It’s no secret to anyone who’s been reading these pages that Paraguay – this landlocked, California-sized country, wedged in the center of South America between its three far more famous neighbors – is a unique place. By some standards maybe one of the most unique on the continent. One of the biggest contributors to earning this distinction is its language.

So far as I know, of the twelve countries and one territory on the continent, only Paraguay claims two official languages*. And Spanish would rarely be listed first anywhere the two might be posted. Indigenous languages exist and are still used in places up and down the Andes Cordillera from southern Chile up through southern Colombia. But only in Paraguay is a language as this both elevated to “official” status and nearly ubiquitous. As a people, the Guarani once spanned the areas of four countries on the south eastern side of the continent – and with them, their language. Only here it remains. That in itself is remarkable enough. That it not only survives, but thrives, is beyond that.

I am no linguist. Most days I can barely command hold of the language I’ve been taught since infancy. That said, my observations of any other languages should be taken as just that, observations. For all I know maybe the things I notice are the same across the board or even some studied series of phenomena. For me, they’re just what I notice.

All the time when talking with someone in Guarani for the first time, stumbling through the conversation, grasping, downright clawing, for words let alone a complete thought, the other side inevitably reminds me that Guarani is difficult. “It’s hard,” they tell me. I oblige and respond back, yeah, “it’s hard” – because for me it is. And because I’m pretty damn good at saying that phrase in a variety of ways. Sometimes I just use it for filler. “Man, Guarani is hard.” You’d almost think I believed it.

Truth is, I don’t think it is. When I think of all the languages out there one could learn and just how tough they’d be, Guarani I bet would be one of the simpler ones. For a number of reasons. Its simplicity being one. So many words, particularly descriptive ones, exist in just two forms, or you could even say one form and its negative: this and not this. Add to that the fondness of suffixes and prefixes and assembling a thought becomes just that – a mechanical process of swapping in and out the right combinations on either the front or the back of what can be broken down to a very basic word**. But then it goes even farther and those word themselves are often combined – in a way that seems almost German to me, to complete other words based on the ideas of those originals – like one of my favorites, the word for dictionary, which is simply the compound word for “word container”.

But by far, the single thing that makes the Guarani language “not hard” is the amount it openly allows itself to be contaminated by Spanish. Pure Guarani, anyone will admit, is rarely spoken anymore by anyone – save maybe family elders in far-flung rural areas. Jopara, a mix of traditional Guarani and Spanish is the spoken word of the Republic. It makes sense that there would be no Guarani word for “computer”, but that the word for “to think” would merely be a bastardization of its Spanish counterpart is a little more intriguing.

This ability to assimilate is not unique to the language of Paraguay. Early on in it “colonization”, its very remoteness from just about everything, lead to a unique development among it neighbors. The colonizers or conquistadors or Spaniards or whatever you want to call them, while in many other areas remained a class apart from the local population – in such a way that it’s still visible today*** – Paraguay, very earlier on, gave up on maintaining that separation. The classes, the very genes of new arrivals and the indigenous population, were quickly mixed leading to a large mestizo population long before that was the case on the rest of the continent (and even still today before many parts of it). Paraguay’s original culture quickly became reduced to the few things it has today – which it holds on to fiercely. Including its language.

This Charlton Heston-esque grip it maintains on the tradition of its language is one of the reasons for its recent reintroduction as part of the national school curriculum. Written and spoken Guarani now occupy time in the curriculum alongside all the rest of the subjects already crammed into a four-hour school day. And so begins the debate. Maybe it’s just my debate or mine and Asunceños who speak Spanish with English as their second language, or just of foreigners and Peace Corps volunteers and the like, who have the luxury of being able to debate such things, but nonetheless it’s a topic worth discussing. If for nothing more then its interestingness as an example of a shrinking world.

My initial thoughts on this are, well – complicated. For all intents and purposes, I am a development worker. Which would make it easy to see things in a light that shows a path towards development as a good thing. And obstacles towards that should, when possible, be minimized. That however is a very narrow view of both development and the world. By such logic something like the Guarani language – utilized nowhere outside this very small nation – is a hinderance to development (and maybe it is). Especially when the teaching of it is taking up valuable time in an already overcrowded learning arena. Guarani is, and no doubt with or without a presence in the classroom, will continue to be spoken in the home. Why is that not enough of a forum for its survival?

As it’s been explained to me, the logic behind teaching the language formally in schools is simply that this is a country of Paraguayans. The language of the – we’ll call him, the “outsider” (even though today, and for a very long time now, he is one of those very Paraguayans) – is not the language of the people – although a great many of them speak his language and the opportunities that exist for commerce are greater in its use. But utilizing the outsider’s language as the primary word of commerce, disadvantages even further a population, many of whom are already severely disadvantaged. Teaching Guarani in schools elevates the culture or the idea of Paraguay in general and with it, it elevates the Paraguayan – the everyday man – to a level on which he can participate. He should not be excluded from participation as a result of speaking the language of his land.

Writing these down I see the sentiments behind both of these stances. The Chinese though, are continually in the back of my mind. Regardless of all the arguments and opinions that surround them, the Chinese have made a choice to participate, in a major way, in the interactions of the world. And they’ve cut culture to do it. Chinese calligraphy is a visible definition of a part of the culture of that country. But for all its beauty, it doesn’t fit on a keyboard. Mandarin Chinese, along with other east asian languages have been simplified to work in an electronic world. This simpler script will soon become the norm for the youth – if it hasn’t already.

Does that make them less Chinese? Perhaps to their grandparents.

When asking the same about Paraguayans and them using Spanish over Guarani, unfortunately the answer is yes. It does. Guarani is the cornerstone of Paraguayan culture. Take that away and what remains of what hasn’t already been taken away, is incredibly thin. But at the same time if the idea is that an aspect of culture is worth keeping – worth maintaining – then institutionalizing surely diminishes its value as something unique.

So where does that leave us? Questioning at what point should culture be let go in favor of progress? (Put that way, now that does sound like a sinister proposition). Perhaps it leaves us in world where culture becomes a luxury. Or at least a choice of some sort. Can a person or a country advance (or develop or whatever you wish to call it) while still maintaining his or her idiosyncrasies or the things that set it apart from the rest of its neighbors. Sure. But is it the quickest route along the path? I think we all know the answer that but are trying to hold on to something more… well, I’ll let you pick the word for it.

Hasta luego/until next time/jajatopata,

kb

Notes:
* Bolivia – depending on where you look – claims multiple.

** Suddenly I realize that I’m describing the way language pretty much works in general, but bear with me.

*** Bolivia for example just elected its first President of indigenous origin and many of the issues the country faces today could be seen as a reflection of the dichotomies of its two distinct populations.