Years of working in Paraty, tour guides always receive the same question: “But is Paraty written with Y or I?”. It’s a very frequent question, because we see in documents, books and even advertisements from the city hall with both spellings.
But what does Paraty mean?
Like a lot of names of neighborhoods, streets and cities, the word Paraty comes from the Tupi language. The Tupi was the main language of several indigenous people in cost of Brazil even before the portuguese colonization.
The letter Y represents water and PARATI was a very abundant fish in the area. The union of Parati + y means the “water of Parati” the area to which the Jesuits referred the place.
Grammar changes
In 1942, we had a law modifying the Brazilian spelling and it decided to abolish the “foreign letters” k, y and w. Later, we have an adaptation of the law, it saying that the proper names of people and places are not changed, such as William, Katia or… Paraty.
Finally in 2009, foreign letters are again inserted in the Portuguese language alphabet in Brazil. After many decades of adaptation, we still have some documents and advertisements that announce Parati with i.
Paraty is a city full of curiosities and details. To learn more, don’t forget to do our Paraty Free Walking Tour. We are wait for you!
