Guaraní Language Information
Guaraní, specifically the primary variety known as Paraguayan Guaraní (English pronunciation: /ɡwɑrəˈniː/; endonym avañe'ẽ [aʋãɲẽˈʔẽ] 'Ava language'), is an indigenous language of South America that belongs to the Tupí–Guaraní subfamily of the Tupian languages. It is one of the official languages of Paraguay (along with Spanish), where it is spoken by the majority of the population, and half of the rural population is monolingual.[2] It is spoken by communities in neighbouring countries, including parts of northern Argentina and southwestern Brazil, and is a second official language of the Argentine province of Corrientes;[3] it is also an official language of Mercosur.[4]
Guaraní is the only indigenous language of the Americas whose speakers include a large proportion of non-indigenous people. This is an anomaly in the Americas where language shift towards European colonial languages (in this case, the other official language of Spanish) has otherwise been a nearly universal cultural and identity marker of mestizos (people of mixed Spanish and Amerindian ancestry), and also of culturally assimilated, upwardly-mobile Amerindian people.
Jesuit priest Antonio Ruiz de Montoya, who wrote a book called Tesoro de la lengua guaraní ("The Treasure of the Guaraní Language"), described Guaraní as a language "so copious and elegant that it can compete with the most famous [of languages]."
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 Guaraní. See Guaraní dialects.
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History
Guaraní persisted with enough vigor to be made official because the Jesuits elected it as the language to preach Roman Catholicism to the Indians (Guaraní was the language of the autonomous Jesuit Reducciones) and because Paraguay's dictators for a time shut the country's borders and thereby protected the local culture and language.
Writing system
Main article: Guaraní alphabetGuaraní became a written language relatively recently. The modern Guaraní alphabet is basically a subset of the Latin alphabet (with "J", "K" and "Y" but not "W"), complemented with two diacritics and six digraphs. Its orthography is largely phonemic, with letter values mostly similar to those of Spanish. The tilde is used with many letters that are considered part of the alphabet. In the case of Ñ/ñ, it differentiates the palatal nasal from the alveolar nasal (as in Spanish), whereas it marks stressed nasalisation when used over a vowel (as in Portuguese): ã, ẽ, ĩ, õ, ũ, ỹ. (Nasal vowels have been written with several other diacritics: ä, ā, â, ã.) The tilde also marks nasality in the case of G̃/g̃, used to represent the nasalized velar approximant by combining the velar approximant "G" with the nasalising tilde. The letter G̃/g̃, which is unique to this language, was introduced into the orthography relatively recently during the mid-20th century and there is disagreement over its use. It is not a precomposed character in Unicode, which can cause typographic inconveniences - such as needing to press "delete" twice - or imperfect rendering when using computers and fonts that do not properly support the complex layout feature of glyph composition.
Only stressed nasal vowels are written as nasal. If an oral vowel is stressed, and it's not the final syllable, it's marked with an acute accent: á, é, í, ó, ú, ý. That is, stress falls on the vowel marked as nasalized, if any, else on the accent-marked syllable, and if neither appears, then on the final syllable.
Phonology
Guaraní only allows syllables consisting of a vowel or a consonant plus a vowel; syllables ending in a consonant or two or more consonants together are not possible. This is represented (C)V(V).
- Vowels: /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/ correspond more or less to the Spanish and IPA equivalents, although sometimes the allophones [ɛ], [ɔ] are used more frequently; y is the common South American vowel /ɨ/.
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | /i/, /ĩ/ | /ɨ/, /ɨ̃/ | /u/, /ũ/ |
| Mid | /e/, /ẽ/ | /o/, /õ/ | |
| Open | /a/, /ã/ |
IPA value is shown. The orthography is shown in angle brackets below, if different.
| Bilabial | Labio- dental | Alveolar | (Alveolo-) Palatal | Velar | Lab. Velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Voiceless stop | p | t | k | kʷ ⟨ku⟩ | ʔ ⟨'⟩ | ||
| Voiceless fricative | s | ɕ ⟨ch⟩ | x / h ⟨h⟩ | ||||
| Voiced stop | mb ~ m ⟨mb⟩ ~ ⟨m⟩ | nd ~ n ⟨nd⟩ ~ ⟨n⟩ | ᵈj ~ ɲ ⟨j⟩ ~ ⟨ñ⟩ | ŋɡ ~ ŋ ⟨ng⟩ | ŋɡʷ ~ ŋʷ ⟨nɡu⟩ | ||
| Voiced approximant | ʋ ~ ʋ̃ ⟨v⟩ | ɰ ~ ɰ̃ ⟨g⟩ ~ ⟨g̃⟩ | w ~ w̃ ⟨gu⟩ ~ ⟨g̃u⟩ | ||||
| Flap | ɾ ~ ɾ̃ ⟨r⟩ | ||||||
The voiced consonants have oral allophones (left) before oral vowels, and nasal allophones (right) before nasal vowels. The oral allophones of the voiced stops are prenasalized.
There is also a sequence /nt/ (written ⟨nt⟩). A trill /r/ (written ⟨rr⟩) and the consonants /l/, /f/, and /j/ (written ⟨ll⟩) are not native to Guarani, but come from Spanish.
Oral [ᵈj] is often pronounced [dʒ], [ʒ], [j], depending on the dialect, but the nasal allophone is always [ɲ].
The dorsal fricative is in free variation between [x] and [h].
The glottal stop is only written between vowels, but occurs phonetically before vowel-initial words.
⟨g⟩, ⟨gu⟩ are approximants, not fricatives, but are sometimes transcribed [ɣ], [ɣʷ], as is conventional for Spanish. ⟨gu⟩ is also transcribed [ɰʷ], which is essentially identical to [w].
All syllables are open, viz. CV or V, ending in a vowel.
Nasal Harmony
Guaraní displays an unusual degree of nasal harmony. A nasal syllable consists of a nasal vowel, and if the consonant is voiced, it takes its nasal allophone. If a stressed syllable is nasal, the nasality spreads in both directions until it bumps up against a stressed syllable that is oral. This includes affixes, postpositions, and compounding. Voiceless consonants do not have nasal allophones, but they do not interrupt the spread of nasality.
For example,
- /ndo+ɾoi+nduˈpã+i/ → [nõɾ̃õĩnũˈpãĩ]
- /ro+mbo+poˈrã/ → [ɾ̃õmõpõˈɾ̃ã]
However, a second stressed syllable, with an oral vowel, will not become nasalized:
- /idjaˈkãɾaˈku/ → [ʔĩɲãˈkãɾ̃ãˈku]
- /aˈkãɾaˈwe/ → [ʔãˈkãɾ̃ãˈwe][5]
That is, for a word with a single stressed vowel, all voiced segments will be either oral or nasal, while voiceless consonants are unaffected, as in oral /mbotɨ/ vs nasal /mõtɨ̃/.
Grammar
Guaraní is a highly agglutinative language, classified often as polysynthetic. It is a fluid-S type active language and it has been classified as a 6th class language in Milewski's typology. It uses subject–verb–object word order usually, but object–verb when the subject is not specified.
The language lacks gender and has no definite article, but due to influence from Spanish, la is used as a definite article for singular reference, and lo for plural reference. These are not found in pure Guaraní (Guaraniete).
Pronouns
Guaraní distinguishes between inclusive and exclusive pronouns of the first person plural.
| first | second | third | |
|---|---|---|---|
| singular | che | nde | ha'e |
| plural | ñande (inclusive), ore (exclusive) | peẽ | ha'ekuéra/ hikuái (*) |
- Hikuái is a Post-verbal pronoun (oHecha hikuái – they see )
Reflexive pronoun: je: ahecha ("I look"), ajehecha ("I look at myself")
Conjugation
Guaraní stems can be divided into a number of conjugation classes, which are called areal (with the subclass aireal) and chendal, respectively. The names for these classes stem from the names of the prefixes for 1st and 2nd person singular.
The areal conjugation is used to convey that the participant was actively involved, whereas the chendal conjugation is used to convey that the participant is Undergoer. Note that transitive verbs can take either conjugation, intransitive verbs normally take areal, but can take chendal for habitual readings. Nouns can also be conjugated, but only as chendal. This conveys a predicative possessive reading.[6]
Furthermore, the conjugations vary slightly according to the stem being oral or nasal.
| person | areal | aireal | chendal |
|---|---|---|---|
| walk | use | be.big | |
| 1s | a-guata | ai-poru | che-tuicha |
| 2s | re-guata | rei-poru | nde-tuicha |
| 3s | o-guata | oi-poru | i-tuicha |
| 1pi | ja-guata | jai-poru | ñande-tuicha |
| 1px | ro-guata | roi-poru | ore-tuicha |
| 2p | pe-guata | pei-poru | pende-tuicha |
| 3p | o-guata | oi-poru | i-tuicha |
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Verb root ñe'ẽ ("speak"); nasal verb.
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Negation
Negation is indicated by a circumfix n(d)(V)-...-(r)i in Guaraní. The preverbal portion of the circumfix is nd- for oral bases and n- for nasal bases. For 2nd person singular, an epenthetic e is inserted before the base, for 1st person plural inclusive, an epenthetic a is inserted.
The postverbal portion is -ri for bases ending in -i, and -i for all others
| Oral verb
japo (do, make) |
Nasal verb
kororõ (roar, snore) |
With ending in "i"
jupi (go up, rise) |
|---|---|---|
| nd-ajapó-i | n-akororõ-i | nd-ajupí-ri |
| nde-rejapó-i | ne-rekororõ-i | nde-rejupí-ri |
| nd-ojapó-i | n-okororõ-i | nd-ojupí-ri |
| nda-jajapó-i | na-ñakororõ-i | nd-ajajupí-ri |
| nd-orojapó-i | n-orokororõ-i | nd-orojupí-ri |
| nda-pejapó-i | na-pekororõ-i | nda-pejupí-ri |
| nd-ojapó-i | n-okororõ-i | nd-ojupí-ri |
The negation can be used in all tenses, but for future or irrealis reference, the normal tense marking is replaced by mo'ã, resulting in n(d)(V)-base-mo'ã-i as in Ndajapomo'ãi, "I won't do it".
There are also other negatives, such as: ani, ỹhỹ, nahániri, naumbre, na'anga.
Tense and aspect morphemes
- -kuri: marks proximity of the action. Ha'ukuri, "I just ate" (ha'u irregular first person singular form of u, "to eat"). It can also be used after a pronoun, ha che kuri, che po'a, "and about what happened to me, I was lucky"
- -va'ekue: indicates a fact that occurred long ago and asserts that it's really truth. Okañyva'ekue, "he/she went missing a long time ago"
- -ra'e: tells that the speaker was doubtful before but he's sure at the moment he speaks. Nde rejoguara'e peteĩ ta'angambyry pyahu, "so then you bought a new television after all"
- -raka'e: expresses the uncertainty of a perfect-aspect fact. Peẽ peikoraka'e Asunción-pe, "I think you lived in Asunción for a while". Nevertheless nowadays this morpheme has lost some of its meaning, having a correspondence with ra'e and va'ekue
The verb form without suffixes at all is a present somewhat aorist: Upe ára resẽ reho mombyry, "that day you got out and you went far"
- -ta: is a future of immediate happening, it's also used as authoritarian imperative. Oujeýta ag̃aite, "he/she'll come back soon".
- -ma: has the meaning of "already". Ajapóma, "I already did it".
These two suffixes can be added together: ahátama, "I'm already going"
- -va'erã: indicates something not imminent or something that must be done for social or moral reasons, in this case corresponding to the German modal verb sollen. Péa ojejapova'erã, "that must be done"
- -ne: indicates something that probably will happen or something the speaker imagines that is happening. It correlates in certain way with the subjunctive of Spanish. Mitãnguéra ág̃a og̃uahéne hógape, "the children are probably coming home now"
- -hína, ína after nasal words: continual action at the moment of speaking, present and pluperfect continuous or emphatic. Rojatapyhína, "we're making fire"; che ha'ehína, "it's ME!"
- -vo: it has a subtle difference with hína in which vo indicates not necessarily what's being done at the moment of speaking. amba'apóvo, "I'm working (not necessarily now)"
- -pota: indicates proximity immediately before the start of the process. Ajukapota, "I'm near the edge in which I will start to kill". (A particular sandhi rule is applied here: if the verbs ends in "po", the suffix changes to mbota; ajapombota, "I'll do it right now")
- -pa: indicates emphatically that a process has all finished. Amboparapa pe ogyke, "I painted the wall completely"
This suffix can be joined with ma, making up páma: ñande jaikuaapáma nde remimo'ã, "now we became to know all your thought". These are unstressed suffixes: ta, ma, ne, vo; so the stress goes upon the last syllable of the verb.
Determiners
1 – Demonstratives: (Guarani-English-Spanish)
- a) – with near objects and entities (you see it)
Ko: this – este, esta
Pe: that – ese, esa
Amo: that – aquel, aquella
Peteĩ-teĩ (+/- va): each – cada uno
Ko’ã , ã, áã: these – estos, estas
Umi: those- esos, esas, aquellos, aquellas
- b)- Indefinite, with far objects and entities (you do not see it -remembering demonstratives ):
Ku – that (singular) – aquellos, as
Akói – Those (plural) – aquellos, as
- c) Other usual demonstratives determiners:
Opa : all – to do, toda,todos, todas (with all entities)
Mayma – all . todos, todas ( with people)
Mbovy – : some, a few, determinated
Heta : a lot of, very much – muchos, muchas
Ambue ( +/- kuéra) : other – otros, otras
Ambue: another – otro, otra
Ambueve: The other – el otro, la otra
Ambueve: other, another – otro, otros, (enfático) –
Oimeraẽ: either – cualquiera
Mokoĩve – both – ambos
Ni peteĩ (+/- ve): neither – ni el uno ni el otro
Guaraní loans to English
English has adopted a small number of words from Guaraní (or perhaps the related Tupi) via Portuguese, mostly the names of animals. "Jaguar" comes from jaguarete and "piranha" comes from pira aña. Other words are: "agouti" from akuti, "tapir" from tapira and "açaí" from ïwasa'i. The name of Paraguay is itself a Guaraní word, as is the name of Uruguay.
See also
Sources
- ^ http://www.romanistik.uni-mainz.de/guarani/texte/Ley5598.pdf
- ^ 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, 2006
- ^ Website of Indigenous Peoples' Affairs which contains this information (Spanish)
- ^ [1]
- ^ Walker (2000) Nasalization, neutral segments, and opacity effects, p. 210
- ^ Nordhoff, Sebastian (2004) Nomen-Verb-Distinktion im Guaraní. Köln:Universität zu Köln
External links
- Guaraní at Wikibooks (Spanish)
| Guaraní language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
- Ethnologue.com
- Guarani–English Dictionary: from *Webster's Online Dictionary – The Rosetta Edition
- Guaraní Swadesh vocabulary list (from Wiktionary)
- Guarani and the Importance of Maintining Indigenous Culture Through Language
- Guarani Portal from the University of Mainz:
- www.guarani.de: – online dictionary in Spanish, German and Guarani
- www.guaranirenda.com: – about the Guarani language
- Guaraní Possessive Constructions: – by Maura Velázquez
- Stative Verbs and Possessions in Guaraní: – University of Köln
- http://www.datamex.com.py/guarani/neenga/neejoapy_latineeme.html Frases celebres del Latin traducidas al guarani (Spanish)
- http://albino-guaranikupyty.blogspot.com/ Spanish – Estructura Basica del Guarani and others
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Categories:
- Guarani languages
- Agglutinative languages
- Languages of Argentina
- Languages of Bolivia
- Languages of Paraguay
- Indigenous languages of South America (Central)
- Subject–verb–object languages
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