cukari

Kikuyu

Borrowed from Swahili sukari,^[1]^[2] from Arabic سُكَّر (sukkar), from Persian (šakar), from Middle Persian 𐭱𐭪𐭥 (škʿ /⁠šakar⁠/), from Sanskrit शर्करा (śarkarā, “ground or candied sugar, originally meaning grit, 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

↑ ^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.