turugi (black tea) came from mzungu asking for True Tea (meaning without milk)
kafiraru (not sure of the spelling) - as the kikuyus call it is from the mzungu asking for coffee alone (with no sugar)
girimiti - kikuyu got it from the word "primitive" which was used by their mzungu "masters" in the old days. My grandpa called his children this and they used to wonder what it meant until they grew up and figured it out.
Kikuyu mothers used to call their kids fokoff or ***ini and little did they know it meant f..k off and f..k in.
Has anyone here ever heard of these and these the right translations?
Kisumu was derived from a luo word meaning long treak
kariako in nairobi originated during the colonial times.wazunguz were being carried on carts in that location.so it originally sounded carreir carts transformed to kariako
Kariakor = carrier corps
During the 1st World War the Carrier Corps had their station at the present Kariakor Market. The Carrier Corps were the Africans who were porters and carriers for the Imperial Army.
Here is my sumuni worth of what I know about the two places - going back to the sixties.
Dagoretti Corner: for Dagoretti see one of the post above. Note that there are other places that carry Dagoretti as an adjective: Dagoretti Market and Dagoretti Centre. (Hope no one will say they mean The Great Market or The Great Centre!) Most likely this trend could have influenced the name. Especially since Corner was the farthest end of the area considered Dagoretti.
Up to 1969, the Nairobi city proper went up to Corner- all the area from Dagoretti Corner westwards was peri-urban. The popular name of Corner was Karandi-ini. Most of this land was lorded over by the Wanyee Family.
I mention this to point out that after the demarcation, the area was owned by distinct prominent families - hence the many names characteristic of the area and Dagoretti in general.
Riruta was the name for all the area west of Kagishu stream including Kawangware all the way to the Kabiria.
When Kawangware (literally, the place (diminutive) of the man of quarry (the bird) - then a small dusty village; grew to have a shopping centre, the area on the south of Naivasha Road and around the Holy Ghost Mission (HGM - the benefactors of the Catholic church and todays Precious Blood School) was increasingly referred to as Riruta. When the area further south of Naivasha Road started opening up - the name Riruta Satellite became more and more common.
One theory suggest that there was a project by an organisation - and had an outpost, a satellite of the project. No space exploration here.
Riruta was for a long time the ward/location the name for this area but the building of Riruta Satellite Primary School and the Kenya Bus Service Route number 4 in the early seventies popularised the name.
The name Riruta is thought to have some maasai origin and by time corrupted.
Last edited by nettle : 12-18-2007 at 10:53 AM.
Reason: the last line
means of some kikuyu words -
08-31-2007, 01:25 AM
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