Editing Guarani language (section)

== History ==
While Guarani, in its [[Classical Guarani|Classical form]], was the only language spoken in the expansive missionary territories, Paraguayan Guarani has its roots outside of the [[Jesuit Reductions]].{{Citation needed|date=September 2024}}

Modern scholarship has shown that Guarani was always the primary language of colonial Paraguay, both inside and outside the reductions. Following the [[Suppression of the Society of Jesus|expulsion of the Jesuits]] in the 18th century, the residents of the reductions gradually migrated north and west towards [[Asunción]], a demographic shift that brought about a decidedly one-sided shift away from the Jesuit dialect that the missionaries had curated in the southern and eastern territories of the colony.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Wilde |first1=Guillermo |title=Los guaraníes después de la expulsión de los jesuitas: dinámicas políticas y transacciones simbólicas |trans-title=The Guaraní after the expulsion of the Jesuits: political dynamics and symbolic transactions |journal=[[Revista Complutense de Historia de América]] |date=2001 |volume=27 |pages=69–106 |language=es}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Telesca |first1=Ignacio |title=Tras los expulsos: cambios demográficos y territoriales en el paraguay después de la expulsión de los jesuitas |date=2009 |publisher=Universidad Católica "Nuestra Señora De La Asunción" |location=Asunción}}</ref>

By and large, the Guarani of the Jesuits shied away from direct phonological loans from Spanish. Instead, the missionaries relied on the agglutinative nature of the language to formulate new precise translations or [[calque]] terms from Guarani morphemes. This process often led the Jesuits to employ complicated, highly synthetic terms to convey European concepts.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Thun |first=Harald |title=La hispanización del guaraní jesuítico en 'lo espiritual' y en 'lo temporal'. Segunda parte: Los procedimientos |encyclopedia=Geschichte und Aktualität der deutschprachigen Guaraní-Philologie |editor-last1=Dietrich |editor-first1=Wolf |editor-last2=Symeonidis |editor-first2=Haralambos |date=2008 |location=Berlin |publisher=Lit Verlag |pages=141–169}}</ref> By contrast, the Guarani spoken outside of the missions was characterized by a free, unregulated flow of Hispanicisms; frequently, Spanish words and phrases were simply incorporated into Guarani with minimal phonological adaptation.{{Citation needed|date=September 2024}}

A good example of that phenomenon is found in the word "communion". The Jesuits, using their agglutinative strategy, rendered this word "{{lang|gn|Tupârahava}}", a calque based on the word "{{lang|gn|Tupâ}}", meaning God.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Restivo |first1=Paulo |title=Vocabulario de la lengua guaraní |date=1724 |location=Madrid |language=es}}</ref> In modern Paraguayan Guarani, the same word is rendered "{{lang|gn|komuño}}".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Guarania |first1=Félix |title=Ñande Ayvu Tenonde Porãngue'i: Nuevo diccionario guaraní́-castellano, castellano-guaraní́: Avañe'ẽ-karaiñe'ẽ, Karaiñe'ẽ-avañe'ẽ |date=2008 |publisher=Servilibro |location=Asunción}}</ref>

Following the out-migration from the reductions, these two distinct dialects of Guarani came into extensive [[Language contact|contact]] for the first time. The vast majority of speakers abandoned the less colloquial, highly regulated Jesuit variant in favor of the variety that evolved from actual use by speakers in Paraguay.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Melia |first1=Bartomeu |title=La lengua guaraní́ en el Paraguay colonial |date=2003 |publisher=CEPAG |location=Asunción |language=es |isbn=9789992584958}}</ref> This contemporary form of spoken Guarani is known as [[Jopará]], meaning "mixture" in Guarani.{{Citation needed|date=September 2024}}

=== Political status ===
[[File:Sign in Guaraní and Spanish in Asunción.jpg|thumb|A government sign in [[Asunción]], Paraguay; bilingual in Guarani and Spanish]]
{{See also|Languages of Paraguay}}
Widely spoken, Paraguayan Guarani has nevertheless been repressed by Paraguayan governments throughout most of its history since independence. It was prohibited in state schools for over 100 years. However, populists often used pride in the language to excite nationalistic fervor and promote a narrative of social unity.{{Citation needed|date=September 2024}}

During the autocratic regime of [[Alfredo Stroessner]], his Colorado Party used the language to appeal to common Paraguayans although Stroessner himself never gave an address in Guarani.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Nickson |first1=Robert Andrew |s2cid=144250960 |title=Governance and the Revitalization of the Guaraní Language in Paraguay|journal=[[Latin American Research Review]] |date=2009 |volume=44 |issue=3 |pages=3–26 |doi=10.1353/lar.0.0115 |jstor=40783668 |language=en}}</ref> Upon [[History of Paraguay#Modern Paraguay|the advent of Paraguayan democracy]] in 1992, Guarani was established in the new constitution as a language equal to Spanish.<ref name="SimonRomero"/>

Jopará, the mixture of Spanish and Guarani, is spoken by an estimated 90% of the population of Paraguay. [[Code-switching]] between the two languages takes place on a spectrum in which more Spanish is used for official and business-related matters, and more Guarani is used in art and in everyday life.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://linguistics.byu.edu/classes/Ling450ch/reports/Guarani1.html |title= Guaraní: The Language and People |last= Page |first= Nathan |date= 6 September 1999 |website= [[Brigham Young University]] Department of Linguistics |access-date= 1 February 2019}}</ref>

Guarani is also an official language of Bolivia and of [[Corrientes Province]] in Argentina.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Guarani |url=http://languagesgulper.com/eng/Guarani.html |access-date=2025-01-22 |website=languagesgulper.com}}</ref>