Guarani alphabet facts for kids

The Guarani alphabet (called achegety) is the special set of letters used to write the Guarani language. This language is spoken by many people, especially in Paraguay and some nearby countries. The alphabet has 33 letters in total.

Letters of the Guarani Alphabet

The Guarani alphabet has both capital letters (also called uppercase) and small letters (also called lowercase). Here are all the letters:

How to Say the Letters

Each letter also has a name. Here are their names:

• a
• ã
• che
• e
• ẽ
• ge
• g̃e
• he
• i
• ĩ
• je
• ke
• le
• me
• mbe
• ne
• nde
• nge
• nte
• ñe
• o
• õ
• pe
• re
• rre
• se
• te
• u
• ũ
• ve
• y
• ỹ
• puso

Understanding the Letters

The Guarani alphabet has six letters that are vowels: A, E, I, O, U, and Y. They sound similar to Spanish vowels. The letter Y sounds like the "i" in "bird" or "sir".

Nasal Sounds and the Puso

Some vowels have a special mark called a tilde (like a little wavy line, for example, Ã, Ẽ, Ĩ, Õ, Ũ, Ỹ). This means the vowel has a nasal sound, like when you say "hmm" and the sound comes through your nose.

The apostrophe (⟨ʼ⟩) is a letter called "puso". This word means "sound cut off". It makes a sound like the break in the middle of "uh-oh!".

Consonants and Special Letters

All the other letters in the Guarani alphabet are consonants. Most of them sound like their Spanish versions.

• The letters B, C, and D are only used as part of two-letter combinations (like "Mb").
• The letters F, Q, W, X, and Z are not used at all in Guarani words.
• The letter L and the two-letter combination "rr" are mostly found in words that came from Spanish.

How Some Sounds Are Different

Even though some letters look familiar, their sounds can be a bit different:

• The "ch" sound in Guarani is not like the "ch" in "cheese". It's more like the "sh" sound in "ship".
• The letter "G" in Guarani is a soft sound, like the "g" in the Spanish word "haga". It's not a hard "g" like in "gate".
• The letter "V" sounds like the "v" in "Victor" in English.
• The letters "H" and "J" sound like their English versions, as in "hand" and "jelly".

Stress Marks

Sometimes, you'll see a mark called an acute accent (´) over a vowel, like in áva (meaning "hair"). This mark tells you which part of the word to say with more emphasis or stress. If there's no accent mark, the stress usually falls on a nasal vowel, or on the last part of the word if there are no nasal vowels. For example, in tata (meaning "fire"), the stress is on the last "ta".

History of the Guarani Alphabet

Before the Spanish arrived in the Americas, the Guaraní did not have a written language. They passed down their stories and knowledge by speaking.

Early Writing

The first time Guarani was written down was by Jesuit missionaries. They used the Latin script (the same alphabet English uses). A priest named Antonio Ruíz de Montoya was very important. He wrote a Guarani-Spanish dictionary in 1639 and a grammar book in 1722. These books helped people learn and understand the Guarani language.

The way Guarani was spelled in these early books was not always the same. It was also quite different from how it's written today.

Making it Standard

In 1867, the president of Paraguay, Francisco Solano López, tried to set rules for writing Guarani, but it didn't work out.

The alphabet and spelling were finally made standard in 1950. This happened at the Guarani Language Congress in Montevideo, thanks to Reinaldo Decoud Larrosa. The new rules were influenced by how linguists write down sounds (the International Phonetic Alphabet). Today, this standard way of writing Guarani is used everywhere in Paraguay.

The Name Achegety

The Guarani name for the alphabet, achegety, is a newer word. It comes from the names of the first three letters – a-che-ge – and the word ty, which means "group" or "collection". So, achegety means "a group of letters".

Place Names and Personal Names

Many place names (like cities or rivers) and some personal names in countries like Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Brazil come from Guarani. These names are usually written using Spanish or Portuguese spelling rules. Over many years, their pronunciation has changed a lot, so modern Guarani speakers might not understand them easily.

See also

In Spanish: Alfabeto guaraní para niños

• Guarani Braille