Latin America
12
Paraguay And Its People
I opened before an interesting thread about people from Paraguay, which was unfortunately deleted on the last forum shut down. So I decided to open a new one, but this time, not only about Paraguayan people, but about Paraguay in general. I am not an expert on Paraguay, and never have been there, but I have some rough general knowledge about this country.
Since it is a south American country very unknown by most people, and there are not Paraguayan posters on this forum, that's why I decided to open this thread.
Paraguay is a very interesting country, IMO. Is one of the only two South American countries (the other one is Bolivia) that is landlocked. It used to be an important power within the South American geopolitical context, occupying a larger territory than today, before the war of the triple Alliance, against Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina, when it lost a great part of its former territory, and a great part of its population. For that reason, Paraguay (formerly a more balanced mestizo country) had to be repopulated by a significant amount of European immigrants (mostly Spanish, Italians, and Germans) many of whom mixed with the decimated balanced mestizo population already present in there, giving as a result a population with a larger Euro contribution (with lots of harnizos and castizos, and significant amounts of near-whites), than in the past. Not saying with that, that the European immigration received by Paraguay is comparable to the respective European immigration on countries like Brazil, Uruguay or Argentina, but it still had a significant impact on increasing the Euro component on its average mixture.
And curiously, despite of being a country with a high Euro component on its average admixture, is the only country in south America that is bilingual. Being the two official languages Spanish and Guarani (a local Amerindian language). A great part of its population (including whites, harnizos and castizos), besides Spanish, are also knowledgeable on Guarani, and can speak fluently in both languages. Jopara, a mixture of Spanish and Guarani, is also widely spoken.
The climate of Paraguay is subtropical, being warm during great part of the year, though the period between May and September bring cold winds from the Andes, and the weather in Paraguay gets cooler, with minimum temperatures that sometimes can fall below freezing.
Some landscapes from Paraguay. Just to start this thread:
Asuncion, its capital (which is on the margin of the Paraguay river, that divides the country in two half parts):
I would appreciate any contribution from other posters. Thanks in advance
Originally Posted by Profileid
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