The teaching of Guarani in paraguayan schools and the issue of diglossic bilingualism: an interlocution with Bartomeu Melià

Abstract

This paper analyzes Paraguayan education with special emphasis on the concepts, "diglossia" and "interculturality" in the academic environment. Paraguay is a country with a uniquely relevant aspect, the majority of the population speaks Guarani, an Amerindian language from Tupi. As far as Castilian is concerned, they have their own dialect, a kind of Castilian with traces of Guarani, called Ríoplatense Spanish. The analysis of bilingualism and the issues of language disuse will be one of the points explored in this paper. Although culturally distinct, both languages present bilingual/intercultural policy as key policies for indigenous schools. The paper intends, in this aspect, to know if the bilingualism experienced in Paraguayan schools does not act as a disuse of indigenous languages or Guarani (Castelian). According to Bartomeu Melià (2010, 2011), the state recommends that native populations be literate in Castilian, but this does not occur in the case of Castilian speakers who do not graduate in a single indigenous language. Interculturality refers to the exchange between several distinct cultures, however, in most educational systems, both in Brazil and Paraguay, the exchanges are unilateral. The dominant Castilian or Portuguese is learned under high prestige, while the indigenous languages have a culturally diglossic education. Based on Bartomeu Melià's arguments, these and other aspects of Paraguayan bilingualism will be focused on in this paper.