The history of Paraguay encompasses thousands of years of human habitation. Both agricultural and nomadic Guaycuruan lived in the region at the time of the Spanish Conquest. It became a relatively neglected part of the Spanish Empire due to its isolation and lack of mineral wealth, nonetheless a small group of Spanish settlers came to reside in the area, increasingly intermarrying with native women to produce a mestizo population. In the 17th and 18th centuries, Jesuit missionaries organized the natives into planned communities known as reducciones, and the experiment gained notable attention in Enlightenment Era Europe.

Guarani, specifically the primary variety known as Paraguayan Guarani, is a South American language that belongs to the Tupi–Guarani branch of the Tupian language family. It is one of the official languages of Paraguay, where it is spoken by the majority of the population, and where half of the rural population are monolingual speakers of the language.