Guarani language

Guarani (avañe'ẽ) is a Tupian language belonging to the Tupi–Guarani branch of South America. It is one of the two official languages of Paraguay (along with Spanish), where it is spoken by the majority of the population, and where half of the rural population are monolingual speakers of the language. Guarani is one of the most widely spoken Native American languages and remains commonly used among the Paraguayan people and neighboring communities. This is unique among American languages; language shift towards European colonial languages (in this case, the other official language of Spanish) has otherwise been a nearly universal phenomenon in the Western Hemisphere, but Paraguayans have maintained their traditional language while also adopting Spanish. In South America, the indigenous language that is most widely spoken amongst non-indigenous communities is Guaraní. South America is home to more than 280,000 Guaraní people, 51,000 of whom reside in Brazil. The Guaraní people inhabit regions in Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia, as well as Argentina. There are more than four million speakers of Guaraní across these regions. The name "Guarani" is generally used for the official language of Paraguay. However, this is part of a dialect chain, most of whose components are also often called Guarani.