Academia de la Lengua y Cultura Guaraní

Academia de la Lengua y Cultura Guaraní, Paraguay's leading institution dedicated to the study and promotion of the national Indian language, Guaraní. Founded in 1949 by ethno-botanist Guillermo Tell Bertoni, the Academia draws its inspiration from an earlier institution, the Sociedad de Cultura Guaraní (founded in 1920). The goals of the current institution include organizing classes in Guaraní, supporting literary efforts in that language, hosting regular sessions of the international Congreso de la Lengua Tupí-Guaraní, and helping to formulate government policy toward language use, especially insofar as education and the standardization of orthography are concerned.

Academia members have included such poets, playwrights, artists, and linguists as Marcos Morínigo, Branislava Susnik, Pablo Alborno, and Graz-ziella Corvalán. Though their work tends to be read only by specialists at present, the growing popular acceptance of the value of the Guaraní tongue can be little doubted. This is seen, for example, in the number of television programs and theater presentations in Guaraní. The Paraguayan government has also responded to these developments, albeit in a haphazard fashion, by publishing some of its official documents in Guaraní in addition to Spanish. The philosophy faculty of the National University of Asunción offers a degree in Guaraní, and it is now a required subject in the nation's secondary schools. In the twenty-first century, over 90 percent of the population could speak Guaraní. Also, people frequently use a mixture of Spanish and Guaraní, called Jopara.

See alsoGuarani Indians .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Charles J. Kolinski, Historical Dictionary of Paraguay (1973), p. 2.

Tadeo Zarratea and Feliciano Acosta, Avañe'e (1981).

Additional Bibliography

Gómez, Gérard. El plurilingüismo paraguayo, un fenómeno que enlaza y separa: Evolución de la lengua guaraní y proceso de jerarquización lingüística. Asunción: Servilibro, 2006.

Horst, René Harder. The Stroessner Regime and Indigenous Resistance in Paraguay. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2007.

Meliá, Bartomeu. La Lengua guaraní del Paraguay: Historia, sociedad y literatura. Madrid: Editorial MAPFRE, 1992.

                                Marta FernÁndez Whigham