How Kenya
got its name (maybe)!
The Mountain, from afar, appeared black on its sides and white on its snow-capped glaciers and thus they (I don’t know who could be the Kikuyu medicine men) named it KiiNyaa (the place of the male ostrich) which has black and white plumage compared with the grey female.
Another
claim is that the name Kenya was coined from the Kamba language pronunciation
of Mr Kenya’s traditional name: Kirinyaga and Kinyaa.
Kenya was initially known as the
British East Africa Protectorate, or British East Africa and it was not until
1920 that it was officially named Kenya.
According
to the Nairobi Railway Museum curator, Maurice Barasa, others believe the name
Kenya came from Kirinyaga, meaning a place with white spots. (Standard
Nairobi)
Another version: Kenya is named after a mountain of the same name. The Kikuyu people who lived around present-day Mt Kenya referred to it as Kirinyaga or Kerenyaga, meaning mountain of whiteness because of its snow-capped peak. Mt Kirinyaga which was the main landmark became synonymous with the territory the British later claimed as their colony. However, the name Kenya arose out of the inability of the British to pronounce Kirinyaga correctly.
Kenya derives its name from the tallest mountain in the country, Mount Kenya. The earliest record of the name was written by German explorer Johann Ludwig Krapf in the 19th century. It is alleged that when Krapf was traveling with the local Kamba people, he asked about name of the mountain, and the locals told him it was named "Kĩĩma- Kĩĩnyaa" or "Kĩ-Nyaa." The Kikuyu people, who lived on the slopes of the mountain referred to it as "Kĩrĩma Kĩrĩnyaga" in their native language, while the Embu people, who also lived on the slopes of the mountain, called it "Kirenyaa." All three names have the same meaning, which is believed to be linked to the mountain's black rock and white snow that resembled the feathers of an ostrich. Krapf recorded the name as "Kenia" and "Kegnia." In 1882, Scottish explorer, geologist and naturalist Joseph Thompson drew a map of the region and labelled Mount Kenya as "Mt Kenia." The mountain's name was later accepted as the name of the country, although it was not widely used during the colonial period, as the country was known as the East African Protectorate at that time. It was renamed the Colony of Kenya in 1920, and then adopted the name the Republic of Kenya when the country gained independence in 1963.
I think the
whole is a mystery but name Kenya is now known the world over!
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