Paraguayan Spanish

The unique features of Paraguayan Spanish developed in part due to Paraguay's early isolation; for example, José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, the country's president until 1840, sealed Paraguay's borders. Other experiences with geographic, political, and economic isolation relative to its neighbours allowed Spanish spoken in Paraguay to develop its own unique characteristics, even apart from the wide-ranging influence of Guarani.[3]

Paraguay is, depending on the context, considered part of a region of South America known as the Southern Cone (Spanish: Cono Sur; Portuguese: Cone Sul). In its truest definition, the region consists of Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay, but can be expanded to include Paraguay and some regions of Brazil (Paraná, Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, and São Paulo). Excluding Brazil (where Portuguese is spoken), all the countries in that region have many similarities in vocabulary. Paraguayan Spanish shares many similarities with River Plate Spanish (that is, the variety spoken in Argentina and Uruguay) such as the use of the voseo and various words and phrases.

• Like all American dialects of Spanish, Paraguayan Spanish has seseo, so that it lacks the distinction between /θ/ and /s/ that is present in Standard European Spanish.
• Syllable-final /r/ is pronounced as [ɹ] (as in American English red) before /l/ or /s/, influenced by a substrate from Native American languages; perla ('pearl') and verso ("verse") are pronounced [ˈpeɹla] and [ˈbeɹso].
• Absence of yeísmo, the historical merger of the phoneme /ʎ/ (spelled <ll>) with /ʝ/ (spelled <y>). For speakers with yeísmo, the verbs cayó 's/he fell' and calló 's/he fell silent' are homophones, both pronounced [kaˈʝo]. (In dialects that lack yeísmo, maintaining the historical distinction, the two words are pronounced respectively [kaˈʝo] and [kaˈʎo].) Yeísmo characterizes the speech of most Spanish-speakers both in Spain and in the Americas.

The pink areas are where Castilian Spanish speakers conserve the phoneme /ʎ/ <ll>

• Absence of yeísmo, the pronunciation of the digraph <ll> as a palatal lateral consonant [ʎ] is different from that of the <y> that is articulated most of the time as an affricate consonant [dʒ].
• Voseo: pronominal and verbal, identical to River Plate Spanish.
• Leísmo: when one uses le in the context of a direct object pronoun instead of the personal pronouns lo and la.
• Contains less pauses and less "musical" intonation than River Plate Spanish.
• Lexicon borrowed from Guarani, Lunfardo, and other European languages.

In dark blue, the countries replace the "tú" with the "vos." The lighter blues indicate the use of tuteo with voseo, while the grey are only tuteo.

First of all, the heterogeneity of the following characteristics are not always applicable to all Paraguayan Spanish speakers, specifically the pronunciation of the letters "r" and "s," which differ according to the social environment.

• The grouping "tr" is pronounced as a voiceless postalveolar affricate [tɹ̥̝], similar to the sound of the digraph /ch/.
• Assibilation of the "r".
• Wide diffusion of the labiodental [v] for the phoneme /b/.
• Word-final /n/ has alveolar articulation, not velar.
• Non-aspirated realization of /x/.
• Hiatus conservation.
• Stable vowel system.
• Weak articulation of /b/, /d/, and /g/ in intervocalic position (and even initial position).
• In some variations of Paraguayan Spanish the "rr" is not pronounced as an alveolar trill, as done by many of the Spanish-speaking regions, but as a [ɹ̝] similar to the English R or how the Sicilian R is done in Italy.
• Use of the alveolar approximant [ɹ] for the pre-consonantal and final "r," similar to the pronunciation in American or Dutch English. Example: firmar [fiɹ.maɹ]

Typical Paraguayan Spanish has a strong influence of the sentences of Guarani in its translation to Spanish, as well as the words and borrowed particles of Guarani for colloquial expressions. These are some common cases:

• Guarani particles among Castilian words to emphasize expressions. Examples:
  • -na ("por favor"). E.g.: Vamos na = Vamos por favor
  • -pa, -pió, -piko, -ta (interrogative particle without translation). E.g.: ¿Para qué pa?, ¿Para qué pió? = ¿Para qué?
  • -ko, -nio, -ngo (particle to emphasize something). E.g.: Ese ko es de ella.
• Words taken from Guarani for use in everyday Spanish. Examples:
  • -gua'u (falsehood). E.g.: De gua'u nomás era = Era solo una mentira.
  • ¡Mbore! (exclamation, rejecting something). Synonymous with: ¡Ni loco!
  • ¡Kore!, ¡Nderakore! (exclamation, colloquially used for something terrible). Synonymous with: ¡Oh No!
• Sentences taken from Guarani translated partially or erroneously translated for use in everyday Spanish. Examples:
  • "Se fue en Itauguá" (from the Guarani "oho Itauguápe", since the 'pe' is used interchangeably as 'a' or 'en')
  • "Voy a venir" (literally from the Guarani "aháta aju", used as a synonym of "voy y vuelvo")
  • "Vení un poco" (calque of the word "ejúmina" in Guarani)
  • "Demasiado mucho calor hace" (calque of the word "hetaiterei" in Guarani)
  • "Te dije luego" (from the Guarani "ha'e voi ningo ndéve", in which the "luego" emphasizes the previous action)
  • "Me voy a ir ahora después" (calque of the Guarani sentence "aháta aga upéi", in which the "ahora" emphasizes when the action will take place)
  • "Habló por mi" (literally from the Guarani "oñe'ẽ cherehe", used as a synonym of "habló de mi")
• Paraguayisms, words and sentences in Spanish, but influenced by Guarani. Examples:
  • "Me hallo" ("hallar" is used as a synonym for "alegrar" instead of indicating the location situation)
  • "Anda por su cabeza" (influenced by the Guarani "oiko iñakãre", which would be "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 taking pictures)

Areas of Spanish proficiency that present post-vocalic aspiration.

Due to the geographical and cultural proximity, both dialects are often confused. This is due to the fact that on the border between Argentina and Paraguay, the respective dialects fuse, creating a northeastern Argentine variety very similar to Paraguayan Spanish in the provinces already mentioned.[9] Examples:

• Common use of the expression «che».
• Sporadic aspiration of /s/ in colloquial speech.
• Educated voseo and similar in conjugation.
• Shares part of the River Plate lexicon (e.g., some words in Lunfardo).

Voseo is a peculiar characteristic of Paraguayan Spanish which is heavily influenced by the River Plate dialect (since historically in Paraguay Guarani was always spoken, and Spanish was relegated to the inhabitants of the capital or the most favored classes in the interior of the country). Another characteristic of voseo is how long it has been around for. "Voseo is the oldest form of Castilian Spanish".[10] After the second half of the 20th century, the teaching of voseo depended on whether the teacher used vos or not. Adding to the strong Argentinian influence, either by the media or by the geographical and cultural proximity, voseo stayed as a distinctive characteristic of Paraguayan. Although it is rarely taught in schools today, voseo is beginning to regain some popularity in the form of an accepted regional dialect.[10]