Guarani, a Resilient Native Language
By
Rosy Fihner
Language is
one of the most important constituent parts of a culture, and “Guaraní” or “Avañe’ẽ” is not an exception to the
rule. This is a surviving Amerindian language, and it also gives its name to
the culture where it comes from. Its known origin dates back to year 3.000 BCE,
as one of three major ethnic groups that populated the region of South America.
According to the linguists Bruno Estigarribia and Justin Pinta in their book
“Guaraní Linguistics in the 21st Century”, Guaraní language is an
outstanding one because it is the only native tongue of the Americas which is
spoken by a non-aboriginal majority. This is one among other reasons that makes
it interesting to find out more about this language.
With regard
to its history, the name of Guaraní literally means “war” or “warrior”,
indicating the bloody past of its people, as being one of the many belligerent
South American tribes. Their ancestors might have arrived in Central or South America,
after journeying from another continent from where they have migrated in
smaller groups. According to the “Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the
World”, the Guaraní language is widely distributed in the lowlands of South
America, and rooted in the Tupí-Guaraní family, including the “Tupí-Nambá”
language that was used as a general language before the 19th
century, along the Brazilian coasts. Tupí-Guaraní itself belongs to “Tupí”, which
is a larger stock that may have relation with the Macro-Ge and Cariban language
families. The Guapore’ basin in Brazil might be the original area of spreading
of Tupí-Guaraní and its Tupí sister languages, and its expansion to the west
and south west along the basin of the “Rio de la Plata”, seems to have occurred a short time before the
European conquest of South America.
The presence
of Jesuit missionaries along the 17th and 18th centuries in
Paraguay is related to the strong position acquired by Guaraní in that country,
considering that a Jesuit, Antonio Ruiz de Montoya (1640), was the author of
the first authoritative grammar of this language, who not only documented the
existence of the Guaraní language but also created a written form of it,
integrating the Latin alphabet into the language. Montoya and others, provided
a lexicon of Guaraní vocabulary and extended the semantic quality of some
terms, for instance, the words “Tupn”: “Great Spirit”, and “Karai”: “sacred”,
were extended to mean “God” and “Christian” (or “Lord”) respectively. The close
proximity of Spanish caused the borrowing of words from the Spanish immigrants.
However, modern Paraguayan Guaraní differs from Montoya’s description of its
grammar, in that some of its original morphophonemic complexity has been lost.
Currently, Guaraní
is spoken by indigenous people in seven countries of Latin America, Paraguay,
Brazil, Bolivia, Argentina, Perú, Colombia and Venezuela, but only in Paraguay
and in some regions of Argentina it is shared by aboriginal and creole people.
Particularly in Corrientes (Argentina), Guaraní was recently declared the
co-official language of the province. However, the fact of being the language
of a whole country, Paraguay, is definitely Guaraní’s most prominent feature in
South America. Moreover, this situation also turns Paraguay into Guaraní’s guardian
and confers the country the condition of Capital of Guaraní language.
Every
language has linguistics variations, thus the linguistic variations of Guaraní that
are present in Argentina are: a)The “Bolivian Guaraní” also known as the Ava Guaraní
or Chiriguano, in the Provinces of Salta and Jujuy. b)The “Guaraní Correntino”,
spoken by the “criollos”(creole) spread across the Provinces of Corrientes,
Formosa, Chaco, North of Entre Ríos and Misiones. c)The “Paraguayan Guaraní”,
spoken by the Paraguayan migrants in Buenos Aires Province; and finally d)The
“Mbya Guaraní” which is spoken by the Mbya Guaraníes in Misiones Province. According to the “UNESCO”, (The “United
Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization”), some of these
tongues fit into the list of endangered languages. They are: the “Bolivian Guaraní”,
that is in a vulnerable situation; the “Ava Guaraní”, that is definitely
endangered and the “Mbya Guaraní”, which is spoken in the province of Misiones.
This last one is severely endangered. Similar data is also available on the
website of the INADI (National Institute Against Discrimination, Xenophobia and
Racism) of Argentina.
In relation
with English, Guaraní is not totally
unconnected. Whereas English is usually the language killing the indigenous
tongues, there is an extraordinary case in a small part of the world, where
English is becoming extinct by the effects of the native language of the
Guaraní people, as well as by Spanish who is the other official language of the
country. This happens in “Nueva Londres”, an Australian Colony in Paraguay which
settlement was carried out in the 1890s, where many descendants of those
colonisers are still remaining. Although they retain their English-language
surnames and an Australian collective memory of their origins and customs, a
significant language shift is occurring and English is losing its native
language condition. The new mother tongue of the young generation is Guaraní,
although every now and then some of them recall a phrase in English that they
have learnt from their grandparents.
All in all, after carrying out research about the history
and framing culture of Guaraní language, my conclusion is that it should be an
obligation for us as “Misioneros”, to get to know more about them, because the Guaraní
people were the original owners and inhabitants of what nowadays we call “our”
land. On the other hand, this knowledge also makes me feel respectful and
grateful to this indigenous people that with resignation admitted us in their
land, and accepted to be governed under invasive domination of people from
European countries. In my opinion, Guaraní language as well as the Guaraníes,
define an amazing and respectable culture because of their resilience and
endurance, and I truly hope that they never get extinct.
Rosy Fihner - December 2017.
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December
2017
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