Guarani language

Guarani
Paraguayan Guarani
avañeʼẽ
Books in Guarani
Pronunciation[ʔãʋãɲẽˈʔẽ]
Native toParaguay
EthnicityGuaraní
Paraguayan people
Native speakers
6.5 million (2020)[1]
Tupian
  • Tupi–Guarani
    • Guarani (I)
      • Guaraní
        • Guarani
Dialects
  • Jopará
  • Taragui
Guarani alphabet (Latin script)
Official status
Official language in
Paraguay
Bolivia
Regulated byAcademia de la Lengua Guaraní (Guarani Ñeʼẽ Rerekuapavẽ)
Language codes
ISO 639-1gn
ISO 639-2grn
ISO 639-3gug
Glottologpara1311
Linguasphere88-AAI-f
Guarani-speaking world[2]

Guarani (Avañe'ẽ),[a] also called Paraguayan Guarani, is a language of South America that belongs to the Tupi–Guarani branch[4] of the Tupian language family. It is one of the two official languages of Paraguay (along with Spanish), where it is spoken by the majority of the population, and where half of the rural population are monolingual speakers of the language.[5][6]

Variants of the language are spoken by communities in neighboring countries including parts of northeastern Argentina, southeastern Bolivia and southwestern Brazil. It is a second official language of the Argentine province of Corrientes since 2004[7] and the Brazilian city of Tacuru since 2010.[8] Guarani is also one of the three official languages of Mercosur, alongside Spanish and Portuguese.[9]

Guarani is one of the most widely spoken Native American languages and remains commonly used among the Paraguayan people and neighboring communities. This is unique among American languages; language shift towards European colonial languages (in this case, the other official language of Spanish) has otherwise been a nearly universal phenomenon in the Western Hemisphere, but Paraguayans have maintained their traditional language while also adopting Spanish.

The name "Guarani" is generally used for the official language of Paraguay. However, this is part of a dialect chain, most of whose components are also often called Guarani.

  1. ^ Guarani at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
  2. ^ Muturzikin (2008). "Paraguai". muturzikin.com.
  3. ^ Wells, John C. (2008). Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (3rd ed.). Longman. ISBN 978-1-4058-8118-0.
  4. ^ Britton, A. Scott (2004). Guaraní-English/English-Guaraní Concise Dictionary. New York: Hippocrene Books.
  5. ^ Mortimer, K (2006). "Guaraní Académico or Jopará? Educator Perspectives and Ideological Debate in Paraguayan Bilingual Education". Working Papers in Educational Linguistics. 21 (2): 45–71.
  6. ^ Romero, Simon (12 March 2012). "In Paraguay, Indigenous Language With Unique Staying Power". The New York Times. Asunción. Archived from the original on 12 March 2012.
  7. ^ "Ley Provincial Nº 5.598, que establece el guaraní como 'idioma oficial alternativo' de Corrientes".
  8. ^ "Cidade de Mato Grosso do Sul adota o guarani como segundo idioma oficial" [City in Mato Grosso do Sul adopts Guarani as second official language]. R7 Notícias (in Portuguese). Archived from the original on 16 January 2014.
  9. ^ "Incorporación del Guaraní como Idioma del Mercosur". MERCOSUR official page (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 25 December 2013.


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