Guaraní alphabet

Guaraní alphabet

The Guaraní alphabet ("achegety") is a phonetic system used to write the Guaraní language, spoken mostly in Paraguay and nearby countries. It consists of 33 letters, given here in collating order:

:A, Ã, CH, E, , G, G̃, H, I, Ĩ, J, K, L, M, MB, N, ND, NG, NT, Ñ, O, Õ, P, R, RR, S, T, U, Ũ, V, Y, , '.

Their respective names are:

:"a", "ã", "che", "e", "ẽ", "ge", "g̃e", "he", "i", "ĩ", "je", "le", "me", "mbe", "ne", "nde", "nte", "nge", "nte", "ñe", "o", "õ", "pe", "re", "rre", "se", "te", "ve", "u", "ũ", "y", "ỹ", "puso"

Description

The six letters "A", "E", "I", "O", "U", "Y" denote vowel sounds; the variants with a tilde are nasal vowels. The apostrophe " ' " ("puso") represents a glottal stop. All the other letters (including "Ñ", "G̃", and the digraphs) are consonants.

The Latin letters B, C, D are used only as parts of digraphs, while F, Q, W, X, Z are not used at all. The letter "L" and the digraph "RR" are only used in words borrowed from Spanish, words with influence of Spanish phonology, or non verbal onomatopoeias. The Spanish "LL" digraph is not used in Guaraní.

The tilded versions of "E", "I", "U", "Y", and "G" are not available in ISO Latin-1 fonts, but can be represented in Unicode (except that tilded "G" is not available as a single precomposed glyph, and must be encoded as a combining tilde plus a plain "G"). In digital environments where those glyphs are not available, the tilde is often postfixed to the base character ("E~", "I~", "U~", "Y~", "G~") or a circumflex is used instead ("Ê", "Î", "Û", "Ŷ", "Ĝ").

The acute accent "´" is used to indicate the stress ("muanduhe"), as in "áva" IPA| [ˈava] ("hair") and "tái" IPA| [tai] ("peppery"). When omitted, the stress falls on the last syllable, as in "syva" IPA| [syˈva] ("forehead") and "tata" IPA| [taˈta] ("fire").

History

Up to the Spanish Conquest of the Americas in the 15th century, the Guaraní people didn't have a writing system. The first written texts in Guaraní were produced by Jesuit missionaries, using the Latin alphabet. The priest Antonio Ruíz de Montoya documented the language in his works "Tesoro de la lengua guaraní" (a Guaraní-Spanish dictionary, printed in 1639) and "Arte y bocabvlario de la lengua guaraní" (a grammar compendium and dictionary, printed in 1722) among others.

The alphabet and spelling used in those early books were somewhat inconsistent and substantially different from the modern ones. In 1867, Mariscal Francisco Solano López, president of Paraguay, convened a Script Council to regulate the writing; but the effort was not successful.

The script was finally standardized in its present form in 1950, at the Guaraní Language Congress in Montevideo, by initiative of Reinaldo Decoud Larrosa. The standards was influenced by the International Phonetic Alphabet notation, and it is now universally used in Paraguay.

Nonetheless, there is still some disagreement between literates on details of the standard. Some feel that the digraph "CH" should be changed to "X"; and that "G"-tilde should be replaced by plain "G", with the tilde being placed on one of the adjacent vowels.

The Guaraní name "achegety" is a neologism formed from "a-che-ge" (the names of the first three letters) and "ty" meaning "grouping", "ensemble".

Toponyms and proper names

There are many toponyms and some proper names derived from Guaraní in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Brazil. These are usually written according to the Spanish and Portuguese systems, and their pronunciation has often changed considerably over the centuries, to the point that they may no longer be understood by modern Guaraní speakers.

External links

* [http://www.datamex.com.py/guarani/neetekuaa/el_abecedario.html Comparing old and new script]


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужна курсовая?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Guaraní-Alphabet — Das Guaraní Alphabet (achegety) ist ein weitgehend phonetisches Alphabet, das zum Schreiben der hauptsächlich in Paraguay und den benachbarten Ländern gesprochenen Guaraní Sprache verwendet wird. Buchstaben Das Guaraní Alphabet besteht aus 33… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Guaraní (Sprache) — Guaraní Gesprochen in Paraguay, Argentinien, Bolivien, Brasilien Sprecher 4–5 Mio. Linguistische Klassifikation Tupí Sprachen Tupí Guaraní Sprachen …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Guaraní language — Infobox Language name = Guaraní nativename = avañe ẽ pronunciation = /aʋaɲẽˈʔẽ/ states = Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay speakers = 7 million familycolor=American fam1 = Tupian fam2 = Tupí Guaraní fam3 = Guaraní (I) script = Latin… …   Wikipedia

  • Guarani (langue) — Pour les articles homonymes, voir Guarani. Guarani avañe ẽ Parlée en Argentine, Bolivie, Brésil, Paraguay Nombre de locuteurs estimé à 6 000 000 Typologie …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Portuguese alphabet — The Portuguese alphabet consists of the following 23 Latin letters::The digraph ch is pronounced as an English sh . The digraphs lh and nh , of Occitan origin, denote palatal consonants which do not exist in English, but can be approximated by li …   Wikipedia

  • Ñ — Basic Latin alphabet Aa Bb Cc Dd     Ee …   Wikipedia

  • Ã — Ãã Das Ã, Minuskel ã, entspricht dem Lateinbuchstaben A mit Tilde. Der Kleinbuchstabe ã wird in der portugiesischen Sprache zur Kennzeichnung des nasal gesprochenen Lautes /ɐ̃/ verwendet. Am häufigsten tritt er in der Wortendung ção auf wie zum… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Ũ — Ũũ Das Ũ bzw. ũ ist ein Buchstabe aus dem Guaraní Alphabet, der einen nasalierten U Laut repräsentiert. Das Zeichen war früher außerdem Teil des lateinischen Alphabets des Nauruischen. Es ist ein U mit Tilde und wurde dem deutschen Ü… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Ĝ — Ĝĝ Das Ĝ (kleingeschrieben ĝ) ist ein Buchstabe des lateinischen Alphabets. Es besteht aus einem G mit einem Zirkumflex. Der Buchstabe wird in der Esperanto Rechtschreibung verwendet, um die stimmhafte postalveolare Affrikate (IPA: ʤ)… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • — is a letter which indicates a nasal vowel. It is the 5th letter in the Guaraní alphabet.ee also* Tilde …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”