''Che'' (; ; ; ) is an

interjection An interjection is a word or expression that occurs as an utterance on its own and expresses a spontaneous feeling, situation or reaction. It is a diverse category, with many different types, such as exclamations ''(ouch!'', ''wow!''), curses (''da ...

commonly used in

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

Uruguay Uruguay, officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast, while bordering the Río de la Plata to the south and the A ...

Bolivia Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco Province, w ...

Paraguay Paraguay, officially the Republic of Paraguay, is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the Argentina–Paraguay border, south and southwest, Brazil to the Brazil–Paraguay border, east and northeast, and Boli ...

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

(

São Paulo São Paulo (; ; Portuguese for 'Paul the Apostle, Saint Paul') is the capital of the São Paulo (state), state of São Paulo, as well as the List of cities in Brazil by population, most populous city in Brazil, the List of largest cities in the ...

and

Rio Grande do Sul Rio Grande do Sul (, ; ; "Great River of the South") is a Federative units of Brazil, state in the South Region, Brazil, southern region of Brazil. It is the Federative units of Brazil#List, fifth-most populous state and the List of Brazilian s ...

) and

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

(

Valencia Valencia ( , ), formally València (), is the capital of the Province of Valencia, province and Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Valencian Community, the same name in Spain. It is located on the banks of the Turia (r ...

), signifying " hey!", "fellow", "guy". ''Che'' is mainly used as a

vocative In grammar, the vocative case (abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which is used for a noun that identifies a person (animal, object, etc.) being addressed or occasionally for the noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and numeral ...

to call someone's attention (akin to "mate!" or "buddy!" in English), but it is often used as filler too (akin to "right" or "so" in English). The Argentine revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara earned his nickname from his frequent use of the expression, which amused his Cuban comrades.

Etymology

is an

of unclear origin. According to the , it is comparable to the archaic used in Spain to ask for someone's attention or to make someone stop. is now mainly used in Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia and Paraguay. In Brazil, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, the form ''tchê'' is used, and in the state of São Paulo the form ''ché'' is used. In Spain, in the Valencia region, the form ''xe'' is used, with a similar meaning. Due to its spread in South America, alternative etymologies have been suggested by analogy with indigenous words: *In Tupi-Guarani, spoken by certain ethnic groups from Argentina to Brazil, means simply "I" or "my." *In the native Araucanian and Chonan language families of the Southern Cone, means "man" or "people" and is often used as a suffix for

ethnonyms An ethnonym () is a name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms (whose name of the ethnic group has been created by another group of people) and autonyms, or endonyms (whose name is created and used ...

in these languages (such as

Mapuche The Mapuche ( , ) also known as Araucanians are a group of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging e ...

Huilliche The Huilliche (), Huiliche or Huilliche-Mapuche are the southern partiality of the Mapuche macroethnic group in Chile and Argentina. Located in the Zona Sur, they inhabit both Futahuillimapu ("great land of the south") and, as the Cunco or Ve ...

, Tehuelche, and Puelche). * In

Kimbundu Kimbundu, a Bantu language which has sometimes been called Mbundu or North Mbundu (to distinguish it from Umbundu, sometimes called South Mbundu), is the second-most-widely-spoken Bantu language in Angola. Its speakers are concentrated in the n ...

, spoken by Congolese slaves during colonial times, means " hey!", an interjection for calling someone.

Usage

The first recorded use of in Spanish America appears to be in 19th-century Argentine writer Esteban Echeverría's short story "

The Slaughter Yard The Slaughter Yard (Spanish ''El matadero'', title often imprecisely translated as ''The Slaughterhouse'', is a short story by the Argentine poet and essayist Esteban Echeverría (1805–1851). It was the first Argentine work of prose fiction. It ...

" (""), published posthumously in 1871 but set in 1838–1839 in the Rosas era.

("Hey, you black witch, get out of here before I gash you," said the butcher.)

Falkland Islands

In the

Falkland Islands The Falkland Islands (; ), commonly referred to as The Falklands, is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about east of South America's southern Patagonian coast and from Cape Dub ...

, is commonly used by

English speakers English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles, one of the Germanic peoples that migrated to Britain after its Roman o ...

(""). It can also be written as "". The word is sometimes used to describe someone who is a particularly traditional Falkland Islander ("").

Valencia

, is widely used in

and

Terres de l'Ebre Terres de l'Ebre (, in English 'Ebro, Ebre Lands') is the south-westernmost of the eight regions (Vegueria, ''vegueries'') defined by the Regional Plan of Catalonia. It has a population of 182,231 as of 2022, placing it second to last in terms of ...

Catalonia Catalonia is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationalities and regions of Spain, nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia of 2006, Statute of Autonomy. Most of its territory (except the Val d'Aran) is situate ...

(written as ), as an interjection. With the spelling "" in

Valencian Valencian can refer to: * Something related to the Valencian Community ( Valencian Country) in Spain * Something related to the city of Valencia * Something related to the province of Valencia in Spain * Something related to the old Kingdom of ...

, its main use is to express protest, surprise or exasperation. is one of the symbols of the Valencian identity to the point where, for example the

Valencia CF Valencia Club de Fútbol, S. A. D. (; ), commonly referred to as Valencia CF or simply Valencia, is a Spanish professional Association football, football club based in Valencia, Spain, that currently plays in La Liga, the top tier of the Spani ...

is often referred to with the nickname "Xe Team".

Philippines

In the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

, (also spelled ) is used to express the dismissing another person or interrupting another person's speech, similar in context to the English expression "Shut up!".

References

External links

{{wiktionary, che#Spanish Che Guevara Languages of Argentina Spanish slang