Paraguay
The Languages spoken in Paraguay
The majority of the population is bilingual, able to speak Spanish and Guarani as well as Jopara. Spanish is a European language while Guarani is a Native American language spoken primarily in Paraguay and also in some parts of Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia. Five million of the population mostly mestizos can speak and understand this indigenous language. As a diglossic nation, it has two official languages. The constitution including government issued school textbooks are bilingual, half in Spanish and the other half Guarani. In the cities and urban areas where the population is more educated and European descended, they favor speaking mostly in Spanish with additional short phrases of Guarani added. In the rural areas where many of the population are less educated, they favor speaking the indigenous language with a lot of Spanish words mixed in. This language mixture is called the Jopara. There are several varieties of the native language like Chiripa a closely related language and has an estimated 7,000 speakers. Another is the Mbya which is 75% similar in lexicon and has an estimated 8000 speakers. In the Chaco region there are more than 300 persons speaking a local language known as Nandeva, however outside Paraguay Nandeva is known as Chiripa.
Beside the two official languages, there are also an estimated 10,000 Mennonites German speakers living in the Chaco area. There are also several ethnic groups who have settled in the country and have retained their language to some extent. These minority groups include the Arabs, Argentineans, Brazilians, Chinese, Germans, Italians, Japanese, Koreans, Russians and Ukrainians.
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