Talk:Guarani language

Reinventing the Wheel?

This page should be merged with the page Guaraní language, shouldn't it?

No, because, in addition to the main articles on Guaraní language and Guaraní languages, there are individual articles on each specific Guaraní language, e.g. Chiripá, Eastern Bolivian Guaraní, Mbyá Guaraní, Paraguayan Guaraní language, Western Argentine Guaraní, etc. This is normal. The same occurs with other similar cases of closely-related languages. For example, for the Wichí people of Argentina, there are three language articles: Wichí Lhamtés Güisnay, Wichí Lhamtés Nocten, and Wichí Lhamtés Vejoz. What needs to be improved, however, is the linkage. For example, the articles for the three Wichí languages just mentioned are linked to each other but not to the article on the Wichí people, which is odd. Likewise, the separate articles on the individual Guaraní languages should probably have links to each other and to the articles on Guaraní, Guaraní language, Guaraní languages, and Tupi-Guarani languages. The reason they don't is that these are mostly stubs created with information from the Ethnologue, which is why they are linked only or primarily to the Ethnologue. But they can be expanded. Pasquale 22:38, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

If Guarani language covers the Guarani languages, then why are they two separate articles? kwami (talk) 10:28, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Kwami, what you are saying seems very reasonable at first blush, however, the problem is that Guarani language and Guarani languages are not coterminous. Please refer to the article on the Tupi-Guarani languages. While the Guarani language consists of a number of "dialects" now generally classified as distinct languages (e.g. Chiripá, Eastern Bolivian Guaraní, Mbyá Guaraní, Paraguayan Guaraní, Western Argentine Guaraní, etc.), the Guarani languages also include a couple of additional languages that have never been considered as Guaraní "dialects", such as Guarayu and Sirionó. I have updated the Guaraní languages article to reflect this. Pasquale (talk) 15:40, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Surprisingly, instead of continuing this discussion, User:Kwamikagami has done precisely what I was advising him not to do: he has redirected Paraguayan Guaraní language to Guarani language. However, he has not done the same for the remaining "dialects" of the Guarani language, e.g. Chiripá, Eastern Bolivian Guaraní, Mbyá Guaraní, Western Argentine Guaraní, which are in the same relationship to the Guarani language as Paraguayan Guaraní, namely they are all varieties of that language, formerly considered "dialects" of it, but now generally classified as distinct languages. I am saying "surprisingly" because I thought my explanation was perfectly clear. I have reversed Kwamikagami's redirect. Pasquale (talk) 16:18, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

It wasn't clear, because you never distinguished the Guarani language from the Guarani languages. In fact, you implied they were synonymous. I see what you mean now that you've spelled it out in the classification.

We still contradict ourselves, however: on Tupi-Guarani languages, we still say that Guarani language is synonymous with Guarani languages.

We don't need to have a separate article for everything SIL assigns an ISO3 code to. Certainly if E Bol & W Arg are the same, we should merge them. Personally, I think we should probably merge them and Par into "Guarani". Are you saying that if we do that (branch A of group I), we should also merge Mbya &c. (branch B of group I)? kwami (talk) 20:09, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, yes, my understanding is that, in its broadest sense, Guaraní language (notice I am using the singular) includes — in addition to Eastern Bolivian/Western Argentine Guaraní and Western Bolivian Guaraní (which still has no article) — also Chiripá and Mbyá Guaraní, while, in its strictest sense, it is synonymous with Paraguayan Guaraní, but that's only because the latter variety has the largest number of speakers by far and is well understood by the speakers of the other varieties, to the point of being on the verge of replacing them. Also, the minor dialects are not as well described as Paraguayan Guaraní, so it's not clear to what extent the differences are linguistic and to what extent they are purely tribal. In Brazil, for example, there exist three varieties of the Guaraní language (again, I am using the singular), respectively known as Kaiowá, Nhandeva and Mbyá. But whether these are primarily tribal or linguistic groupings is not quite clear.

In principle, I would not be opposed to merging Eastern Bolivian and Western Argentine Guaraní, since they appear to refer to what is essentially the same language, or the same "dialect" of the Guaraní language. However, I would recommend leaving them separate, because this language is also spoken in a third country, i.e. Paraguay, where it is locally known as Ñandeva (while, outside of Paraguay, specifically in Brazil, Nhandeva refers to Chiripá. So, the whole thing is rather messy, which is why I would leave things as they are, until things are sorted out.

What we do need, however, is an article on Western Bolivian Guaraní, patterned on the articles for the other "dialects" of the Guaraní language. Pasquale (talk) 19:35, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

All right, next question: Guarani languages is defined as Tupi-Guarani languages branches I and II. However, in the T-G article, these are independent. Is Guayaru-Siriono is any closer to Guarani than Tupi is? In the current definition, are the Guarani languages not monophyletic, or does the T-G article need updating? I ask because there are other T-G branches which are called "Guarani" but not included as Guarani languages; we don't normally posit non-linguistic language families. kwami (talk) 22:07, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Kwami, to answer your question, yes, that was my understanding from a quick review of the literature. However, (1) I am no expert on this language family; and (2) I believe the exact subgrouping of the Tupi-Guarani languages is pretty murky. If you have the time to review the existing literature on the subject and make improvements accordingly, please do so. But, of course, cross-referential research within the Wikipedia articles is not going to shed any further light at this point. Pasquale (talk) 15:40, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Guarani speakers are not indigenous? Since when?

I have a problem with the statement made in the first paragraph of the page. How is Guarani the only indigenous language with an overwhelming majority of speakers being non-native? This is ridiculous because the majority of speakers are people of mixed european/amerindian ancestry, which means they are of indigenous ancestry and hence indigenous people nonetheless. They couldn't have come from anywhere else but paraguay and are therefore indigenous. Its not like a large group of mestizo people from another country immigrated into paraguay and these are the speakers! The guarani people were always there and accommodated some european immigrants into their population - suddenly they are not indigenous? This is very strange to me - as a mestizo person myself, we consider ourselves indigenous although not all will say "amerindian" - indigenous nonetheless. Please change this.

October 15, 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.82.192.176 (talk) 04:26, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

The statement you object to has to be understood in context. The context is the fact that most other indigenous languages of the Americas are struggling to stay alive, many of them are nearing extinction, the speakers often tend to be elderly members of remote and isolated native communities, while the younger generations often reject their ancestral languages in favor of Spanish, Portuguese, or English, depending on what country they live in. Paraguay is a unique case, in the sense that an indigenous language (Paraguayan Guaraní) is more widespread than the language brought by the European settlers (in this case, Spanish), and it is not restricted to isolated native (i.e. Amerindian) communities, on the contrary it is also widespread among Paraguayan people who have no Guaraní ancestry. If I were a Paraguayan Guaraní speaker, I would be proud that my language was so popular! Pasquale (talk) 15:45, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Thats my point exactly, that it is widespread among all paraguayan people, who themselves are overwhelmingly of indigenous heritage. The statistics prove this. The language is spoken by most paraguayan people who are themselves mostly indigenous. I think its under 15 percent of the country that is non indigenous and most people who dont speak guarani are actually those people who are the most white looking people. October 16 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.82.192.176 (talk) 15:37, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Point taken. What you're saying makes a lot of sense. I have toned down the statement you objected to. Let me know if this is satisfactory. Pasquale (talk) 18:12, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

It's a common issue of the discourse on indigenous cultures that their legitimacy as part of indigenous cultures is effectively dependent on acting like living museums of a lifestyle which has, in some cases, been dead for centuries, or whose actual culture during the colonization and right before wouldn't necessarily have seemed too authentic to outsiders whose expectations of indigenous cultures are built on misconceptions. The fact that these outsiders, as conquerors, have most of the power in determining and shaping who is accepted as a part of these cultures doesn't exactly help. 74.56.208.54 (talk) 00:32, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

In Paraguay, the majority is conformed by mestizo people, the "pure" indian guarani will be found recluded by themselves in their isolated tribes, and being helped by the Paraguayan government INDI program. The normal non-indian Paraguayan from the capital for example, are very mixed in race, but mostly caucasian-mestizo is what you will find there, I'm from Paraguay btw Titerianc (talk) 05:23, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Mistaken about Misiones?

Yesterday I made a comment on the Guaraní language article, concerning the statement that it is an official language in Misiones Province as well as Corrientes Province. Reading the articles on these provinces led me to believe that this was not the case for Misiones. Another user said that the same articles on Spanish Wikipedia seemed to corroborate this belief, so I deleted the mention of Misiones. I deleted the same mention in this article; but as I was doing so, I noticed there was a reference for it. This makes me think that maybe the information about Misiones was true after all. I wasn't thinking at the moment, so I didn't notice what the reference was before deleting it. I'm guessing it was from the same place that the Corrientes reference was from; but that reference is a Spanish website. Could someone who can read Spanish please check that website for information confirming whether or not Guaraní is an official language in Misiones? Thank you. NoriMori (talk) 23:54, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Hi NoriMori, I did look at the linked news story in question and it's an article from El Diario Digital of Posadas, Misiones, Argentina of Friday, October 29, 2004. The article's title is: "MISIONES: PARLAMENTO JUVENIL INSTAURA AL IDIOMA GUARANÍ COMO LENGUA OFICIAL" ("Misiones: Youth Parliament Establishes the Guaraní Language as an Official Language"). The following is a translation of the first paragraph, which basically says it all: "In its first session, the Youth Parliament which operates in the Misiones Legislature passed a law establishing the Guaraní language as an official language of the province. It also passed a polemic bill which prohibits violent games in cyber-cafés. Furthermore, it asks for the installation of ATMs in places that lack this service and for the extension of visiting hours at rural outreach clinics. These regulations passed by the teens are not binding, however some legislator might support them as initiatives." In conclusion, I would say, you did fine to delete the reference to Misiones. Pasquale (talk) 17:43, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, Pasquale. To be honest, I wanted to address my request to you alone, but I didn't think that would be in good taste. Thank you for responding so quickly. NoriMori (talk) 01:12, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

G with tilde

Hello! Please to put the letter G with tilde in Unicode! --Jaques O. Carvalho ☜ 01:35, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't think Unicode is accepting any more letters like that. But if you want, you can apply to the Unicode Consortium. We don't handle such things. — kwami (talk) 21:42, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Pronunciation

Which pronunciation is correct, [aʋãɲẽˈʔẽ] or [ʔãʋ̃ãɲẽˈʔẽ]? Stephen MUFC (talk) 21:57, 25 June 2012 (

According to our article, it would be the latter. — kwami (talk) 21:43, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

But both are included in the article. Stephen MUFC (talk) 22:45, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Incomprehensible photograph caption

What is 'Church of the Pater Noster in Guarani' supposed to mean? The picture shows the Guaraní version of the Lord's Prayer, which is never called the 'Pater Noster' in English, or even the 'Our Father'. And how can you have a church of a prayer? Finally, this is not a picture of a church. The caption should surely read 'The Lord's Prayer in Guaraní'.213.127.210.95 (talk) 14:31, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Church of the Pater Noster

And the Lord’s Prayer is often called “Our Father” in English. —Wiki Wikardo 20:33, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

ISO 639-3 and Glottocode and number of speakers problems

In the infobox, the ISO 639-3 code and glottocode does not describe the same language :

• grn is the macrolanguage code, there is no corresponding glottocode for this code
• para1311 is the Paraguayan Guaraní code, that correspond to the gug ISO 639-3 code

The number of speakers given (4.9 million (1995), 2.5 million monolinguals (2002 census)) correspond to nothing, the reference for these figures is http://www.ethnologue.com/language/grn, but it says "Population total all languages: 4,939,180." with no date. http://www.ethnologue.com/language/gug says "4,650,000 in Paraguay (1995), decreasing. Population total all countries: 4,850,000. 2,500,000 monolinguals (2002 census)."

Regards, Şÿℵדαχ₮ɘɼɾ๏ʁ 06:02, 10 December 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by SyntaxTerror (talk • contribs)

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Guaraní or Guarani?

This article is at Guarani language, which is redirected from Guaraní language. However, I see Guaraní people is redirected from Guarani people instead. In various articles, pipelinks to add or remove the other character are used. The #Reinventing the Wheel? section above seems related, but I can't quite see the answer to the question of which variation is correct for which circumstance. Help please. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 23:17, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

One data point in favor of "Guaraní" is the law making it an official language in Corrientes Province, Argentina. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 02:06, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Pinging WilliamThweatt and Kwamikagami, who have been previously involved in the naming. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 02:37, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

• Unaccented – "Guaraní" is the Spanish form. I don't see why we should follow that any more than we'd use the Chinese form of "Tibetan", or the Russian form of "Tatar". The OED doesn't even give "Guaraní" as an option, though it does occur in one of their quotes. On the other hand, it is found in the ISO form (not that we follow the ISO for naming). Personally, I prefer to avoid meaningless diacritics, and this one is meaningless -- Guarani words are stressed on the last syllable, so the accent only makes sense for Spanish. — kwami (talk) 02:42, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

But while Guarani words are stressed on the last syllable, we can't expect English speakers to know this. Using the Guarani spelling in an English dictionary doesn't make sense either. English writing often uses accents for foreign words.

• Unaccented – It should be unaccented, simply because that's what the majority of English sources do, and not for any of the reasons stated above. It certainly shouldn't be because of what the law in some country is, nor based on theories of what a meanlingless diacritic is. If we were going strictly by the logic of it, we should use the accented version: the majority of English speakers who are unfamiliar with a language are likely to view an accent accent mark as a stress marker—because that's what it means in the pronunciation guides in all the dictionaries and other references they were taught in school, even though that's not at all what an accented letter means in French, Hungarian, and other languages. Not knowing that Guarani words are pronounced on the last syllable, but seeing Guaraní, there's every chance an English native speaker will pronounce it correctly because of the final -í. However, we don't base our choices on that, but on the reliable sources, and as far as I can see, there's no contest. Mathglot (talk) 12:19, 23 January 2019 (UTC)
• Comment: Seems like a reasonable argument, and the Corrientes law I cited was in Spanish, which justifies the use of the accent there. The problem is, we have a lot of articles doing it one, the other, or both ways. I haven't sorted through yet to see how many of these might be false hits, but does it make sense to "fix" any of them, or at least the primary articles in which the word is in the title, or just leave it all alone? I see there was previous discussion without consensus to remove the accent at Talk:Guaraní people § Spelling.
  • insource:"Guaraní" AND -insource:"Guarani" (accent only) n=965
  • -insource:"Guaraní" AND insource:"Guarani" (non-accent only) n=1773
  • insource:"Guaraní" AND insource:"Guarani" (both) n=571

—[AlanM1(talk)]— 14:14, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Accented It's actually fairly common in English usage to use an accent mark in a foreign word that would otherwise be mispronounced by English speakers. A good example is resumé, which distinguishes it from the word we pronounce re-ZOOM. Granted, when you write "Send me your resume," it's pretty clear what you mean, so the accent isn't really necessary, but that's because we have context to discern the meaning, and because we're familiar with both meanings. But when we say "Guarani Language", we don't have context or familiarity. As an encyclopedia, we should be aiming for clarity. And using the accent makes it clear how it should be pronounced. Our whole purpose in Wikipedia is to inform. –MiguelMunoz (talk) 23:43, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

• Unaccented Even as a Guarani speaker, when writing in English the unaccented form seems more appropriate. It's also how it's written in Guarani. "Guaraní," on the other hand, is not English. It's not even Guarani. It's just outright Spanish.

Guillermo2149 (talk) 08:51, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

I'd remove the accent from all of them. Though, I do have sympathy with the argument that the accent mark makes the pronunciation more obvious. — kwami (talk) 02:37, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

• Accented, based on actual usage. I often in read in discussions like this one that an accented form is the Spanish/French (etc.) spelling. But if a good number of English sources use the accented form, it is a variant spelling within English orthography. Linguists specialized in South American indigenous languages mostly use the accented form, and according to Google Ngram viewer, the accented spelling has been dominant for the last ten years[1]. –Austronesier (talk) 21:39, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Spain

Why is Spain on the map? Where are the sources that say it's spoken in Spain?

more info to add

Would it be possible to add the general time that the language became a written language? I feel it would be useful info to include, if possible.pearl playa (talk) 16:42, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Bias

The history section seems to have a slant to it. For example, this sentence makes it sound as if the Jesuits were overcomplicating things--"This process often led the Jesuits to employ complicated, highly synthetic terms to convey Western concepts"--yet the article goes on to say that Guarani is a polysynthetic language. It's rather eurocentric to say that "highly synthetic" words are "complicated" to speakers of a polysynthetic language. 24.211.250.124 (talk) 22:28, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Please put G with tilde character URGENTLY in Unicode!

Please put G with tilde character URGENTLY in Unicode! It is of great importance for obvious reasons! --Jaques O. Carvalho ☜ 13:46, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

We can't add that character to Unicode. We're just Wikipedia editors. You would have to get in touch with the Unicode Consortium and convince them that this character is needed. For now, you have to combine the g and the combining diacritical tilde. Snowman304|talk 00:35, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Caralho, Jao de (1993) Peixes de Ámérica do Sul, Universidade de Rio de Janeiro

I'm having trouble finding this reference. Does anyone have a clue?

This conveys a predicative possessive reading. Snowman304|talk 00:33, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

@Snowman304: Trying hard to assume good faith, Caralho could be a mispelling of a real, less offensive sounding name, but "Peixes de Ámérica do Sul" (with its bad accent on A) doesn't sound like the title of a work that discusses predicative possession. I think it's a silly joke. –Austronesier (talk) 21:52, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

PS: Yup, it's vandalism[2] by some caralho-head that has been unnoticed for 11 years. I will restore the original reference. –Austronesier (talk) 21:55, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

How did this stick for over 10 years? Another reason to always check Wikipedia for potential nonsense. — Sagotreespirit (^talk) 09:36, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

@Sagotreespirit and @Austronesier, thanks so much! Incredible that it stayed for 11 years. I found a copy of the paper, so I'm going to update the now-corrected citation. Snowman304|talk 21:40, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

References

To-do

Can someone add {{sister project links}} on the External links section? I'm not used to that template. Cheers, RodRabelo7 (talk) 11:07, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Infobox

Ttocserp, according to Estigarribia,

1) "To these figures one should add the between half a million to a million Paraguayan expatriates in Argentina, and thus arrive at a figure of 6 to 7 million speakers of this particular variety."

2) "The use of Guarani to refer exclusively to the latter variety here [Paraguayan Guarani]..."

3) "Importantly, Guarani is the only indigenous official language of MERCOSUR, an economic and political agreement among Argentina, Bolivia (in the process of admission as of December 2019), Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela (suspended as of December 2019)."

RodRabelo7 (talk) 20:35, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

This article is about the Paraguayan version of Guaraní, and nothing else. Other versions have their own articles. Guaraní is not an official language in Argentina except in the province of Corrientes, and not at all in Uruguay for example. Whether official status means anything even in Corrientes -- can one fill in a government form, do a trámite in Guaraní -- is not shown by the cited sources.Ttocserp 20:54, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Further, that Guaraní is an official language of MERCOSUR seems to be a popular fallacy. See Vasconcelos, Raphael Carvalho, de (2015). "El Guaraní y el MERCOSUR: una cuestión de derechos humanos/Guarani ha MERCOSUR: yvypóra tekomba'etee momba'eguasu". Revista de la Secretaría del Tribunal Permanente de Revisión: 11–22. Retrieved 23 April 2024.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link), p.12:

Se sostiene, con frecuencia, de forma equivocada que el punto 8 del acta 02/95 de la segunda Reunión Especializada de Cultura realizada el 02 de agosto de 1995 habría elevado la lengua al status de idioma oficial del MERCOSUR. Más allá de constituir interpretación incorrecta de los hechos y de la estructura normativa del MERCOSUR, ese tipo de afirmación debilita los esfuerzos para convertir el guaraní en lengua de trabajo de la organización.

If and when Guaraní becomes an official language of MERCOSUR, that would not make it an official language of Argentina, etc. It would merely signify that the secretariat of MERCOSUR, a supranational organisation, could receive documents in Guaraní.

If it is wanted to suggest that Guaraní is an important language (with which personally I agree) it is not achieved by pretending it has an "official" status which it lacks, or by suchlike bureaucratic devices.Ttocserp 23:32, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

{{hamza}}

Does this template need to be used? Quite sure the most used symbol is the apostrophe ({{'}}). I'm gonna be WP:BOLD and change it, but feel free to revert if there are any objections. RodRabelo7 (talk) 19:58, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Actually {{`}}. RodRabelo7 (talk) 20:03, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

We can of course just use the character, but we shouldn't substitute with ASCII or punctuation. Dictionaries I've seen use the 9-shaped apostrophe, which as a letter is U+02BC. — kwami (talk) 23:38, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Ethnicity

According to most sources, Guarani (Paraguayan Guarani) is mostly spoken by mestizos and European descendants), which is why the Ethnicity category in the language box would be inaccurate. Erumakura (talk) 07:16, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

That's jopará, a creole of Guaraní and Spanish.Ttocserp 09:52, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Jopara is a code alternation between the two languages, like Spanglish, not a language in itself Erumakura (talk) 06:17, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Pronunciation

Which source states there's a glottal stop at the beginning of avañe'ẽ pronunciation? And is ava truly nasalized? RodRabelo7 (talk) 07:44, 2 August 2024 (UTC)