillie ron was the founder of scientific dialectology
in France. His first intensive experience with dialects
was during a 3-week stay at a farm in the Roman