rũheni

Kikuyu

Derived from kũhena (“to shine, to flash”).^[1]

Hinde (1904) records ruhēni as an equivalent of English lightning in “Jogowini dialect” of Kikuyu.^[2]

As for Tonal Class, Benson (1964) classifies this term into Class 1 with a disyllabic stem, together with ndaka, 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]

rũheni class 11 (plural heni)

^ “rũheni” in Benson, T.G. (1964). Kikuyu-English dictionary, p. 147. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
^ Hinde, Hildegarde (1904). Vocabularies of the Kamba and Kikuyu languages of East Africa, pp. 36–37. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
^ 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.