\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[cp1252]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{textcomp}
\usepackage{times}

\catcode`\'=13

\def'{\kern.08em\lower.5pt\hbox to 0pt{\hss\string'\hss}\kern.07em }

\title{Typesetting Guaraní with \TeX{}}
\author{Javier Bezos}
\date{2004/07/00}

\begin{document}

\maketitle

\textit{Spanish keywords:} guaraní, ortografía, fuentes, tipografía,
codificación.

\section{Introduction}

Guaraní is the main language spoken in Paraguay and one of the
two official languages of the country (with Spanish). Here are
minimal tools to typeset Guaraní with \TeX{}, which should not
be considered as a finished job.

\section{Input encoding}

No current encoding supports the full set of characters used in
Guaraní, not even Unicode (except if we recur to composite
characters).  Since there is a real necessity for a practical way to
enter Guaraní, a new input encoding has been devised.  There are a few
fonts which replace several characters in the cp 1252 encoding by new
ones.  In particular, all vowels with circumflex are replaced by
vowels with tilde.  That means some glyph are repeated, but this way,
since the circumflex is available in Paraguayan keyboards, they can be
typed easily.  In fact, this is a fairly frequent solution when the
right glyphs are not available.  There is an exception, yet---since cp
1252 does not have a \^{y}, the slot used for \~{y} is that of \"{y}.

These fonts replace the section sign (\S) by \~{g}, which one can
live with, but a few map \~{G} to ASCII \$, which is definitely
unacceptable.  There are much better candidates, whose use is very
restricted as they are mathematical symbols also available in the
Symbol font: $\div$ and $\times$.  Furthermore, this is coherent with
the surrounding characters and with the fact that the uppercase
variant is placed at the same offset as the rest of uppercase
letters.\footnote{There were not the only candidates, yet.  The
islandic thorn is a very improbable letter in this context, for
example, and a few fonts places \~G replacing the uppercase thorn.
The ordinal letters does not fulfil these requiremente and I don't
want to discard two important Spanish signs.} Thus, with these fonts
you will see the text as it would be typeset except for \~g---I hope
the designers of these fonts will reconsider the current
mapping.\footnote{This applies to vowels with tilde, too.  For
consistency, I would rather use the umlaut, so that the key to press
in order to get the tilde would be always the same, but again \"u is
important in Spanish.}

Accented letters (including \'{y}) are part of cp 1252, and therefore
nothing special has to be done here.

The new encoding is named \texttt{win-gn}, which maps the characters with
diacritical marks in the following way (also uppercase):

\begin{center}
\begin{tabular}{cc@{\hskip1.5cm}cc@{\hskip1.5cm}cc}
\ttfamily\^{a} & \~{a}   &   \ttfamily\'{a} & \'{a}   &   $\div$   & \~{g}\\ 
\ttfamily\^{e} & \~{e}   &   \ttfamily\'{e} & \'{e}   &   $\times$ & \~{G}\\ 
\ttfamily\^{\i} & \~{\i} &   \ttfamily\'{\i} & \'{\i} &   \ttfamily\~{n}  & \~{n}\\ 
\ttfamily\^{o} & \~{o}   &   \ttfamily\'{o} & \'{o}   &   \\ 
\ttfamily\^{u} & \~{u}   &   \ttfamily\'{u} & \'{u}   &   \ttfamily\' {}  & '\\
\ttfamily\"{y} & \~{y}   &   \ttfamily\'{y} & \'{y}   &   
\end{tabular}
\end{center}

For example:
\begin{verbatim}
\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[win-gn]{inputenc}

\begin{document}

Mayma yvypóra ou ko yvy ári iñapytl'yre ha eteîcha dignidad 
ha derecho jeguerekópe; ha ikatu rupi oikuaa añetéva ha 
añete'yva, iporâva ha ivaíva, tekotevê pehenguéicha oiko 
oñondivekuéra.

\end{document}
\end{verbatim}
produces:
\begin{quote}
\inputencoding{win-gn}
Mayma yvypóra ou kin-o yvy ári iñapytl'yre ha eteîcha dignidad 
ha derecho jeguerekópe; ha ikatu rupi oikuaa añetéva ha 
añete'yva, iporâva ha ivaíva, tekotevê pehenguéicha oiko 
oñondivekuéra.

(×÷)
\end{quote}

If you insist in having \~{g} in the slot reserved to the section
sign, you can write \verb|\guaranitildegassection|, but I don't like
killing a useful typographical sign not available elsewhere.  If you
want to map them to thorn (\textit{both} upper and lowercase, for
consistency) write \verb|\guaranitildegasthorn| (you can combine
the section and the thorn options).  The
uppercase form \~{G}, however, will \textit{never} be mapped to
\verb|$|.

\section{Babel style}

A style file for Guaraní compatible with babel is provided.

It provides translations for dates [\emph{in fact it doesn't}] but not
for names, since I was unable to find reliable translations.

It provides shorthands using \verb|"| for the acute accent
(unfortunately, \verb|'| cannot be used because it's considered a
letter) and \verb|^| for the tilde.  Note this is fine if your
keyboard combines the tilde with the following vowel, provided
the encoding above is used---thus, you can always use the hat
as a synonymous of \~{}, either if combined or not.

The \verb|'| is known as \textit{puso} and is much like the arabic
ayin, in fact with a similar sound.  The \textit{puso} has been made
active to adjust the spacing; otherwise it could break the visual
continuity of words.  The command \verb|\setguaranipuso| allows to adjust
the spacing to adapt it to the current font. It has three arguments:
space to be removed before, lowering, space to be removed after.
You can deactivate this feature by leaving the three arguments
empty.

\section{Hyphenation}

Very often, a mixture of Guaraní and Spanish, known as Jopara, is
spoken; therefore, these patterns are a mixture of Guaraní (mainly
\emph{mb, nd, ng, nt} as special cases) and Spanish.  In addition,
\verb|'| is a letter but note if you are using the Guaraní style then
that is irrelevant, since the adjustements could kill hyphenation.

\end{document}