Guaraní survival kit

About this kit

Guarani is one of the two official languages of Paraguay, spoken by over 6 million people. Exceptionally in Latin America, it is an indigenous language spoken by the majority of the population, indigenous and non-indigenous alike. With this kit, you have the bare minimum to get by in Asuncion, Encarnacion or the Paraguayan countryside.

Guarani (avañe'ẽ, "the language of humans") is one of Paraguay's two official languages alongside Spanish since 1992. Spoken by over 6 million people in Paraguay, Argentina, Bolivia and Brazil, it is one of the rare indigenous languages of South America still spoken by the majority of the population, including non-indigenous people. This unique situation in Latin America makes Guarani a living, dynamic language deeply integrated into daily life: media, schools, government, songs, family conversations.

Guarani belongs to the Tupi-Guarani family and has an agglutinative grammar rich in suffixes. It is written in the Latin alphabet with some peculiarities: nasal tildes on vowels (ã, ẽ, ĩ, õ, ũ, ỹ), a glottal stop marked by an apostrophe, and the central y. The language distinguishes the "inclusive we" (ñande, including the listener) from the "exclusive we" (ore, excluding them), a precious nuance worth mastering. Many everyday international words come from Guarani: tapir, jaguar, pineapple, piranha, and the name of the country Paraguay itself.

In Paraguay, most conversations blend Spanish and Guarani in a bilingualism called jopara: a sentence may start in Spanish and end in Guarani, or vice versa. Traveling in Paraguay with a few Guarani words is immediately noticed: a Mba'éichapa at reception, an Aguyje to a server, an Iporã to say all is well. This kit gathers survival phrases to greet, ask for directions, eat, handle an emergency and leave respectfully, plus cultural tips to decode terere, sopa paraguaya and Paraguayan tranquilo.