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. –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 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)

"avañe'ẽ" is historically and morphologically analyzable as a compound of ava + ñe'ẽ. Since ava is oral, transcribing the entire word as nasalized would imply that nasal harmony spreads from the second component into the first one, for which the article currently provides no source.

Likewise, the glottal stop appears to be optional before unstressed initial vowels in Guarani rather than contrastive in this position, so its inclusion in the transcription would also require a source.

In the absence of evidence for the current pronunciation given in the article, I propose replacing it with [aʋaɲẽˈʔẽ]. LucasC87 (talk) 02:59, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

transcribing the entire word as nasalized would imply that nasal harmony spreads from the second component into the first one, for which the article currently provides no source. what? AFAICT every single source in the phonology section of the article mentions and corroborates this, Guarani's regressive (leftward) nasal spread is both highly marked and widely reported. ~ oklopfer (💬) 03:58, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

I am not disputing that Guarani has regressive nasal harmony; that is indeed well established in the literature. The issue is specifically whether the harmony extends across the compound boundary in avañe'ẽ such that the first component (ava) becomes nasalized.

In fact, Estigarribia explicitly states in his discussion of Guarani nasal harmony that "regressive nasalization cannot cross a boundary between compound roots" (p. 44 of his grammar). Since avañe'ẽ is analyzable as a compound of ava + ñe'ẽ, this would argue against transcribing the first component as nasalized.

My point is therefore about the (lack of) evidence for the transcription of that specific compound currently in the article, not about whether Guarani exhibits regressive nasal spreading in general. LucasC87 (talk) 11:24, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

At the very least I agree we don't appear to have a source for its pronunciation at all. Surprisingly, I can't seem to find a reliable source that does include it, which I would normally expect native pronunciations for native names of languages to be documented.

That being said, I think we are better off having no pronunciation provided if we have no sources either. Better than us making assumptions in any direction. ~ oklopfer (💬) 14:44, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

I agree with your conclusion that, without a reliable source, it's better not to include a specific IPA transcription for "avañe'ẽ" rather than risk presenting an unsupported form.

It may also be worth noting that it seems the more frequently used term for the language today in Paraguayan Guarani is simply "guarani." From what I've seen as a learner, "avañe'ẽ" tends to appear more in stylistic and literary contexts (such as songs or poetry), so it might be easier to find well-described phonetic information for "guarani" than for "avañe'ẽ" specifically.

In any case, I agree that the safest approach for the article is to avoid speculative pronunciation unless a direct source can be found. LucasC87 (talk) 16:53, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

Açaí and guaraná – really?

@Ttocserp, what makes you think that the name açaí, a fruit native to the Brazilian Amazon, could have a Guarani origin—a language spoken in Paraguay and Argentina? A poorly verified source is not an argument. Fringe theories should not have a place here, even if some people are eager to assign meanings to words from so-called "exotic" languages based on superficial resemblance or romanticized assumptions—as if these cultures can only express themselves with a handful of terms, like some sort of jungle Toki Pona. The same goes for guaraná, by the way. That section, in fact, reads like a depressing Frankenstein of guesses, trying to claim several terms that are clearly derived from Old Tupi—not from Paraguayan Guarani. The very article on cougar contradicts the supposed etymology given there, and it is much better referenced. And finally, if açaí supposedly means "crying fruit", then which part means "fruit" and which part means "to cry"? Since you seem so invested in the article, I will assume you are fluent in Guarani and will not hesitate to answer that. Kind regards, RodRabelo7 (talk) 15:53, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Let's ask @Trooper57. They can surely help with this. RodRabelo7 (talk) 15:55, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

What the article actually says is

English has adopted a small number of words from Guarani (or perhaps the related Tupi) via Portuguese

. Portuguese 'Açaí' derives from Tupi, as any good dictionary e.g. Priberam, or the Oxford English Dictionary, will confirm.Ttocserp 16:46, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

And what does Tupi have to do with the article? It has its own article. And why should dictionaries that have been replicating the same unfounded (and quite literally made-up) explanation for over a century without questioning it deserve any credit?

You did not answer my question. Which element means fruit and which element means to cry?

Ah, and would you mind pointing me to the primary source that records açaí as a Tupi word? Wiktionary would appreciate it. RodRabelo7 (talk) 17:33, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Now you are saying something completely different. It is no longer "I know better than the cited sources, so I will just change the article on my own authority", but only "This statement belongs in a different article". Ttocserp 18:12, 8 April 2025 (UTC). It may help ypu to read the guideline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability. We are never allowed to make statements from our own private knowledge, only from cited sources.Ttocserp 18:20, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

I didn't say that, especially since I've already removed that fanciful information from the açaí article, and I just removed it from the guaraná article as well.

I insist: interpret the words açaí and guaraná through Tupi or Guarani. And cite the primary sources that recorded them. You simply can't, because you're incapable of thinking critically in this regard. You're merely a replicator of information, just like an artificial intelligence – and those hallucinate quite frequently. RodRabelo7 (talk) 18:22, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Insist as much as you like: it does not matter' what you (or I) think. Sources are supreme. This is trivial. Please stop wasting time. Ttocserp 18:25, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

We are indeed never allowed to make statements from our own private knowledge, but that doesn't mean we should replicate any absurd information that shows up in some mediocre little source. I've read in a source that's still considered a pinnacle of Tupi studies in Brazil that cutia means "the one who eats standing up". Pathetic, obviously. RodRabelo7 (talk) 18:25, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Can I? Trooper57 (talk) 18:23, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Deficient history section

The history section makes it seem as though the Guarani language appeared as a fait accompli after the arrival of Jesuit missionaries. If nothing is known about its history before that era, should the section at least begin by making that observation? Either that, or it would be useful for someone to add information about its history before the colonial era. Largoplazo (talk) 01:54, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

Infobox

The Guarani language is also official in the Argentine province of Corrientes and in the Brazilian town of Tacuru. Shouldn't that be made clear in the infobox as well?

-- Guarandu (talk) 00:13, 3 October 2025 (UTC)

Do you know of reliable sources that will verify this? Largoplazo (talk) 00:30, 3 October 2025 (UTC)

Yes, specifically in the case of Corrientes, Law No. 5598 of 2004 declares Guarani to be an official language alongside Spanish. This law establishes the mandatory teaching of Guarani in schools, the creation of bodies for the promotion of local culture and literature, and other measures to raise the profile of the language. Guarandu (talk) 21:48, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, I hadn't seen that it was already in the text (though I came up with a better source for one of the mentions). I've added it to the infobox. And Tacuru is also already in the text, with a source, so I've added that as well. Largoplazo (talk) 00:06, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

ra, kue

"Some nouns use -re instead of -kue and others use -guã instead of -rã"

This seems reversed: it makes more sense and is consistent with the rest of the paragraph if -re is used for -rā. Can anyone verify? 91.209.212.70 (talk) 05:47, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

orthography

orthography adds too much bloat to phonology tables. That is why pages have separate sections for phonology and orthography. ~ oklopfer (💬) 04:23, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

@Fdom5997. Also your reverts keep removing nasalized consonants I am adding, stop it. Take more care when you make reverts. You do not WP:OWN the page, stop trying to maintain its condition if that condition is a mess. Make another orthography section and put it there, not in the phonology table where it does not belong and makes a mess. ~ oklopfer (💬) 12:31, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

As the article has no orthography section, if the inclusion in the consonants table serves the purpose, isn't that sufficient justification? And why did you leave the vowels table alone? Largoplazo (talk) 12:46, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

Because I was more focused on the consonant table bloat, but now I've removed them from there, too. The inclusion in the consonants table doesn't serve the purpose, as it is blending two concepts into one. If no one else does, I will add an orthography section this week, but it actually makes the phonology table less useful and readable, so we should not be harming other tools to maintain the information. It is all listed in Estigarribia, the info is not running away anywhere. It is just being cleaned up. Some of the examples being maintained did not even match the source. So let's put it elsewhere without making conflations or false assumptions. As an example, ⟨g̃⟩ is clearly stated by Estigarribia as being the orthography for ⟨ŋ⟩, yet the nonsense I am pulling out of the tables here claimed it was ⟨ng⟩, while ⟨g̃⟩ aligned with ⟨ɰ̃⟩, which is patently false - the latter is shown to exist only as a product of nasal harmony, written the same as the non-nasal. ~ oklopfer (💬) 12:56, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

/ᵈj/??

@Oklopfer, even Guarani cannot speak this phoneme /ᵈj/ (/d͜j/? or must be /ᵈɹ/), why is not better to write this phoneme as /ᶡj/ (true pre-plosive of /j/) or as Spanish initial ⟨y⟩ /ɟ͡ʝ/? señor verde⸻pregúnteme 08:21, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

Kind of agree with you here. Even Estigarribia (2020) sort of transcribes it like this. Fdom5997 (talk) 08:46, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

No, Estigarribia does not "transcribe it like this", I am rather shocked by your consistent conflation of phonemes versus realizations, and it is no wonder so many phonology tables are a mess.

The voiced palatal fricative /ʝ/ can be pronounced as a voiced palatal stop [ɟ] or as a voiced palatal affricate [ɟ͡ʝ] in more careful speech. Another possible pronunciation is a voiced alveopalatal fricative [d͡ʒ], similar to the sound for ‘jay’ in English, but perhaps less tense.

~ oklopfer (💬) 12:42, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

Estigarrbia uses the phoneme /ʝ/ instead and just lists the others as possible realizations. Might be better to just list this one in the table. /ᵈj/ does appear to have phonemic contrast, though, in Walker (1999), but it is likely safe to assume it is also referring to an affricate. ~ oklopfer (💬) 12:45, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

Links to both sources:

1999: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44526233

2020: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10107709/1/A-Grammar-of-Paraguayan-Guarani.pdf

Will clean up and add to cites later. ~ oklopfer (💬) 12:52, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

@Oklopfer, could you take a look at what Fdom has done to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ute_dialect? 2804:388:A030:5D3A:0:30:572A:4B01 (talk) 23:09, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

like here, the orthography should be split out from the phonology, but the contents of the table match the source. It also looks like they've only made one edit to the page in the last 2 years, and it does not look problematic at all. What exactly do you object to? ~ oklopfer (💬) 23:36, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

Outdated census data and household-language statistics

The statement that Guarani is spoken "by the majority of the population" and that "more than half of rural speakers are monolingual in Guarani" is based on data from the 1992 census (per the citation to Mortimer, K. (2006) ).

More recent data are available from the Paraguayan Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE), particularly the Encuesta Permanente de Hogares Continua (EPHC) 2025. However, both the 1992 census and the EPHC measure language use within households rather than individual language proficiency. As a result, they do not directly support claims about the proportion of monolingual speakers or about language use at the population level, only at the household level.

Recent EPHC results show that both Guaraní and Spanish are widely used across households, including a substantial proportion of bilingual (Guarani–Spanish) households. This indicates a more nuanced linguistic situation than implied by the current wording.

The EPHC excludes the departments of Boquerón and Alto Paraguay, as well as indigenous communities and collective dwellings; however, it remains the most recent official source on language use.

I propose revising the sentence to reflect recent INE data and to avoid conflating household language use with population-level claims.

Moreover, while the New York Times article currently cited alongside that statement notes that Guarani is widely spoken in Paraguay, it does not provide a source for the claim that it is spoken by "90 percent of Paraguayans," nor does it appear to support the statement that "half of the rural population are monolingual speakers" of the language. Given that more recent official statistical data from the INE are available, I therefore propose removing that citation from the statement. LucasC87 (talk) 23:50, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

Proposal to remove unsourced "Dialects" field

The "Dialects" field currently lists "Jopara" and "Taragui" without citations. "Jopara" is not a clearly defined linguistic dialect, but rather a broad and inconsistently used term for mixed Guarani–Spanish speech/registers. "Taragui" also appears problematic: while some Wikimedia projects use "Taragui ñe'ẽ" to refer to Corrientes/Correntino Guarani, this usage appears unsourced and not widely established in the linguistic literature. Additionally, this article describes Paraguayan Guarani specifically, so listing a Corrientes variety spoken in Argentina as a dialect here would be conceptually inconsistent even if the term were properly sourced. Since infoboxes present information as settled and uncontroversial, I propose removing the "Dialects" field unless reliable linguistic sources can be provided supporting these classifications. LucasC87 (talk) 00:34, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

I removed Taragui because it indeed does not apply to this variety of Guarani. I think Jopara still has some merits to staying, and it is supported by Glottolog's classification as a dialect. ~ oklopfer (💬) 01:52, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for removing "Taragui"!

Regarding "Jopara", I am not convinced the Glottolog entry is sufficient evidence here, since the Jopara entry currently contains no bibliographic references supporting its classification as a dialect of Guarani. The Glottolog entry appears to rely only on the Wikipedia article about Jopara itself, rather than on an independent linguistic classification establishing it as a dialect.

More importantly, "Jopara" is not consistently defined in the literature. Different authors use the term for mixed Guarani-Spanish speech, code-switching, heavily Hispanized Guarani, or colloquial bilingual usage more generally. Because of this, presenting it in the infobox under "Dialects" gives the impression of a clear and settled dialect classification despite the lack of a clear consensus on what the term actually denotes.

The distinction implied by Glottolog between "modern Paraguayan Guarani" and "Jopara" is also difficult to reconcile with the fact that Spanish influence exists across contemporary Paraguayan Guarani varieties on a continuum, with no clear boundary separating "Jopara" from ordinary Paraguayan Guarani.

The Wikipedia article on Jopara itself also illustrates how broad and unstable the term is. Some examples labeled "Jopara" are almost entirely Spanish with no or only a few Guarani lexical items inserted. That seems difficult to reconcile with treating Jopara as a coherent dialect of Guarani specifically, rather than a broad bilingual contact phenomenon.

I think Jopara is certainly worth discussing in the article body, but the infobox dialect field may not be the appropriate place for such a disputed and loosely defined term. LucasC87 (talk) 20:54, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

Just to contribute with the discussion, this is what Estigarribia says about "jopara" in his grammar: "Paraguayans have a name for this mixing: Jopara (meaning ‘mixed’). They use this term to refer to any sentences that mix Guarani and Spanish, independently of whether they are mostly Guarani with Spanish elements or mostly Spanish mixed with Guarani elements." In his glossary, he defines it as "any sentence or discourse that includes mixed elements of both Guarani and Spanish." He does not describe it as a dialect of Guarani. LucasC87 (talk) 18:59, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

Misleading vowel correspondences in orthography table

Currently, the orthography table makes a 1-1 correspondence between each letter and a single IPA sound. This can be misleading for the letters a, e, i, o, u, and y. That is because a commonly adopted Guarani orthographic practice is to omit the nasal diacritic ⟨~⟩ when the vowel is preceded by a nasal consonant, and sometimes also when it is followed by a pre-nasalized stop. Examples include porã [põˈɾã], mano [mãˈnõ], and arandu [aɾãnˈdu]. I therefore propose either removing the “IPA values” row or explicitly explaining that the oral vowel letters may also represent nasal vowels depending on the phonological context. LucasC87 (talk) 20:49, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

Nasal harmony is a phonetic result, whereas the orthography correspondences are on the phonemic level. õ and ã will always be nasal, o and a will only be so under harmony. ~ oklopfer (💬) 22:09, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

I understand that one can usually deduce whether a vowel is nasal or oral through nasal harmony. Still, that is not what the orthography section currently conveys, since it provides only a 1-1 correspondence table and does not explain the omission of the nasal diacritic in predictable contexts related to nasal harmony. As a result, the table may give the impression that letters such as ⟨a⟩ and ⟨o⟩ always correspond to oral vowels.

For that reason, I think it would be useful to add at least a brief clarification, such as: "Because of nasal harmony and common orthographic practice, a vowel letter written without the nasal diacritic ⟨~⟩ may still be pronounced as a nasal vowel." LucasC87 (talk) 23:51, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

Sure, I added a note in the section for that. ~ oklopfer (💬) 20:35, 10 May 2026 (UTC)

Issues following merge of Guarani dialects/languages content

The Guarani dialects/languages articles were recently merged and, following that process, this article was expanded, especially the Morphology section. That expansion introduced several issues: (1) a pronoun paradigm from Mbya Guarani (as per its source) replaced the previous one; (2) another pronoun paradigm was added in the Grammar section (content duplication); (3) a conjugation paradigm was added in the Morphology section despite the existence of another one in the Grammar section (content duplication); (4) much of the added material reads like a grammar excerpt and does not seem to match encyclopedic style; (5) much of the added material follows a phonemic-based orthography that does not match the orthography used in the rest of the article (e.g., "maʔé" instead of "mba'e"). These issues are likely a result of material being transferred without sufficient editorial integration into the existing article. I did not have time to review everything in detail, so it is possible there are additional inconsistencies. LucasC87 (talk) 10:08, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

Other issues identified in the transferred content: (6) paragraphs discussing the numbers of Guarani people and Guarani speakers in Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina, despite the article being about Paraguayan Guarani rather than Guarani varieties as a whole; (7) a paragraph referring to "Guarani children" in a context concerning indigenous Guarani communities rather than Paraguayan Guarani in general; (8) the incorrect statement that the language became written following the arrival of the Jesuits (the earliest works were produced by the Franciscans); (9) a paragraph incorrectly including José de Anchieta's work on Tupi among "literary works on Guaraní linguistics"; (10) several examples taken from a source explicitly titled Nominal tense and temporal implicatures: evidence from Mbyá. And I did not review everything in detail. LucasC87 (talk) 23:48, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

Given the number and variety of issues identified even without a detailed review, I propose reverting the transferred content rather than attempting piecemeal cleanup. Any material worth preserving would remain available in the page history and could later be reintroduced in a more integrated form after proper review, or transferred to other pages if necessary. LucasC87 (talk) 23:52, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

Names of the Guaraní language pages

There is an issue with the pages related to the Guaraní language and its dialects. First, I should clarify that Guaraní is a single language, not a language family; yet, the page discussing the Guarani language is linked to pages in other languages ​​about the Paraguayan Guarani dialect, whereas the Guarani languages page is linked to pages about the Guarani language proper. Ideally, the information from this page should be moved to the "Guarani languages" page, that page should be renamed "Guarani language", and this page should be renamed "Paraguayan Guarani dialect" to which the translated information from the Spanish Guaraní paraguayo (dialecto) page could be added (since this page is linked to the pages of the Paraguayan Guarani dialect, and the page of Guarani languages ​​is linked to the pages of the Guarani language in other languages ​​such as Idioma guaraní, Língua guarani or Lingua guaraní). Lulasaurius (talk) 02:21, 15 July 2026 (UTC)