Mbya Guarani is a
Tupi–Guarani language spoken by approximately 6,000 Brazilians, 3,000 Argentines, and 8,000 Paraguayans. It is 75% lexically similar to
Paraguayan Guarani.
[
Mbya Guarani is one of a number of "]Guarani dialects
The Guaraní language belongs to the Tupí-Guaraní branch of the Tupí linguistic family.
There are three distinct groups within the Guaraní subgroup, they are: the Kaiowá, the Mbyá and the Ñandeva.
In Latin America, the indigenous la ...
" now generally classified as distinct languages. Mbya is closely connected to Ava Guarani, also known as Ñandeva, and intermarriage between speakers of the two languages is common. Speakers of Mbya and Ñandeva generally live in mountainous areas of the Atlantic Forest
The Atlantic Forest ( pt, Mata Atlântica) is a South American forest that extends along the Atlantic coast of Brazil from Rio Grande do Norte state in the northeast to Rio Grande do Sul state in the south and inland as far as Paraguay and th ...
, from eastern Paraguay
Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to th ...
through Misiones
Misiones (, ''Missions'') is one of the 23 provinces of Argentina, located in the northeastern corner of the country in the Mesopotamia region. It is surrounded by Paraguay to the northwest, Brazil to the north, east and south, and Corrientes P ...
Province of Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
to the southern Brazilian states of Paraná, Santa Catarina, and Rio Grande do Sul
Rio Grande do Sul (, , ; "Great River of the South") is a Federative units of Brazil, state in the South Region, Brazil, southern region of Brazil. It is the Federative_units_of_Brazil#List, fifth-most-populous state and the List of Brazilian st ...
.
Phonology
Vowels
* Vowel sounds /ɛ, o/ can also be heard as , ɔin free variation.
* /i, u/ when preceding vowels can be heard as non-syllabic ̯, u̯
Consonants
* /β̞/ can also be realized as or in free variation.
* Nasal sounds /m, n, ŋ/ can also be heard as prenasalized stops b, ⁿd, ᵑɡin free variation.
* /ɲ, ŋʷ/ can be heard as ̯~dʒ, ɡʷbefore oral vowels, and as , ŋʷbefore nasal vowels.
References
External links
Mbya Guarani Collection
of Robert Dooley, including interlinear texts with glosses and free translations in Portuguese and English and grammatical labels in English, from the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America
The Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America (AILLA) is a digital repository housed in LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections at the University of Texas at Austin. AILLA is a digital language archive dedicated to the digi ...
.
A Description of the Sound System of Misiones Mbya
(de Paula, 2016).
Guarani languages
Languages of Paraguay
Languages of Argentina
{{tupian-lang-stub
Languages of Brazil