Meru

Meru (Kĩmĩĩru) is a Bantu language of central Kenya spoken by the Ameru people on the eastern and northeastern slopes of Mount Kenya, with roughly 2 million speakers. It belongs to the Mount Kenya cluster of the Bantu E.50 / E.60 zone alongside Kikuyu (ki), Embu (ebu), and Kamba (kam), with which it shares extensive cognate vocabulary and a 7-vowel ATR-contrast system. The orthography uses tilde diacritics on ĩ and ũ to mark the non-ATR (lax) variants — a convention shared with Kikuyu and Embu. Meru comprises several mutually intelligible varieties: Imenti (the largest and basis of standard written Meru), Tigania, Igembe, Igoji, Mwimbi-Muthambi, and Chuka; Tharaka, spoken on the southern fringe, is sometimes classified as a separate language. The Bible was fully translated by 1964. Meru is recognized as an indigenous Kenyan language under the 2010 constitution and is used in primary education and regional broadcasting.