In Paraguay, Guarani is not a minority language. Most Paraguayans speak it, whatever their background, and it is an official language alongside Spanish. Nowhere else in the Americas has an Indigenous language held on like this. Yet many of the same people learned to read and write in Spanish, and that one fact decides how a church should use Guarani.
Guarani is a language your guests read. That one fact shapes everything below.
No. A speaker cannot preach in Guarani and have the room follow. The talk comes from the stage in one of the spoken languages, and Guarani is one of the languages it arrives in.
No. Guarani is a text language here. Your guest follows the talk on their phone screen rather than in an earbud, while the room carries on in its own language.
Yes. The whole talk in Guarani, on a phone or on the big screen, with the nasal vowels and the glottal stop written properly.
Several pages in this section show real sentences from our own system. We publish sample lines only after a native speaker has read them, and for Guarani that has not happened yet. If you read Guarani, we would welcome your help.
Everyday speech in Paraguay often moves between Guarani and Spanish within the same sentence. People call this mix jopara, and for many families it is simply how home sounds.
Written Guarani, the Guarani of books, radio news and school, tends to be purer, with a Guarani word where daily speech would borrow a Spanish one. Our captions use that written standard. Some guests will find it beautiful and a little formal. A few will meet words they would never use at home.
That is not a reason to avoid it. It is a reason to tell your guest what they are choosing, and to keep Spanish on the list right next to it.
Generations of Paraguayans spoke Guarani at home and were taught to read only in Spanish. Bilingual schooling has changed that for younger people, but plenty of adults speak Guarani with ease and read it slowly.
Captions are reading. A guest who chooses Guarani may be choosing with the heart, and might follow the detail of a long sermon more easily in Spanish. Some do both: Spanish for the argument, Guarani to feel at home.
Guarani has a written history that goes back to the colonial missions, and a spoken history that never stopped.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Jesuit missions among the Guarani wrote grammars, dictionaries and catechisms, and printed books in Guarani. For a time it was one of the best documented languages of the Americas.
Through long periods when Spanish was the language of power and school, Guarani survived where it mattered most: at home, among neighbours, in jokes and in songs. It never had to be revived.
Paraguay's 1992 constitution made Guarani an official language alongside Spanish, and it is now taught in schools across the country.
Guarani belongs to the Tupi-Guarani family of languages, spread across much of South America. It builds meaning by adding pieces to a word, so one Guarani word often needs several in Spanish or English.
Nasal sounds spread through a Guarani word, and the spelling marks them with a tilde, not only on ñ but on vowels too, and on the letter g̃. A glottal stop has its own letter, the puso, written like an apostrophe. These marks are part of the language: leave them out and the words change.
Guarani has given more to other languages than most people realise.
The word jaguar comes from the Tupi-Guarani languages. So, by most accounts, do toucan, piranha and tapioca.
Guarani speakers call their language Avañe'ẽ, usually explained as the language of the people.
Paraguay's currency is called the guaraní, after the people and their language.
Not with MulingStream. Guarani is a language guests read here, so the talk needs to come from the stage in one of the spoken languages, such as Spanish. Guarani captions then follow every sentence.
Both, if your pass has room for two languages. Many Paraguayans speak Guarani at home and read Spanish more easily. Offering both lets each person choose, and change their mind halfway through.
Not in Guarani, which is a text language here. A guest who would rather listen can choose Spanish, which has a voice.
Yes. We use Paraguayan Guarani, the variety spoken by most Guarani speakers and used in Paraguayan schools and media. Other Guarani languages, spoken by Indigenous communities in Paraguay, Bolivia, Argentina and Brazil, are related but distinct.
The languages a Paraguayan guest may also choose, and the other pages in this section.
Or open the full list of 200+ and check the three columns for the languages your room actually needs.
Nothing to install, no card, and your guests need nothing but the phone already in their pocket.