This article needs additional citations for verification .(September 2023) |
Regions with significant populations | |
---|---|
Paraguay 6,109,644 (2022 census) [1] | |
Argentina | 690,948 [2] |
Spain | 64,547 [2] |
Brazil | 52,770 [2] |
United States | 34,307 [2] |
Canada | 8,000 [3] |
Japan | 2,215 [4] |
Languages | |
Paraguayan Spanish, Guarani, other indigenous languages, Portuguese German [5] | |
Religion | |
Predominantly Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, indigenous religions [6] |
Paraguayans (Spanish : paraguayos) are the citizens of Paraguay.
Though the majority of Paraguayans reside in Paraguay, significant communities have been established in multiple countries, most noticeably Argentina, Spain, United States, Brazil.
The first inhabitants of Paraguay were the Guarani people. [7]
As in other Latin American countries, in Paraguay, from the onset of Spanish colonization and settlement, miscegenation or mestizaje was the norm rather than the exception. Paraguay has one of the most homogeneous populations in South America. About 75% of the people are mestizo (mixed Spanish and Guaraní Native American descent), 20% are Whites, and the rest are small minorities of Indigenous or Afro Paraguayan origin. [8]
While only a 1.7% of Paraguay's population is fully indigenous according to the 2012 national census, 75% of the population identifies as being partially of indigenous descent; [10] however, the majority do not identify as being indigenous but as Mestizos.
Paraguay is predominantly a bilingual country, as the majority of the population uses Spanish and Guaraní. The Constitution of Paraguay of 1992 established Spanish and Guaraní as official languages. [11] Spanish, an Indo-European language of the Romance branch, is understood by about 90% of the population as a first or second language. Guaraní, an indigenous language of the Tupian family, is understood by 77%, and its use is regulated by the Academy of the Guaraní Language. [12] [13]
According to Instituto Cervantes' 2020 report "El Español: Una lengua viva", 68.2% of the Paraguayan population (4,946,322 inhabitants) has decent mastery of the Spanish language. The remaining 31.8% (2,306,350 inhabitants) belongs to the Group of Limited Competence, having minimal mastery of the language; the majority of them are Guaraní speakers and speak Spanish as a second language. [14] Only 7.93% are monolingual in Guaraní. [15]
# | Department | Population (2022 census) [16] |
---|---|---|
1 | Central | 1 866 562 |
2 | Alto Paraná | 784 839 |
3 | Asunción | 477 346 |
4 | Itapúa | 436 966 |
5 | Caaguazú | 430 142 |
6 | San Pedro | 341 895 |
7 | Cordillera | 271 475 |
8 | Concepción | 204 536 |
9 | Paraguarí | 199 430 |
10 | Canindeyú | 189 128 |
11 | Guairá | 180 121 |
12 | Amambay | 173 770 |
13 | Caazapá | 140 060 |
14 | Presidente Hayes | 126 880 |
15 | Misiones | 114 542 |
16 | Ñeembucú | 85 749 |
17 | Boquerón | 68 595 |
18 | Alto Paraguay | 17 608 |
Total | 6 109 644 |
Paraguay, officially the Republic of Paraguay, is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. It has a population of around 6.1 million, nearly 2.3 million of whom live in the capital and largest city of Asunción, and its surrounding metro area.
Paraguay's population is distributed unevenly through the country. The vast majority of the people live in the eastern region, most within 160 kilometres (99 mi) of Asunción, the capital and largest city, which borders on Argentina to the south and west. The Gran Chaco in the north-west, which accounts for about 60% of Paraguayan territory, is home to less than 2% of the population. The Paraguay government encouraged massive settlement of the vast Gran Chaco.
Spanish or Castilian (castellano) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin spoken on the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. Today, it is a global language with about 500 million native speakers, mainly in the Americas and Spain, and about 600 million speakers including second language speakers. Spanish is the official language of 20 countries, as well as one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Spanish is the world's second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese; the world's fourth-most spoken language overall after English, Mandarin Chinese, and Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu); and the world's most widely spoken Romance language. The country with the largest population of native speakers is Mexico.
Chile's 2017 census reported a population of 17,574,003 people. Its rate of population growth has been decreasing since 1990, due to a declining birth rate. By 2050 the population is expected to reach approximately 20.2 million people, at which point it is projected to either stagnate or begin declining. About 85% of the country's population lives in urban areas, with 40% living in Greater Santiago alone. The largest agglomerations according to the 2002 census are Greater Santiago with 5.6 million people, Greater Concepción with 861,000 and Greater Valparaíso with 824,000.
The Guarani are a group of culturally-related indigenous peoples of South America. They are distinguished from the related Tupi by their use of the Guarani language. The traditional range of the Guarani people is in what is now Paraguay between the Paraná River and lower Paraguay River, the Misiones Province of Argentina, southern Brazil once as far east as Rio de Janeiro, and parts of Uruguay and Bolivia.
Mestizo is a person of mixed European and non-European ancestry in the former Spanish Empire. In certain regions such as Latin America, it may also refer to people who are culturally European even though their ancestors were Indigenous American. The term was used as an ethno-racial exonym for mixed-race castas that evolved during the Spanish Empire. It was a formal label for individuals in official documents, such as censuses, parish registers, Inquisition trials, and others. Priests and royal officials might have classified persons as mestizos, but individuals also used the term in self-identification. With the Bourbon reforms and the independence of the Americas, the caste system disappeared and terms like "mestizo" fell in popularity.
Hispanophone refers to anything related to the Spanish language.
Latin Americans are the citizens of Latin American countries.
Instituto Cervantes is a worldwide nonprofit organization created by the Spanish government in 1991. It is named after Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616), the author of Don Quixote and perhaps the most important figure in the history of Spanish literature. The Cervantes Institute is the largest organization in the world responsible for promoting the study and the teaching of Spanish language and culture.
The languages of Bolivia include Spanish; several dozen indigenous languages, most prominently Aymara, Quechua, Chiquitano, and Guaraní; Bolivian Sign Language. Indigenous languages and Spanish are official languages of the state according to the 2009 Constitution. The constitution says that all indigenous languages are official, listing 36 specific languages, of which some are extinct. Spanish and Quechua are spoken primarily in the Andes region, Aymara is mainly spoken in the Altiplano around Lake Titicaca, Chiquitano is spoken in the central part of Santa Cruz department, and Guarani is spoken in the southeast on the border with Paraguay and Argentina.
Spanish is the language that is predominantly understood and spoken as a first or second language by nearly all of the population of Argentina. According to the latest estimations, the population is currently greater than 45 million.
Chileans are an ethnic group and nation native to the country of Chile and its neighboring insular territories. Most Chileans share a common culture, history, ancestry and language. The overwhelming majority of Chileans are the product of varying degrees of admixture between White ethnic groups with peoples indigenous to Chile's modern territory. Chile is a multilingual and multicultural society, but an overwhelming majority of Chileans have Spanish as their first language and either are Christians or have a Christian cultural background.
Antonio del Rincón was a Jesuit priest and grammarian, who wrote one of the earliest grammars of the Nahuatl language.
Paraguayan Spanish is the set of dialects of the Spanish language spoken in Paraguay. In addition, it influences the speech of the Argentine provinces of Misiones, Corrientes, Formosa, and, to a lesser extent, Chaco. Paraguayan Spanish possesses marked characteristics of the Spanish previously spoken in northern Spain, because a majority of the first Spanish settlers were from Old Castile and the Basque Country. In addition, there is great influence, in both vocabulary and grammar, from the Guarani language. Guarani is co-official with Spanish in Paraguay, and most Paraguayans speak both languages. Guaraní is the home language of more than half the population of Paraguay, with higher proportions of its use in rural areas, and those who speak Spanish at home slightly in the majority in the cities. In addition to the strong influence of Guarani, Paraguayan Spanish is also influenced by Rioplatense Spanish due to the geographical, historical, and cultural proximity, as well as the sharing of features such as voseo, which is "the use of vos as a second-person singular pronoun." Paraguayan Spanish is notable for its lack of yeísmo, meaning that the phonemes /ʎ/ and /ʝ/ are distinguished.
The Republic of Paraguay is a mostly bilingual country, as the majority of the population uses Spanish and Guaraní. The Constitution of Paraguay of 1992 declares it as a multicultural and bilingual country, establishing Spanish and Guaraní as official languages. Spanish, an Indo-European language of the Romance branch, is understood by about 90% of the population as a first or second language. Guaraní, an indigenous language of the Tupian family, is understood by 77%, and its use is regulated by the Academy of the Guaraní Language.
Indigenous peoples in Paraguay, or Native Paraguayans, include 17 ethnic groups belonging to five language families. While only a 1.7% of Paraguay's population is fully indigenous, 75% of the population identifies as being partially of indigenous descent; however, the majority do not identify as being indigenous but as Mestizos. Most of the native population lives in the northwestern part of the country, the Gran Chaco.
Bolivians are people identified with the country of Bolivia. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Bolivians, several of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being Bolivian.
In 2014, Spanish was the native language of around 4,000 people living in Trinidad and Tobago. The number has grown substantially referred to the massive immigration of Venezuelans due to the ongoing crisis in that country.
White Paraguayans or European Paraguayans are Paraguayan people whose ancestry lies within the continent of Europe, most notably Spain, Italy and Germany, and to a lesser extent, Ukraine and Poland.