Guaraní Writing System
From Freepedia
The Guaraní writing system is phonetic.
The alphabet, called achegety consists on 33 letters: a – ã – ch – e – ẽ – 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 – ỹ – ' .
Subdivided in
- 12 vowels: a – ã – e – ẽ – i – ĩ – o – õ – u – ũ – y – ỹ
- 15 simple consonants: g – g̃ – h – j – k – l – m – n – ñ – p – r – s – t – v – '
- 6 digraph consonants, which are cosidered as one letter: ch – mb – nd – ng – nt – rr
l and rr are only used in words borrowed from Spanish, words with influence of Spanish phonology or non verbal onomatopoeias.
The ' represents a glottal stop and is called puso.
Achegety is a neologism based on a-che-ge (the name of the first three letters) and ty meaning "grouping", "ensemble".
Indicating Stress
The stress (muanduhe) is indicated with the acute accent, when not marked is always pronounced on the last syllabe: syva [sy'va] ("forehead"), áva ['ava] ("hair"), tata [ta'ta] ("fire"), tái [tⁿaj] ("peppery").
History
The Guaraní people didn't have an alphabet of its own. With the Spanish Conquest, the Jesuits started to print books in Guaraní, using the latin alphabet. The priest Antonio Ruíz de Montoya documented the condiition of the language in his works Tesoro de la lengua guaraní (1639, a Guaraní-Spanish dictionary) and Arte y bocabvlario de la lengua guaraní (printed in 1722, a grammar compendium and dictionary) among others.
The script wasn't standardized until 1950 when a very similar with the International Phonetic Alphabet notation was adopted at the Guaraní Language Congress in Montevideo by purpose of Reinaldo Decoud Larrosa, this standard is the one used here and among all school and universities of Paraguay. Before, there was an attempt of regulation by Mariscal Francisco Solano López, who called for a Script Council in 1867.
Nonetheless, there is a little disagreement between literates. Principally on the letters ch, which some judge that should be changed to x and g̃ which is proposed for being eliminated, and instead of it, put a tilde in the vowels before or after the g.
The common toponyms derived from Guarani in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay (when pronounced in Spanish) and Brazil use the Spanish and Portuguese scripts and phonologies, being sometimes not understandable by Guarani speakers.
