How to pronounce words in Paraguayan Guarani

“…mba’e guasuete,

born.”

slim susy

“… something unexpected,

the spoken word.” (Translated by Susan Smith Nash)

Modern Guarani is an Amerindian language currently spoken in Paraguay and is the only indigenous language in South America recognized as a national language. Surely it is important to remember that Guarani has nothing to do with Spanish; the other national language of Paraguay. Guarani and Spanish are then separate languages ​​used in a diglossic society. Spanish, believed to be the only language of less than seven percent of the population, serves as a tall variety that is used officially as the language of government and medium of education.

The origins of Guarani (or I advanced) the current spelling comes from the transcription adopted by the Jesuit priest Montoya in the 17th century. The Guarani alphabet (headache) is made up of 20 letters (you). The letter (you)-to dream(Taipu) correspondence is almost always constant. In Guarani, all consonants and vowels are pronounced, which means that Guarani does not have silent letters. Therefore we can say then that the alphabet is largely phonetic, that is, spelling and pronunciation are phonetic. But it should be noted that some grammarians and dictionary authors differ in the use of some letters.

In what follows, comparisons with Spanish and English are given, just as a guide, where there is a close enough approximation to the Guarani sound. Especially the consonants are pronounced as in English.

The vowel system

There are 6 vowel letters used in Guarani. The vowels (pu’ae) are as follows:

has, Y, I, oh, an, over there

has, Y, I, oh, an Like in Spanish. These vowels are represented by exactly the same characters in IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet).

The letter over there in the Guarani alphabet it serves as a symbol for a central closed and unrounded vowel sound. Note that the IPA system uses lowercase Imodified with hyphen overlay.

In fact, Guaraní shows a vowel system with three high vowels (i, y, u) and three low vowels (e, a, o). The following schematic serves as a representation of this 3 x 2 system:

I – over there – an

Y – has – oh

These vowels can be pure or nasalized. So all Guarani vowels have nasalized equivalents. Nasalized vowels (pu’ae tigua) are represented with a tilde. That is, the tilde marks the nasalization.

To conclude, Guarani vowels are all short. So don’t make the vowels too long.

the consonant system

There are 14 consonants in Guarani. As noted above, many of them are similar to the English. the consonants (pundi) are as follows:

k, meter, not, not, p, s, you, gram, h, I, r, v, X, ‘

Notice that the apostrophe symbol [ ‘ ] represents a letter indicating a glottal consonant stop. This letter is called Pu’y Prayed push. A “stop” is a sound in which the air in the vocal tract is completely blocked (Ladefoged:2001).

the consonants not, p, s, youY r sounds like Spanish. With loanwords from Spanish, Guarani uses I Y rr.

Pure nasal consonants (pundie tiguaiteare) are: meter, notY not. In a sense, gram it can also be considered as nasal.

In addition, Guarani shows the prenasalized stops: megabyte, n/a, New TestamentY ng. These four sounds are called “semi-nasal” consonants (pundie tĩjurugua) in Guarani grammar. In general, double or geminate consonants resemble prenasalized segments and sound like rr are named as pundiekoi. Note that in some spellings, the pundiekoi ch replace the letter X.

Words in which prenasalized stops occur are pronounced as follows: pytumby (twilight/to become night) = py/you/mby.

consonants that sound like english

The following consonants are usually pronounced as in English:

k, meter, not, p, gram, I, r, s, you, v

Let’s see some observations in relation to the previous set of sounds:

s always pronounced as in demanding;

gram it’s always like in behind;

r it’s always like in Lightning (like the rolling sound used in Italian);

The three voiceless stops k, p Y you they are pronounced WITHOUT aspiration (a strong blast of air at the end of the sound).

“special” sounds

Finally, let’s examine other sounds:

not : this is a velar nasal stop sound as in Spanish Dream (Sound);

X : this letter is pronounced as in English safe; some authors use the “ch” (surely this digraph represents a totally different sound from the same Spanish digraph);

‘ (this symbol is called lenis spirit in Latin): indicates a glottalized consonant sound, which is emitted with the glottis closed. This sound is made with air from the mouth, rather than air from the lungs. The glottal stop occurs only between vowels;

h: is a glottal fricative sound.

Bibliography

Gregores, Emma; Suarez, Jorge A. 1967. A description of colloquial Guarani. The Hague: Mouton.

Guasch, Antonio. 1956. The Guarani Language. Grammar and anthology of prose and verse. Asuncion: Casa America.

Ladefoged, Peter. 2001. Vowels and consonants. Introduction to the sounds of languages. Oxford: Blackwell.

O’Connor, J.D. 1973. Phonetics. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Pullum, Geoffrey K.; Ladusaw, William A. 1996. Phonetic Symbols Guide. 2nd edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.