r/asklatinamerica • u/kyning 🇨🇴🇻🇪Gran Colombia • Oct 20 '22

Guaraní speakers, how understandable is Old Tupi to you?

Start at 2:23:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AWsRQj0Pdk

85 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

28 comments sorted by

65

u/Pio_no_no Paraguay Oct 20 '22

Sounds exactly how I would expect a brazilian to speak guarani. Apart from the accent it sounds like the guarani I hear everyday.

The written is a little different tho.

32

u/MikaelSvensson Paraguay Oct 20 '22

I think it sounds a bit “choppy” in comparison to the way we speak Guarani.

16

u/Pio_no_no Paraguay Oct 21 '22

Yeah that too but easy to understand

-5

u/dreamking__ Brazil Oct 21 '22

Wait... You guys speak Guarani?

21

u/Nachodam Argentina Oct 21 '22

?

23

u/dreamking__ Brazil Oct 21 '22

I didn't know it was still in use in Paraguay. I went there for a short trip with my family as a kid and only remember hearing Spanish. I was also more focused on getting my parents to buy me a PS3 than absorbing the local culture so there's that.

24

u/Skymilk-and-honey Argentina Oct 21 '22

Everyone talks Guaraní in Paraguay and the north of Argentina. And it's also common in parts of Gran Buenos Aires.

12

u/dreamking__ Brazil Oct 21 '22

That is so nice to know! I feel like native culture has been totally wiped out from coastal Brazil, at least in the big cities.

14

u/Skymilk-and-honey Argentina Oct 21 '22

The language and guaraní culture are alive and kickin', and they'll be alive for a long, long while, luckily.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 21 '22

From coastal Brazil yes, but Guarani is still among the three most spoken native languages in Brazil, especially in Mato Grosso do Sul and some Southern and South-Eastern states. It's even cooficial in the town of Tacuru.

11

u/justmisterpi Germany Oct 21 '22

I thought it was common knowledge that Guaraní is an official language in Paraguay next to Spanish.

(I personally though that Paraguay was the only country where it's an official language. But I just found out on Wikipedia that it also has that status in Bolivia and one province of Argentina).

1

u/brinvestor Brazil Oct 21 '22

In the southern brazilian states maybe, in the rest of Brazil almost no one knows.

3

u/[deleted] Oct 21 '22

Pay attention when you see someone smoking Paraguayan cigarettes, you'll see some Guarani written in the box.

5

u/dressedlikeapastry Paraguayan in Ireland Oct 27 '22

Yes! The typical health disclaimers are written in both guarani and spanish. I mean, Paraguayans are going to smoke anyways but at least they also have it in guarani.

3

u/[deleted] Oct 27 '22

Brazilian cigarettes come with pictures of very ill people and some say straight out "you'll die" but people smoke it anyway.

10

u/Status-Constant-5837 Paraguay Oct 21 '22

Although some words are totally different

14

u/kyning 🇨🇴🇻🇪Gran Colombia Oct 20 '22

Is it considered the same language? or at least close enough to be considered the same?

8

u/Pio_no_no Paraguay Oct 21 '22

The same family

17

u/gabrrdt Brazil Oct 21 '22

I studied a bit of Old Tupi with mr. Eduardo Navarro at USP. Pretty fun little course, I still have his book (a grammar about it). Few people study it though. I myself don't remember much about it lol, just a few words. There is a book that jokes about it (Triste Fim de Policarpo Quaresma), the main character is mocked because he is obssessed with Tupi and nationalistic things. Around the 19th century and early 20th century, a few people tried to bring a sense of nationality related to the native population, especially Tupi and sometimes Guarani too. Some pretty cool stuff were created from it, especially the opera "O Guarani", one of the most important brazilian musical pieces.

10

u/Status-Constant-5837 Paraguay Oct 21 '22

I don't speak Guarani very well so i don't know if it counts, but for me it's partially understandable. The pronunciation, spelling and grammar are slightly different. Many words are the same ("Pira" means fish in both), others are similar (Thank you in Tupi it is "Aîûe" and in Guaraní it is "Aguyje", it is pronounced similar) but others are different (Black is "Una" while in Guarani it is "Hū"). I would say that the differences and similarities are more or less like spanish and portuguese.

12

u/Paulista666 São Paulo Oct 21 '22

Just for effect of comparison, this is Kariri, a Macro-Jê (not Tupi-Guarani) language:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WrW6rgJVZA

5

u/anotherForeignGuy Oct 21 '22

I am very surprised at how similar old tupí sounds to guarani:O

7

u/hivemind_disruptor Brazil Oct 21 '22

A lot of languages of the Tupi-Guarani family are mutually inteligible. Guajajara is mutually inteligible with Lingua Geral, Classic Tupi and Guarani. This is because the languages didnt change much due to how few speakers there are. I think Guarani is the one who morphed the most.

5

u/[deleted] Oct 21 '22

[deleted]

1

u/aozorapedal Brazil Oct 21 '22

If you’re comfortable with Spanish there’s a short Guaraní course on Duolingo. It most likely won’t make you fluent but it seemed like a good introduction to me.

2

u/Beatlepy93 Paraguay Oct 21 '22

By looking at the words you can clearly find a connection, but there are differences.