Mbyá Guaraní language

Mbya
Mbya
ayvu, nhandeayvu
Native to	Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay
Ethnicity	Guarani
Native speakers	15,050 (2007–2008)
Language family	Tupian Tupi–Guarani Guarani (I) Guarani Mbya; ; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	gun
Glottolog	mbya1239
ELP	Mbyá

Mbya Guarani is a Tupi–Guarani Indigenous language of the southern cone. It is 75% lexically similar to Paraguayan Guarani.^[1]

Mbya Guarani is one of a number of "Guarani dialects" now generally classified as distinct languages. Mbya is closely connected to Ava Guarani, also known as Ñandeva, and intermarriage between speakers of the two languages is common. Speakers of Mbya and Ñandeva generally live in mountainous areas of the Atlantic Forest, from eastern Paraguay through Misiones Province of Argentina, Uruguay to the southern Brazilian states of Paraná, Santa Catarina, and Rio Grande do Sul.^[2]

Phonology

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i ĩ	ɨ ɨ̃	u ũ
Mid	ɛ ɛ̃		o õ
Open	a ã

Vowel sounds /ɛ, o/ can also be heard as [e, ɔ] in free variation.
/i, u/ when preceding vowels can be heard as non-syllabic [i̯, u̯]

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar		Glottal
		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	plain	lab.	Glottal
Plosive	voiceless	p	t	tʃ	k	kʷ	ʔ
Plosive	prenasal/vd.	m ~ ᵐb	n ~ ⁿd	ɲ ~ dʒ	ŋ ~ ᵑɡ	ŋʷ ~ ɡʷ
Nasal		m ~ ᵐb	n ~ ⁿd	ɲ ~ dʒ	ŋ ~ ᵑɡ	ŋʷ ~ ɡʷ
Fricative		β̞ ~ v					h
Approximant		β̞ ~ v		(i̯)	(u̯)
Tap			ɾ

/β̞/ can also be realized as [v] or [u̯] in free variation.
Nasal sounds /m, n, ŋ/ can also be heard as prenasalized stops [ᵐb, ⁿd, ᵑɡ] in free variation.
/ɲ, ŋʷ/ can be heard as [i̯~dʒ, ɡʷ] before oral vowels, and as [ɲ, ŋʷ] before nasal vowels.^[3]

References

^ ^a ^b Mbya at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
^ Ladeira, Maria Inês (2018-03-26). "Guarani Mbya". Povos Indígenas no Brasil. Instituto Socioambiental. Retrieved 2019-02-01.
^ Fileti Martins, Marci (2003). Descrição e Análise de Aspectos da Gramática do Guarani Mbyá. Universidade Estadual de Campinas.

External links

Mbya Guarani Collection of Robert Dooley, including interlinear texts with glosses and free translations in Portuguese and English and grammatical labels in English, from the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America.
A Description of the Sound System of Misiones Mbya (de Paula, 2016).

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[e18-1] Mbya at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)

[ISA-2] Ladeira, Maria Inês (2018-03-26). "Guarani Mbya". Povos Indígenas no Brasil. Instituto Socioambiental. Retrieved 2019-02-01.

[3] Fileti Martins, Marci (2003). Descrição e Análise de Aspectos da Gramática do Guarani Mbyá. Universidade Estadual de Campinas.

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