cukari

Kikuyu

Etymology tree

Proto-Indo-European *ḱorkeh₂

Proto-Indo-Iranian *ćárkaraH

Proto-Indo-Aryan *śárkaraH

Sanskrit शर्क॑रा (śárkarā)

Gandhari 𐨭𐨐𐨪 (śakara)bor.

Middle Persian 𐭱𐭪𐭥 (šakar)bor.

Arabic سُكَّر (sukkar)bor.

Swahili sukaribor.

Kikuyu cukari

Borrowed from Swahili sukari,^[1]^[2] borrowed from Arabic سُكَّر (sukkar), borrowed from Middle Persian 𐭱𐭪𐭥 (šakar), borrowed from Gandhari 𐨭𐨐𐨪 (śakara), from Sanskrit शर्क॑रा (śárkarā), from Proto-Indo-Aryan *śárkaraH, from Proto-Indo-Iranian *ćárkaraH, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱorkeh₂ (“gravel”).

This a is pronounced long.^[1]

As for Tonal Class, Benson (1964) classifies this term into Class 1 with a trisyllabic stem, together with kĩberethi, mbogoro, and so on.

(Limuru) As for Tonal Class, Yukawa (1981) classifies this term into a group including cindano, huko, iburi, igego, igoti, ini (pl. mani), inooro, irigũ, irũa, iturubarĩ (pl. maturubarĩ), kĩbaata, kĩmũrĩ, kũgũrũ, mũciĩ, mũgeni, mũgũrũki, mũmbirarũ, mũndũ, mũri, mũthuuri, mwaki (“fire”), mwario (“way of speaking”), mbogoro, nda, ndaka, ndigiri, ngo, njagathi, njogu, nyondo (“breast(s)”), and so on.^[3]

cukari class 14

sugar
cukari wa nguru - molasses, treacle^[1]

mũrimũ wa cukari - diabetes^[4]

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 ^1.2 “cukari” in Benson, T.G. (1964). Kikuyu-English dictionary, p. 73. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
^ Baldi, Sergio (2011), “Swahili: A Donor Language”, in Lingua Posnaniensis‎^[1], volume 53, number 1, →DOI, page 21 of 7-24
^ 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.
^ Njagi, James Kinyua. (2016). "Lexical Borrowing and Semantic Change: A Case of English and Gĩkũyũ Contact", p. 32.