Kikuyu Alphabet (Gĩkũyũ)

Unicode's CLDR gives this 20-character lowercase main exemplar set for Kikuyu: a b c d e g h i ĩ j k m n o r t u ũ w y. CLDR places F, L, P, Q, S, V, X and Z in its auxiliary set outside the main set, and two letters are added: ĩ straight after i and ũ straight after u. The language calls itself Gĩkũyũ; a Kikuyu person is a Mũgĩkũyũ and the people are the Agĩkũyũ, so the special letters are there in the very first word a learner meets.

Several letters do not sound the way an English reader expects. c is pronounced like English sh or s, g on its own is a soft, voiced g made at the back of the mouth without fully closing it, b is a soft b made without closing the lips, and r is a quick tap. Pairs of letters write single sounds: th is the voiced th of English this, as in thayũ, peace; ny is the ny of canyon; and mb, nd, ng and nj are said with the nasal and the consonant run together, which is why d turns up in native words after n. Long vowels are often written double, as in maaĩ, water, and Ĩĩ, yes.

What Ĩ ĩ and Ũ ũ do in Gĩkũyũ

Gĩkũyũ has seven vowels and the Latin alphabet only five vowel letters, so the tilde makes two new ones. ĩ sounds close to the e of English say, without the glide, and ũ close to the o of go; plain i and u keep the sounds of see and moon, while e and o are the more open vowels of bed and law. In Gĩkũyũ i and ĩ, u and ũ are as different as e and o, so mũndũ (a person) and mũtĩ (a tree) are misspelt without them. Unlike the tilde in Portuguese ã and õ, the Kikuyu tilde says nothing about the nose.

The tilde is also the first thing dropped online: searches are often typed as "gikuyu" and "kikuyu", place names on maps are written Kirinyaga and Nyeri, and many people text plain i and u. Careful writing keeps it, and so do the Gĩkũyũ Bible and hymn books, school readers and the novels of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o. Gĩkũyũ is a tonal language, where pitch can tell words apart, but the standard spelling does not mark tone, so there are no other accents to learn.

The apostrophe in ng'

Gĩkũyũ writes the ng sound of English singer as ng', with an apostrophe, to keep it apart from ng, which is the ng of finger. That apostrophe is part of the spelling of everyday words and names: ng'ombe (cow), the surname Thiong'o, the name Ng'ang'a and Murang'a County. Both the straight apostrophe ' and the curly ’ are used; pick one and keep it the same across a document so that search and sorting find every word.

How to type Kikuyu letters on a keyboard: ĩ ũ and the capitals

The four letters are U+0128 Ĩ, U+0129 ĩ, U+0168 Ũ and U+0169 ũ. In Microsoft Word on a Windows PC, type the code and press Alt+X straight after it: 0129 gives ĩ, 0169 ũ, 0128 Ĩ and 0168 Ũ; Insert → Symbol also has them in the Latin Extended-A subset. For everyday typing in every program, install a Kikuyu keyboard for PC, or simply copy the letters from the grid above.

On a Mac, add the ABC Extended input source and press Option+N followed by i or u. On Linux, the Compose key followed by ~ and the letter works. In HTML write ĩ, ũ, Ĩ and Ũ. On a phone, a Kikuyu keyboard download (free keyboard apps for Gĩkũyũ exist) puts ĩ and ũ under the i and u keys; the default English layout of most phones does not offer them.

For curly quotes on Windows hold Alt and type 0147 for “, 0148 for ”, 0145 for ‘ and 0146 for ’ on the number pad; on a Mac Option+[ gives “, Option+Shift+[ gives ”, and Option+] and Option+Shift+] give ‘ and ’. Kenyan prices are written in shillings as KSh or Ksh before the amount; the shilling has no Unicode sign of its own.

Where the Kikuyu language is spoken

Gĩkũyũ is the language of the Kikuyu, Kenya's largest community, whose homeland is the central highlands between Nairobi and Mount Kenya: Kiambu, Murang'a, Nyeri, Kirinyaga and Nyandarua counties, with large communities in Nairobi, Nakuru, Laikipia and abroad. Estimates put the number of speakers at around 8 million, mostly in Kenya, and many of them also speak Swahili and English, the country's official languages.

Gĩkũyũ is a Bantu language of the Niger–Congo family. Its closest relatives are its Mount Kenya neighbours, Embu, Meru, Chuka and Tharaka, with Kamba a little further away, which is why they share ĩ and ũ and so many words. Embu, Meru, Kamba and Swahili each have a letters collection of their own, and Kenya has one for the flag, the shilling and the country's emoji.