Leonardo Cerno is one of the world's leading experts on the colonial variant of the Guaraní language and modern Guaraní-Spanish bilingualism in South America. Guaraní is one of the most important Indigenous languages in the Americas in terms of speakers today (c. 6 million) and the size of the historical corpus.

He will be on campus to teach and conduct research for the fall 2025 semester. Cerno's academic stay is possible thanks to the Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence program; this is the first time the University of Arkansas has received a fellow from this federal program. Shawn Austin, historian and associate professor of history, applied to the program so that he and Cerno could co-teach a course and continue their translation of 18th-century Guaraní texts.

The departments of History and World Languages, Literatures and Cultures are co-hosting Cerno.

Together Cerno and Austin will teach a dual-listed, interdisciplinary course — HIST 42803/WLLC 3980V Indigenous Communities and Languages in Spanish and Portuguese Lowland South America, 1500-1800 — which unpacks fascinating Indigenous linguistic histories of the colonial era in Portuguese Brazil and Spanish Río de la Plata.

The course begins with the Iberian conquests, then zooms in on the Río de la Plata (Argentina, S. Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay) to explore one of the most interesting societies, puzzled over by the most important eighteenth-century European philosophers: the Guaraní missions (17th to 19th centuries). What's unique about what Cerno and Austin bring to this history are Indigenous words and texts. Students at the U of A will be the first in the U.S. to read the scholars' original translations of long forgotten and fascinating Guaraní writings. 

"Our department is honored that Dr. Cerno will be joining our community for a semester," said Todd Cleveland, the History Department's acting chair, "and I encourage students to take advantage of this unique opportunity to understand South American history through the compelling interdisciplinary methods Drs. Cerno and Austin have prepared." 

Cerno has published extensively on Indigenous linguistics in South America. With two other German linguists, Cerno published a groundbreaking translation of a Guaraní-language account (1705) of a forgotten South American front in the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714). He works with Indigenous communities and campesino Guaraní speakers in northeastern Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil to better understand Guaraní's many dialects and Spanish-Guaraní bilingualism.

Linda Jones, chair of the World Languages Department, said, "World Languages is so excited for this opportunity to introduce an important Indigenous language to the U of A campus, in particular one that is deeply rooted in the history and peoples of South America. Reading Guarani texts in translation within the course offered will connect the reader to the Guaraní people in an authentic and fascinating way."

Cerno and Austin have contracted with Dumbarton Oaks Press to publish their translations of Guaraní letters composed during the "Guaraní War" (1753-1756) in which thousands of Guaraní rejected a tyrannical relocation order. 

Stay tuned for more programming on Cerno's research.