Everyone knows that Spanish is the most widely spoken language in South America, and many people are aware that Portuguese also plays a major role on the continent as the official language of Brazil. But most people may not know that there’s more to the linguistic landscape of South America than these two closely related Romance languages. Hundreds of indigenous languages from dozens of different language families are still spoken by millions in South America, with the indigenous Guaraní even achieving co-official status in Paraguay. Alongside Guaraní, there’s also Kaiwá, a closely related language with a bit less clout.
Kaiwá boasts around 18,000 native speakers, and while that may pale in comparison to Guaraní’s 6.5 million, Kaiwá nonetheless stands as one of the biggest indigenous languages in South America. Unfortunately, without the recognition and prestige of its cousin Guaraní, Kaiwá faces a number of challenges to its continued prosperity, as the language is typically overlooked and underserved. A low literacy rate among speakers further contributes to the language’s struggles. But at TranslationServices.com, we believe all languages are inherently valuable and deserve great translation services—so that’s why we’ve stepped in and built our own Kaiwá translation team.
If you’d like translation services for Kaiwá, all you have to do is message us and ask about a free quote!
We’d love to tell you a bit more about Kaiwá.
Like many indigenous languages in South America, Kaiwá is shared between multiple nations, with most speakers residing in Brazil and a small community of Kaiwá speakers living in Argentina. More specifically, the Kaiowá people are native to Brazil’s Mato Grosso do Sul state, crossing over the border into the northeastern tip of Argentina. Kaiwá is from the Tupian language family, just like Guaraní, and it’s similar enough to Guaraní that the languages even demonstrate some degree of mutual intelligibility.
Kaiwá’s grammar is nothing like English, which can pose problems to translators. For example, Kaiwá makes it clear whether the speaker is including the listener when they say “we,” while this is left ambiguous in English. Kaiwá also relies heavily on verbal aspect, rather than tense, to describe actions, with dozens of aspect suffixes adding shades of nuance to Kaiwá sentences. Notable also is Kaiwá’s active–stative alignment, where the grammatical treatment of intransitive subjects depends on how “active” the action is, as well as the language’s verb-subject-object word order, which sees sentences fronted with a verb, a relative rarity among the world’s languages.
We have a team full of passionate Kaiwá translators eager to get to work.
With its complicated grammar that differs dramatically from English, Kaiwá is no simple language, but don’t worry—our Kaiwá translation team is entirely comprised of native Kaiwá speakers who understand all the ins and outs of this tricky Tupian tongue. Complementing their robust knowledge of the language is their unparalleled passion, which drives them to strive for quality in accuracy, whether they’re translating into Kaiwá or from Kaiwá. Indeed, our team is committed to delivering great translations every time.
Since there aren’t a lot of Kaiwá speakers, it’s not always possible to cater to specific niches, but we always try our best. We’ve made our Kaiwá translation team as flexible and diverse as possible, covering different dialects and domains of translation. We’re able to translate traditional Kaiwá stories into English, helping the Kaiowá people make a name for themselves distinct from their larger Guaraní cousins. We can also translate literature, digital media, and pedagogical materials into Kaiwá, which can help promote the learning, teaching, and usage of Kaiwá, boosting the literacy rate and helping ensure that this important indigenous language continues to thrive long into the future. Whatever your Kaiwá translation needs may be, we’ll do our best to meet them.
We care about helping you with your Kaiwá translation project. Put our team to work today by sending a message!