Languages of Paraguay
| Languages of Paraguay | |
|---|---|
| Official | Spanish, Guaraní |
| Immigrant | Portuguese |
| Signed | Paraguayan Sign Language |
The Republic of Paraguay is a mostly bilingual country, where both Spanish, an Indo-European language, and Guaraní, an indigenous language of the Tupian family, have official status.[1]
Spanish and Guaraní
Spanish is spoken by about 87% of the population, while Guaraní is spoken by more than 90%, with about 4,650,000 speakers. 52% of rural Paraguayans are monolingual in Guaraní.[2]
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.
Other languages
About 50,000 Paraguayans speak an indigenous language besides Guaraní:[3]
- Aché language
- Ayoreo language
- Chamacoco language
- Iyo'wujwa Chorote language
- Guana language
- Lengua language
- Maka language
- Nivaclé language
- Ñandeva language
- Pai Tavytera language
- Sanapaná language
- Toba Qom language
- Toba-Maskoy language
Besides Spanish, Guaraní and all other previous languages, Portuguese, Plautdietsch, Standard German and Italian are spoken as well.[2]
See also
References
- ^ "Paraguay - Constitution, Article 140 About Languages" (Document). International Constitutional Law Project.
{{cite document}}: Unknown parameter|accessdate=ignored (help); Unknown parameter|url=ignored (help) (see translator's note) - ^ a b Paraguayan Guaraní, Ethnologue
- ^ Languages of Paraguay, Ethnologue
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