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Glite Dictionary
Tupi-Guarani

Tupi-Guarani

9.9
A group of related native languages spoken in South America, especially Brazil and Paraguay
  • noun
: tupí-guaraní
  • The Tupi-Guarani languages are spoken by many indigenous communities across Brazil.

Examples

  • In Paraguay, the Tupi-Guarani language is one of the official languages alongside Spanish.

  • Linguists study the Tupi-Guarani family to understand the cultural history of South America.

  • These structures are not associated with Arawak villages, but those that date closer to 1200, when the Guarita, a group speaking a language known as Tupi-Guarani, moved into the Amazon and wiped out the Arawak culture in this region.

    Academic text (2010)

Synonyms

Tupi-Guarani language
vsTupi-Guarani
9.9

A family of related native languages that people speak in South America, especially Brazil

emphasises Brazil and Paraguay rather than general nearby regions

Surface Forms

Tupi-Guarani singular
Tupi-Guaranis plural

Morphology

Tupi-Guarani = Tupi + Guarani (transparent) = Tupi + Guarani

The compound clearly names the language group formed from the two ethnonyms; knowing the component names lets a learner infer it denotes the related languages.

Etymology

Tupi-Guarani is named after two native peoples, Tupi and Guarani, and so it points to the languages those related peoples spoke. So, Tupi-Guarani means the group of closely related languages found in Brazil and Paraguay.