Tupi–Guarani languages
language family of South America
Tupi–Guarani (; Tupi-Guarani: [tuˈpi ɡwaɾaˈni]; ) is the most widely distributed subfamily of the Tupian languages of South America. It consists of about fifty languages, including Guarani and Old Tupi. The most widely spoken in modern times by far is Guarani, which is one of the two official languages of Paraguay.
Classification
Rodrigues & Cabral (2012)
Rodrigues & Cabral (2012) propose eight branches of Tupí–Guaraní:
*Cabral argues that Kokama/Omagua is a mixed language, and so not directly classifiable, though most of its basic vocabulary is Tupi–Guarani.
**Not listed in Rodrigues & Cabral (2012)
Sound changes from Proto-Tupi-Guarani (PTG) defining each of the eight Tupi-Guarani groups as listed by Rodrigues & Cabral (2002):
Michael, et al. (2015)
Michael, et al. (2015) propose the following classification for the Tupi–Guarani languages.
O'Hagan et al. (2014, 2019) proposes that Proto-Tupi-Guarani was spoken in the region of the lower Tocantins and Xingu Rivers, just to the south of Marajó Island in eastern Pará State, Brazil. Proto-Omagua-Kokama then expanded up the Amazon River, Proto-Tupinambá expanded south along the Atlantic coast, and the Southern branch expanded up along the Tocantins/Araguaia River towards the Paraná River basin.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q148610. The Library of Congress control number is sh2001010411. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2012, 2002, 2015 and 2014.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tupi–Guarani languages” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.