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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:The impact of socio-cultural change on Kikuyu-embu kinship terminology
Author:Nyaggah, Lynette BehmISNI
Year:1982
Periodical:Journal of Eastern African Research and Development
Volume:12
Pages:124-150
Language:English
Geographic term:Kenya
Subjects:Kikuyu
kinship
Abstract:This research grew out of a casual observation that different speakers of Kikuyu and Kiembu used different terms for the same relatives, not divided along dialect boundaries but on an individual basis. Goal was to observe what changes had taken place in some fairly basic kinship terminology since L.S.B. Leakey's book 'The Southern Kikuyu before 1903' (London, 1977). Given that Kenya has undergone rapid social and cultural change since 1903, it was expected that some of the kinship terms had been lost completely and that confusion exists over some of the terms. Hypothetically the process of change in the kinship terminology was supposed to have passed through three stages: 1) uniform retention of a term; 2) confusion or free variation between terms; 3) complete or nearly complete loss of a term. The data collected for this study from family members and University colleagues confirm the hypothesis. Anecdotal evidence, outside the obtained data, shows the forces of change at work. The influence of the English kinship system could also be detected in the data. Fig., notes, ref., tab.
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