The Guarani Alphabet

Foundations

Guarani is written with 33 letters. Six of them take two characters: ch, mb, nd, ng, nt and rr.

How It Works

Guarani is written in the Latin alphabet with 33 letters. Twelve are vowels: six oral and six nasal, and the nasal ones carry a tilde.

GroupLetters
Oral vowelsa e i o u y
Nasal vowelsã ẽ ĩ õ ũ ỹ
Consonantsch g g̃ h j k l m mb n nd ng nt ñ p r rr s t v and the puso ʼ

The pairs ch, mb, nd, ng, nt and rr are single letters, so mbohapy “three” starts with one letter, mb. The letter nt is rare, and you find it in Spanish loanwords such as ntende “to understand”, from entender. The letter rr is also used for Spanish loanwords, such as Rrúsia “Russia”.

Consonant letters are named with an e at the end: che, mbe, re. The puso is the one exception, and its name is puso. The name achegety is built from the names a, che and ge and the ending -ty, “a group”. No letter is silent. The Academy of the Guarani Language also allows d, f and ll in Spanish loanwords.

Examples (5)

  1. achegety

    the alphabet

    The name comes from the letter names a, che and ge.

  2. che

    I

    The two characters ch are one letter, and it sounds like English sh.

  3. mbohapy

    three

    The word starts with the single letter mb.

  4. kangue

    bone

    The two characters ng are one letter inside this word.

  5. ñeʼẽ

    word, language

    It holds three special letters: ñ, the puso ʼ and the nasal vowel ẽ.

How It Connects

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The Guarani AlphabetFoundations

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Words in This Pattern

achegetyaeioõẽndepuʼaepundie