Paraguay is fighting to preserve Guarani, a language of roots & soul

Loma Grande: When it came time to choose a wedding venue, Margarita Gayoso and her partner Christian Ojeda knew exactly where they wanted to go.

Despite living in Spain, the couple travelled to their long-missed hometown in Paraguay for a ceremony officiated in their ancestors’ language.

“Everyone was crying because everything feels so profound in Guaraní,” Gayoso said. “It’s as if the pronunciation pours out of your soul.”

Guaraní is one of Paraguay’s two official languages alongside Spanish. But linguists warn that fluency among younger generations is slipping, so nationwide preservation efforts are underway.

Many Paraguayans believe that Guaraní carries a deep emotional significance. Yet because the language’s use remains primarily oral, it rarely appears in official documents, government records and literary works.

Even finding a Catholic priest who could preside over Gayoso’s wedding ceremony in Guaraní proved difficult.

Still, it was worth the extra effort. Some guests told her that it was the first local wedding they had attended that was conducted entirely in their mother tongue.

Why Guaraní remains at the heart of Paraguay

Of the country’s 6.9 million people, about 1.6 million reported Guaraní as their main language, according to Paraguay’s official 2024 data. Whereas, 1.5 million use Spanish, and 2.1 million identify as bilingual. Other Indigenous languages account for the rest.

The Guaraní spoken today differs from the version that Europeans first encountered during the Latin American conquests in the 1500s. Still, its survival in a region where most countries shifted to Spanish is remarkable. Why has it managed to remain dominant?

“In the Guaraní culture, language is synonymous with soul,” said Arnaldo Casco, a researcher from Paraguay’s Department of Linguistics.

“The word is what the Lord bestowed on men, so we believe that, for the Guaraní people, losing their language was like losing their soul.”

Reflecting this deep connection to their language, the Guaraní people fiercely resisted learning Spanish. That’s why early European missionaries saw no

other option but to learn Guaraní for evangelization purposes.

A language preserved yet punished

Jesuit and Franciscan priests produced Guaraní’s first written records in

Paraguay.