Tupi-Guarani
/ˌtuːpiː ˌɡwɑːrəˈniː/noun
A major Indigenous language family of South America, also referring in some contexts to its associated peoples and cultures.
Did you know?Guarani, one of the family’s best-known languages, remains an official language of Paraguay alongside Spanish, making it one of the most widely spoken Indigenous languages in the Americas.
Etymological Timeline
Prehistory
Proto-Tupian
*Tupian forms
“Reconstructed ancestral language stage from which the Tupian language family developed; individual root meanings remain uncertain.”
Before European contact
Tupi-Guarani
Tupí-Guaraní languages
“A major branch of the Tupian family spoken across large regions of eastern and central South America.”
16th Century
Portuguese
língua geral / língua brasílica
“Colonial names for widely used contact languages based chiefly on coastal Tupi varieties in Brazil.”
16th–17th Century
Guarani
avañe’ẽ
“Guarani expression meaning “the people’s language,” from ava, “person or people,” and ñe’ẽ, “language or speech.””
19th Century
Comparative linguistics
Tupi-Guarani
“A scholarly label established for the relationship between Tupi and Guarani languages and their broader linguistic subgroup.”
Modern English
English
Tupi-Guarani
“A standard name for the language family or subgroup, especially in anthropology, linguistics, and Indigenous-history writing.”