Lyrical Indian Tongue Thrives in Paraguay (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

Lyrical Indian Tongue Thrives in Paraguay
Mon Aug 16, 2004 10:24 AM ET

By Mary Milliken
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=ourWorldNews&storyID=5986825

ASUNCION, Paraguay (Reuters) - A ring in the Guarani language translates
literally as "a companion of the finger," while an airplane is "a bird
with hard wings that flies" and a telephone is "a line that permits one
to speak from afar."

Every phrase evokes the beauty of South America's jungles and plains and
the ways of the indigenous peoples that populated them. Some say it is
a language stuck in time warp, from an era when Guarani women wooed
Spanish colonizers with their sing-song tongue.

But Guarani is alive and kicking, changing and evolving. And that is
because it is the only Indian language in the Americas designated as an
official language.

In 1992, Paraguay reformed its Constitution to make Spanish and Guarani
the two official languages of the landlocked nation of 5.6 million
mostly mixed race people.

Now there is a new champion for the bilingual cause -- President Nicanor
Duarte Frutos, an avid Guarani speaker who is called "tendota" or
supreme chief in Guarani. He used it on the campaign trail in last
year's election to charm voters, appealing to their love of the "teta"
or fatherland.

But this newfound hope for Guarani has also fueled the debate over the
role of an indigenous language in a rapidly modernizing Latin America,
where English and other foreign languages are making inroads with
students anxious to participate in the world.

"Since it was officially recognized, the language has certainly
prospered," said Marta Lafuente, Paraguay's vice minister of education.

"But there has also been resistance. Some say the consolidation of
Guarani means we will end up just talking among ourselves."

The language survived a 35-year dictatorship under Gen. Alfredo
Stroessner, who banned Guarani and reinforced its reputation as the
tongue of country bumpkins. Parents would speak Guarani to each other,
but scolded their children when they tried to do the same.

Today nearly everyone in Paraguay speaks some Guarani, no matter the
social class or education level. It is the dominant language in rural
Paraguay, but its also can be heard on most every street corner in the
capital, Asuncion.

No indigenous language in the Americas can boast such a broad following.
Quechua in Peru or Mayan in Central America and Mexico are rarely
spoken by non-Indians, while languages of the Indian tribes in the
United States are increasingly limited to the elders.

TO LOVE AND TO SCOLD

Duarte Frutos was education minister in 1994 when Paraguay began its
reform to provide bilingual education. Ten years on, educators and
linguists express a certain frustration with the results.

They say the debate has centered too much around vocabulary, like what
to call objects of the modern age. The so-called purists insist on
creating words while the other school is more in favor of "borrowing"
words from Spanish.

Television is a case in point. Almost every language in the world has a
word that is like television, but in Guarani it is "the object that
moves."

"They want to invent Guarani all over again," said linguist and diplomat
Ruben Bareiro Saguier, a pioneer of bilingual Paraguay. "We need a
Guarani that is useful."

Educators also have to overcome a history of discrimination against
Guarani speakers. Many parents in Guarani-speaking homes oppose
schooling for their children in their mother tongue and want only
Spanish, the language they think will take their offspring out of
poverty and illiteracy.

The backers of bilingualism also say Paraguay has yet to put Guarani in
all instances of public service, for example on street signs, court
rooms or documents. Guarani-speakers need to know they can always have
a trial or receive advanced medical care in their first language.

But professionals from the middle and upper classes are increasingly
aware of the need to be fluent in Guarani and even foreigners working
in Paraguay feel compelled to learn.

"Guarani is the soul or spirit of Paraguay. If we don't understand
Guarani, we don't understand Paraguay or its people," said Yoshikazu
Furukawa, consul at the Japanese Embassy in Asuncion.

Indeed, Guarani is the basis of Paraguay's rich oral culture and is best
suited for romance, relationships, family life and community
integration.

"It is a language for loving and for scolding," said Lafuente.

It was love that allowed Guarani to survive after the Spanish
conquistadores came to this isolated and distant heart of South America
without women from home.

Unlike many mestizos in colonial times, the offspring of the Spanish
with the Guarani women earned special rights to hold public office. And
for these love children, it was the mother tongue that mattered.

(Additional reporting by Daniela Desantis)