Paraguayan Spanish is the set of dialects of the Spanish language spoken in Paraguay. In addition, it influences the speech of the Argentine provinces of Misiones, Corrientes, Formosa, and, to a lesser extent, Chaco. Paraguayan Spanish possesses marked characteristics of Spanish previously spoken in northern Spain, because the majority of the first settlers were from Old Castile and the Basque Country. The Guarani language is co-official with Spanish in Paraguay, and most Paraguayans speak both languages. Guaraní is the home language of more than half the population of Paraguay, with higher proportions of its use in rural areas, and those who speak Spanish at home slightly in the majority in the cities. In addition to the strong influence of Guarani, Paraguayan Spanish is also influenced by River Plate Spanish due to the geographical, historical, and cultural proximity, as well as the sharing of features such as voseo, which is "the use of vos as a second-personsingularpronoun." Paraguayan Spanish is notable for its lack of yeismo, meaning that the phonemes /ʎ/ and /ʝ/ are distinguished. The Swedish linguist Bertil Malmberg visited Paraguay in 1946 and observed several features of Spanish pronunciation that he attributed to Guaraní influence. The Guaraní origin of many of these features, however, has been questioned by other researchers, who document them in dialects not in contact with Guaraní.
Characteristics
Overview
The unique features of Paraguayan Spanish developed in part due to Paraguay's early isolation; for example, José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, the country's president until 1840, sealed Paraguay's borders. Other experiences with geographic, political, and economic isolation relative to its neighbours allowed Spanish spoken in Paraguay to develop its own unique characteristics, even apart from the wide-ranging influence of Guarani. Paraguayan Spanish shares many similarities with River Plate Spanish such as the use of the voseo and various words and phrases.
Syllable-final is pronounced as before or, influenced by a substrate from Native American languages; perla and verso are pronounced and.
Absence of yeísmo, the historical merger of the phoneme with . For speakers with yeísmo, the verbs cayó 's/he fell' and calló 's/he fell silent' are homophones, both pronounced. Yeísmo characterizes the speech of most Spanish-speakers both in Spain and in the Americas.
Main Characteristics
Absence of yeísmo, the pronunciation of the digraph as a palatal lateral consonant is different from that of the that is articulated most of the time as an affricate consonant .
Voseo: pronominal and verbal, identical to River Plate Spanish.
First of all, the heterogeneity of the following characteristics are not always applicable to all Paraguayan Spanish speakers, specifically the pronunciation of the letters "r" and "s," which differ according to the social environment.
Weak articulation of /b/, /d/, and /g/ in intervocalic position.
In some variations of Paraguayan Spanish the "rr" is not pronounced as an alveolar trill, as done by many of the Spanish-speaking regions, but as a similar to the English R or how the Sicilian R is done in Italy.
Use of the alveolar approximant for the pre-consonantal and final "r," similar to the pronunciation in American or Dutch English. Example: firmar
Dynamics of Guarani-Spanish
Typical Paraguayan Spanish has a strong influence of the sentences of Guarani in its translation to Spanish, as well as the words and borrowed particles of Guarani for colloquial expressions. These are some common cases:
Guarani particles among Castilian words to emphasize expressions. Examples:
Words taken from Guarani for use in everyday Spanish. Examples:
* -gua'u. E.g.: De gua'u nomás era = Era solo una mentira.
* ¡Mbore!. Synonymous with: ¡Ni loco!
* ¡Kore!, ¡Nderakore!. Synonymous with: ¡Oh No!
Sentences taken from Guarani translated partially or erroneously translated for use in everyday Spanish. Examples:
* "Se fue en Itauguá"
* "Voy a venir"
* "Vení un poco"
* "Demasiado mucho calor hace"
* "Te dije luego"
* "Me voy a ir ahora después"
* "Habló por mi"
Paraguayisms, words and sentences in Spanish, but influenced by Guarani. Examples:
* "Me hallo"
* "Anda por su cabeza"
* "Te voy a quitar una foto"
Similarities with the River Plate Dialect">Rioplatense Spanish">River Plate Dialect
Due to the geographical and cultural proximity, both dialects are often confused. This is due to the fact that on the border between Argentina and Paraguay, the respective dialects fuse, creating a northeastern Argentine variety very similar to Paraguayan Spanish in the provinces already mentioned. Examples:
Voseo is a peculiar characteristic of Paraguayan Spanish which is heavily influenced by the River Plate dialect. Another characteristic of voseo is how long it has been around for. "Voseo is the oldest form of Castilian Spanish". After the second half of the 20th century, the teaching of voseo depended on whether the teacher used vos or not. Adding to the strong Argentinian influence, either by the media or by the geographical and cultural proximity, voseo stayed as a distinctive characteristic of Paraguayan. Although it is rarely taught in schools today, voseo is beginning to regain some popularity in the form of an accepted regional dialect.
