Is there such a Language as Gikirinyaga?

Abstract

This paper adopts an interrogative approach to foreground the dilemma currently unfolding in Kirinyaga County, where a section of the county’s inhabitants has expressed reservations regarding the use of the name Gikuyu to designate their language and Agikuyu to refer to the people. This group contends that, although the language they speak exhibits notable similarities with Gikuyu, it constitutes a distinct language and should therefore not be classified as a dialect of Gikuyu. The issue is further complicated by the contrary position taken by the Kirinyaga County Government, which views the proposed change of both the linguonym and the ethnonym as an undesirable development with the potential to drive a wedge between the people of Kirinyaga and their brothers and sisters with whom they are presumed to share the ethnonym Agikuyu. Without prescriptively offering a resolution to this impasse, the paper adopts an analytical perspective that integrates historical (archival), linguistic, and sociolinguistic accounts. Historical records indicate that the area currently known as Kirinyaga County was, at one point, part of what was then referred to as Embu District, a configuration that may have been informed by perceived close cultural and linguistic affiliations between the people of Kirinyaga and those of Embu. At the levels of phonology, morphology, and the lexicon, significant similarities are observed between the Gikuyu varieties spoken in Kiambu, Nyeri, and Murang’a counties, on the one hand, and that spoken in Kirinyaga County, on the other. However, noticeable discrepancies within these same linguistic domains also emerge when the varieties spoken by the two groups are juxtaposed. The sociolinguistic considerations highlighted in this study are therefore critical in determining whether Gichugu–Ndia and Gikuyu warrant recognition in the linguistic record as two distinct entries or as a single entry.