El discurso de la prohibición del guaraní: ¿cien años de continuidad?

Abstract

The present article addresses a document about the Guaraní language published in the newspaper El Progreso in Mercedes, Corrientes, in 1906. In it, Kupalov, the author’s pen-name, criticizes an article by Volapuk published in the same newspaper, in which Guaraní is related to different disparaging features. The text analyzed consists of a number of arguments against Volapuk’s assumptions. We have identified a number of aspects depicted in the document which characterize the sociolinguistic situation at that time. Such aspects are similar to those we have stated as features of the Guaraní prohibition discourse a hundred years later in the ethnographic study “Entiendo pero no hablo” (Gandulfo 2007a): on the one hand, the use of Guaraní associated with derogatory characteristics of the speaker, and the relationship between Guaraní and internal social struggles; on the other hand an educational situation revealing differences as regards the status of Guaraní and national languages to the detriment of the former.

Keywords

• Guaraní
• invisibility
• linguistic ideology
• prohibition discourse