Se habla. Es guaraní. No es guaraní. Es castellano. No es castellano. Es guaraní y castellano. No es ni guaraní ni castellano. ¿Qué es?

Abstract

The notion of jopara has been argued for several decades now in Paraguay. This term is used to name a linguistic product, or way of speaking, in which two linguistic codes, Guarani and Spanish, intervene somehow. For over fifty years, the concept of jopara has elicited a rich spectrum of definitions in the specialized literature, complementary in some cases, but contradictory and even antagonistic in others. My purpose, in this article, is to show the different perspectives that specialists from different disciplines have adopted in relation to jopara, and analyze their theoretical and/or empirical foundations, without attempting to provide a new definition, nor clarify the true linguistic nature of what is known as jopara. My objective is to unveil the deep nature of such and such perspective or definition, to know the role of linguistic phenomena and to see which assumptions and preconceived ideas exist in the area of linguistic practices and that of the language.