Tkachev Vyacheslav

УДК 811.13

Tkachev Vyacheslav

PhD student

Institute of Foreign Languages, Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia

e-mail: 1042190184@rudn.ru

 

NATIONAL AND CULTURAL IDENTITY OF THE PARAGUAYAN NATIONAL VARIANT OF THE SPANISH LANGUAGE

 

Abstract. Studies on the problems of Spanish variability have become extremely popular nowadays. The study of the nature and causes of differentiation in Spanish-American speech is an essential Spanish dialectology task.

This article will discuss the lexical, phonetic and grammatical features of the Paraguayan national version of Spanish.

Paraguay is located in the center of South America. Paraguay is bordered by Bolivia to the Northwest, Brazil to the East and northeast, and Argentina to the South and southwest. There is no access to the sea. The total area is 406,752 square kilometers, and the total length of the state border is 3,920 km.

Keywords: Paraguayan national version of Spanish, Spanish, Paraguayan Spanish, vocabulary, grammar, phonetics.

 

Introduction. Paraguayan Spanish (Spanish: español paraguayo) is a dialect of the Spanish language spoken by the people of Paraguay. In addition, this dialect influences the speech of the inhabitants of the Argentine provinces of Misiones, Corrientes, Formosa and, to a lesser extent, Chaco. Paraguayan Spanish has the distinct characteristics of a variant of Spanish previously spoken in Northern Spain, as most of the first settlers of Paraguay were from Castile and the Basque country.[3]

In modern Paraguay, there is a struggle between supporters of the three directions of Guarani development. Representatives of the former are trying to revive the old Guarani and use neologisms to make it a full-fledged means of communication of modern society, replacing Spanish. Supporters of the other direction — the Democrats — focus on the spoken language of the village population, while retaining all areas of Spanish where spoken Guarani cannot replace it. The Communists use the colloquial language of the city in their press, which is a mixture of Spanish and Guarani and is gradually spreading to the village population.

Currently, Paraguay is in the process of forming a national literary language based on a spontaneous hybrid language, which is gradually taking positions that previously belonged only to Spanish. In spoken language, Spanish is used for polite or formal communication [1].

In Paraguay, Guarani has not only been preserved, but also continues to develop, change, and as a mixed language is gaining new positions on the way to becoming the national literary language of the country.

The influence of Guarani

Typical Paraguayan Spanish is strongly influenced by Guarani, both when translating from Guarani to Spanish, and when using vocabulary and particles from Guarani in the spoken language. Some typical situations are described below.

Guarani particles among the Spanish vocabulary that give an emotional color:

• -na ("please"). For example: Vamos na = Vamos por favor ("let's go, please»)

• -pa, -pió, -piko, -ta (interrogative particle without translation). For example: ¿Para qué pa?, ¿Para qué pió? = ¿Para qué? ("For what?")

• -ko, -nio, -ngo (a particle that releases something). For example: Ese ko es de ella ("(exactly) this is her»)

Guarani vocabulary used in everyday Spanish:

• -gua'u ("lie"). For example: De gua'u nomás era = Era solo una mentira ("It was just a lie")

• ¡Mbore! (negative exclamation). Synonym: ¡Ni loco! (‘Don't crazy!’)

•        ¡Kore!, ¡Nderakore! (exclamation, in colloquial speech conveys something terrible). A synonym for: Oh No!

Phrases in Guarani, partially or wrongly translated in Spanish:

• "Se fue en Itauguá" (from the expression in Guarani "oho Itauguápe" where the particle "pe" is replaced by "a" or "en")

• "Voy a venir" (literally from the expression in Guarani "aháta aju" is used as a synonym for "I go back")

• "Vení un poco" (semantic tracing the word "ejúmina" from Guarani)

• "Demasiado mucho calor hace" (semantic tracing the word "hetaiterei" from Guarani)

• "Luego Te dije" (from guaraní "ha e voi ningo ndéve" in which "then" emphasizes the previous step)

• "Me voy a ir ahora después" (semantic decal from offers guaraní "aháta aga upéi" in which "now" is stressed when the action will happen)

• "Habló por mi" (literally from the expression in Guarani "oñe'ẽ cherehe", used as a synonym for "he talked about me")

Paragvaisms, words and sentences in Spanish that were influenced by Guarani:

• "Me hallo" (the verb "hallar" is used as a synonym for "alegrar" instead of indicating location)

• "Anda por su cabeza" (under the influence of the expression in Guarani "oiko iñakãre" which can mean "hace lo que quiere, sin control, sin juicio")

• "Te voy a quitar una foto" ("quitar" is used as a synonym for "sacar" or "tomar" in the case of photography).[1; 4]

 

Results. The phonological system of a mixed language was formed as a result of the partial "overlap" of the phonetic systems of the two languages.

About 50% of the lexical Fund of the mixed language is Spanish borrowings

In grammar, you can point to the borrowing of a certain article of the feminine gender La, which is used in the Guarani language with names denoting male and female persons (la tembireco — "spouse", la cuimbae — "man"): there is no gender category.

• Like all American dialects of Spanish, Paraguayan Spanish has seseo, so it lacks the distinction between the sounds /θ/ and /s/ that is present in standard European Spanish;
• /r/ at the end of a syllable is pronounced as [ɹ] (as in red in American English) before /l/ or /s/, influenced by the substratum of native American languages; the words perla and verso are pronounced as [ˈpeɹla] and [ˈbeɹso], respectively;
• Absence of yeism, displacement of the traditional lateral palatal sonant /ʎ/ (transmitted by the letter combination ll) to the palatal spirant /ʝ/ (transmitted by the letter y). When using yeism, the verb forms cayó ("he / she fell/fell") and calló ("he/she fell silent/fell silent") are homophones, both pronounced [kaˈʝo]. In dialects where yeism is absent, these two words are pronounced [kaˈʝo] and [kaˈʎo], respectively.[5]

Main characteristic

• Lack of yeism, pronunciation of the digraph <ll> as a side palatal sonant [ʎ] in contrast to <y>, which is most often pronounced as an affricative consonant [dʒ];
• In voseo: pronominal and verb, similar to using ripetska in Spanish;
• Leism[en]: using le in the context of direct reference to an object instead of the personal pronouns lo and la;
• Availability of fewer pauses and less "musical" intonation compared to zaplatkin Spanish;

The presence of slang borrowed from Guarani

Pronunciation

The presence of the following characteristics varies among speakers of Paraguayan Spanish, in particular, the pronunciation of the letters " r " and " s "differs depending on the social environment of the speakers

• the combination "tr" is pronounced as a deaf postalveolar affricate [tɹ], similar to the sound of a digraph /ch/;
• assimilation " r — - assimilation;
• wide diffusion of the labial-dental consonant [v] into the phoneme /b/ •
• the final /n/ has alveolar rather than posterior articulation;
• the pronunciation of /x/ without aspiration;
• save the hiatus;
• stable vowel system;
• weak articulation of /b/, /d/, and /g/ in the intervocal and even in the starting position;
• in some variations of Paraguayan Spanish, "rr" is not pronounced as an alveolar consonant, as is the case in many Spanish-speaking regions, but as [ɹ], similar to English R or Sicilian R in Italian;
• using the alveolar approximation [ɹ] for the preconsonant and final "r", similar to the pronunciation in American or Dutch English, for example: firmar [fiɹ. maɹ]

In common with rioplatense dialect

Due to geographical and cultural proximity of the Paraguayan and rioplatense dialects are often confused. This is due to the fact that in the border regions of Argentina and Paraguay, dialects actually merge to form a northeastern Argentine dialect, very similar to Paraguayan Spanish. Examples:

• the use of the expression "che»;
• the presence of an aspirated consonant /s/ in colloquial speech;
• the use of voseo and its analogues in conjugation;
• having a common vocabulary with zaplatkin dialect (including some words from lunfardo).[6]

Voseo

Voseo is a peculiar characteristic of Paraguayan Spanish, which was strongly influenced by the rioplat dialect (since historically in Paraguay, Guarani was always spoken, and Spanish was usually used by residents of the capital or the most educated segments of the population). Another feature of voseo is the duration of its use. "Voseo is the oldest form of Castilian Spanish." Since the second half of the 20th century, the teaching of vos has depended on whether the teacher used the vos form. In addition to strong Argentine influence through the media and geographical and cultural proximity, voseo remained a hallmark of Paraguayan Spanish.

Discussion. Paraguay is an American country that struggles to preserve the local Guarani language. The result of these efforts is that most of the population is bilingual. The abundance of Hispanics in Guarani contrasts with the lack of influence of this language on Spanish.

The Tupi language belongs to the Brazilian ethnic group that lived between the Parana and Paraguay rivers. At the time of the discovery of America, these tribes occupied the territories of Brazil, Guiana, and the Amazon. On the borders with Brazil, Guarani mixes with Tupi, forming a new language - Tu-PI-Guarani (tupí-guaraní). It was the most widely spoken language family in South America. At that time, it covered the following territories: Central and southern Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia, Argentina, and Uruguay. Currently, there are a small number of groups that speak pure Tupi-Guarani. There are more than five thousand Spanish words in the Tupi-Guarani vocabulary. There is also a strong influence of Spanish on this native language at the grammatical level.[7]

Words taken from Tupi-Guarani: jaguar (Jaguar), ananas (pineapple), Caiman yacaré / caiman (Caiman), tapioca (tapioca).

Guarani is also spoken in parts of Argentina, Brazil, and Bolivia. But Paraguay is the only country in Latin America where the native American language is the national language. This is despite the fact that most of the population is not native American. Since 1992, Guarani has been the second official language of Paraguay. The 1992 Constitution States, article 140 - on language: "Paraguay is a bilingual and multi-ethnic country. The official languages are Spanish and Guarani. The law sets the rules for using both. Native American languages, as well as other minority languages, are part of the nation's cultural heritage."

Prior to 1992, the government already recognized bilingualism in Paraguay, but the 1967 national Constitution does not recognize Guarani as an official language, but rather as part of Paraguayan folklore: "the national languages of the Republic are Spanish and Guarani. Spanish is the official language of use. The state encourages culture in all its manifestations. Protects the Guarani language and promotes its learning and development."

It is obvious that the new Constitution has made progress for the Guarani status compared to 1967, but the implementation of this project is quite problematic.[8]

 

REFERENCES

1. Шахназарян В. М. Влияние автохтонных языков Латинской Америки на лексическую систему испанского языка мексиканского штата Кинтана-Роо// Вопросы иберо-романистики. Статьи по итогам Х Международной научной конференции. Москва, 2021. Сс. 204–211.
2. Шахназарян В. М. Изучение индихенизмов в мексиканском территориальном диалекте испанского языка штата Кинтана-Роо// Язык. Культура. Перевод. Коммуникация. Сборник научных трудов. Вып. 3. Москва, 2021. Сс. 129–132.  
3. "ISO 639-2 Language Code search". Library of Congress. Retrieved 22 June 2019.
4. Gerardo, Kayser (2001). El dialecto rioplatense = The River Plate dialect. Buenos Aires: Editorial Dunken.
5. J. K. Choi, 2005, "Bilingualism in Paraguay: Forty Years After Rubin's Study". Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 26(3), 233-248, as cited by Sarah Gevene Hopton Tyler, 2010, "Intergenerational Linguistic Changes to the Spanish Dialect of Three Participant Groups from Greater Asunción (Paraguay)", M.A. thesis, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, p. 3.
6. Luis Flórez, review of Malmberg's Notas sobre la fonética del español en el Paraguay (Lund: C. W. K. Gleerup, 1947), in Thesaurus: Boletín del Instituto Caro y Cuervo, 6 (1950), 301.
7. Simon Romero, "An Indigenous Language With Unique Staying Power", The New York Times, March 12, 2012
8. William R. Long, "Native Guarani Vies with Spanish Paraguay's 2 Languages Source of Pride, Concern", Los Angeles Times, April 13, 1988