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Guaraní Profile- NYT | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5263 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 1 of 17 12 March 2012 at 1:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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I enjoyed reading about An Indigenous Language With Unique Staying Power in today's New York Times. The story of Guaraní is quite fascinating but I wonder if it can continue to thrive given the currents of ever increasing South American integration.
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| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6583 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 2 of 17 12 March 2012 at 2:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think it's so cool. Go, Paraguay! I've been considering going to South America to live there for six months or so, and Guaraní makes Paraguay a very interesting place for a language enthusiast. And the fact that it's described in the article as "probably harder than Chinese" makes my mouth water! Thanks for bringing this article to my attention. It's heartwarming to see an indigenous American language thrive and flourish.
It does strengthen an argument I recently made in another thread, however, that a language needs a nation in order to thrive. Guaraní has one, and thus it thrives. If Guaraní succumbs to Spanish, then we're heading for a world where English, Spanish, Mandarin and Arabic are the only languages. EDIT: Hey, does anyone know the status of Guaraní when it comes to literature and movies/TV series? Edited by Ari on 13 March 2012 at 12:40pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5263 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 3 of 17 12 March 2012 at 2:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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You're welcome, @Ari. I found a site that is described in Spanish here as the best internet site for learning the basics of Guaraní: Guaraní Renda. I've been looking for something new to learn- hmmmm!
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| dentesdeleao Diglot Newbie Brazil Joined 4643 days ago 7 posts - 11 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2 Studies: Biblical Hebrew, Arabic (classical) | Message 4 of 17 13 March 2012 at 6:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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It is really nice to hear someone is interested in Guaraní language. Some semesters ago I took a course on Tupi language at my University and I plan to come back to it in the future. Just a brief note: Tupy and Guarany were once the same language, considering those two different names were more geographic (guarany people living in the inner lands of South America, while the tupy people lived along the seashore) than linguistic. The professor who taught me the basics of what is now called "Old Tupi" is Eduardo Navarro de Almeida, and he also published an extensive grammar book on that language, the version of modern Guaraní spoken in Paraguay as it was spoken by native americans in Brazilian coast by the time hispaniards arrived here. I'm looking forward getting a Guaraní grammar book in my hands to compare both of them carefully, but as far as I'm concerneced they resemble each other at least to some extent, as I was able to grasp lots of Guaraní words and grammar structures when I was taking this course on Old Tupi.
This site seems to be a great reference and I remember I had found a course of Paraguayan Guaraní language here in my hometown, São Paulo. I'll try to find it again. Whenever I come across usefull material or general stuff regarding Guaraní language I'll post it here. But in respect to the "status of Guaraní when it comes to literature and movies/TV series", I have no idea. The only thing I know for sure is the music genre called Guarania, a kind of paraguayan folk music sung mainly in Guaraní. This thread made me really curious, I'll look for more info... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4669 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 5 of 17 14 March 2012 at 2:22am | IP Logged | ||
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Guarany sounds very nice:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPRSry-Mp3Q I have ''The Little Prince'' in Guarani. I bought it in Brazil. It's called Mitãmi. Brazil is said Pindorama (the land of palm trees): http://gn.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pindorama Edited by Medulin on 14 March 2012 at 2:35am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6583 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 6 of 17 14 March 2012 at 7:13am | IP Logged | ||
That'd be very much appreciated! I'm seriously considering studying this language, and considering the difficulty of finding good materials for Cantonese, a language of 70 million speakers with one of the world's largest movie industries, I can imagine I'd be needing every little scrap of resource I can get my hands on! After some googling, I've found this and this, so that seems like some good starting places. Unfortunately, I'm at the same time considering Taiwanese, which would take a lot of time, as well ... So many languages, so little time! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 17 14 March 2012 at 3:51pm | IP Logged | ||
From another thread about the same language:
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| TrentBooks Triglot Groupie United States TrentBooks.com Joined 4855 days ago 43 posts - 98 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Guarani Studies: Biblical Hebrew, Japanese | Message 8 of 17 15 March 2012 at 3:38am | IP Logged | ||
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My heart skipped a beat when I read this thread!
I lived in Paraguay for two years, and became fluent in Guarani. I love the language and the culture. I'd be happy to share anything I'm able to with anyone interested in learning the language. It is truly beautiful. As for Guarani in the media, it is sadly (almost) non-existent. You're heavily limited mostly to books, local radio, and the occasional local television programming. Guarani is indeed spoken by nearly every Paraguayan (especially outside of Asucncion, the capital city). But it's spoken mostly in the home or with close friends. Spanish is certainly the language of commerce, at least in the main cities. They probably do speak it in formal settings, but I'm guessing they don't actually carry on formal business, politics, etc. simply because the Guarani language doesn't have the vocabulary to allow for such situations. Case in point: They don't have a word for airplanes, so they call them "kurusu veve", or a "flying cross". There is definitely a heavy mix of Spanish and Guarani, which they call "Jopara". Interestingly enough, I spent a considerable amount of time outside of the main cities, where people spoke very little Spanish. When I moved back to the main cities and spoke with people, they regularly told me I spoke more Guarani than they did (those who speak a lot of Guarani are galled "Guardango" by Paraguayans). My guess is it's because the younger generation is losing some of their cultural ties as American and Brazilian media (all of which is in Spanish or Portuguese) become mainstream in the more populated areas. Seriously, though, Paraguay is my second home. I loved it there. The people were amazing. So if I can be of help in absolutely any way, please let me know. (For what it's worth, I've found a few websites online that claim to teach Guarani, but after reviewing their content it became very evident that they didn't actually speak it...they learned a few of the basics, then put it on a website. If you find a website teaching Guarani, make sure the person has actually lived there for reasonable amount of time...like several months, at the very least. Just my opinion...) Edited by TrentBooks on 15 March 2012 at 3:45am 7 persons have voted this message useful |
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