How to Read and Speak Kikuyu Language and Fasten Learning

There are seven Kikuyu vowels. The regular five in English, plus two more. The extra two are ĩ and ũ.  In this course, we have placed them at the end of the Kikuyu alphabet. This is the most convenient arrangement for any beginner. It ensures that you easily identify them.

In some other texts, you might encounter a different arrangement of these vowels as follows: a e i ĩ o u ũ. It is the same thing only that it's arranged differently.

Try singing the vowel songs I've created in the video. This might sound awkward or funny or foolish. But it is not. Those songs are meant to retrain your brain to interpret these vowels in a new way whenever it encounters them. This speeds up the learning curve.

It is easier to sing them out rather than to try to memorize how they sound. In a music class for vocals, they always tell you to sing "a a a a a" until you correctly sing all your possible key range. Think of this as you would a vocals class and you will be fine!

Syllables are what makes the basics of any language. They are very important to learn. In Kikuyu, all syllables must end with a vowel. There can never be a syllable that ends with a consonant- unless it is a proper noun- like the name of a person or place.

Regular Kikuyu words will always indicate for you the end of one syllable and the beginning of the next. Vowels always do that trick. Whenever you see a vowel, you have just seen the end of a syllable.

There are, at least for the purposes of this course, four different syllable possibilities in the Kikuyu language. These are:

• Vowel (V)- an example is, o, which means "they".

• Consonant + vowel (CV)- an example is, ma, which means "truth".

• Consonant + consonant + vowel (CCV)- an example is, tha, which means "mercy".

• Consonant + consonant + consonant + vowel (CCCV)- an example is, ngwa, which means "thunder".

The n in nd and nj syllables are ignored because they create a very heavy accent and is cumbersome to the tongue of a Kikuyu speaker. It can be used occasionally where it sounds most natural to do so, but it is not necessary in normal use.

Some dialects/near bantu cousins emphasize the n sound. For instance, in Swahili, d and j can stand alone, and can also have n before them. As such, when pronouncing words with these consonants, a difference must be put in place by either including or excluding the n sound, respectively. In Kikuyu, d and j can never stand alone. However, the n standing before them can be ignored.