Che Beyond Guevara

For most of us lesser mortals who don’t have Spanish in our blood, the word, che, stands for Ernesto Guevara of Argentina and little else. However, now that we are learning Spanish with dreams of becoming one of them someday, it is interesting as well as essential to know that che is to the Argentineans what güey is to the Mexicans, a word with no particular meaning yet ubiquitous all over the country, more so than probably any other vernacular expression. If you are in Buenos Aires, you’d hear this word spoken almost twice every minute and this is no exaggeration of this word’s dominance over the Argentinean lifestyle.

Che is to Argentina what Güey is to Mexico
Photo credit: Adam Jones licensed CC BY-SA 2.0

This article digs into the anatomy of the expression that has, over the decades, come to define the Argentinean identity. In fact, the English equivalents, like buddy or dude, don’t even remotely define your nationality or heritage in the same way as che does.

So what does it really mean?

This word could be used in any one of the three senses depending on the context; though largely interrelated, they have subtle differences in meanings only native Argentinean ears can catch out of nature. These three uses are:

1. As the local Spanish equivalent of “hey” in English (like when you’d call the bartender’s attention for more Quilmes), 
2. As the local Spanish equivalent of “buddy” or “dude” in English (like when you have
3. As a meaningless interjection, a conversation filler (like “er” or “you know” in English or este in Mexican Spanish)

So, we can see che is more than Che Guevara. In fact, Ernesto Guevara himself got this nickname because of his habit of saying this word all the time, just like any Argentinian. Let’s delve a bit deeper into each of the 3 scenarios listed above. Depending on the context, it loosely corresponds to the English expressions like “mate”, “buddy”, “man”, etc. It can also play the role of an interjection not different in usage from the English word, “hey”, when calling someone’s attention; for example, “Che Javi, ¡ven aquí!” (Hey Javi, come here!).

As said above, che can also be employed as an informal conversation filler to assert comprehension, interest, or agreement. In this sense, common equivalents in English would be “well”, “so”, “right”, or even “er”.

The Guevara angle

Ernesto “Che” Guevara de la Serna
Photo credit: Leonora Enking licensed CC BY-SA 2.0

Che has also gained currency in other countries of Latin America that share borders with Argentina, such as Paraguay, Brazil (where it’s spelled tchê), Perú, and Bolivia. Che owes much of its popularity to Mr. Guevara who helped spread it’s usage to Cuba and to the rest of the Spanish-speaking world, and even beyond. Guevara himself earned this nickname while working with Cuban exiles in Guatemala in mid-1950s from his dialectal use of the word. To his Cuban comrades, the expression was a curious feature of his idiolect. Most Latinos know him simply as el Che as a result. Had it not been for him and his role in the Cuban Revolution, the expression would have remained confined within the borders of Argentina, a whole world outside totally unaware of its existence.

So, if you ever happen to be in Argentina and wish to sound like them, you know what the first thing to do would be. Yes, say che each time you begin or end a sentence, pause in between, or call out to someone regardless of how far they are from you. Of course, you also need to master Spanish before you start sounding even remotely like them but che must still be an integral part of your vocabulary.

Origins of che

As interesting as mysterious is the story of che’s etymology which is still not very clear. It is quite possible that this word is drawn from the many South American Indian tongues. At least four indigenous languages are know to have che in their vocabularies; in Guaraní (meaning “I” or “my”), in Mapudungun (meaning “people”), and in Tehuelche and Puelche (meaning “man” in both).

Ancient Spanish is also known to have a word, ce, that was used in a vocative sense for calling out someone’s attention. Theories range from plausible (che being the shortened version of escuche meaning “listen”) to remote (che deriving from the Italian ciao meaning “bye” or cioe meaning “that is”).

Outside of Argentina

Now, time for some interesting trivia. The Argentine word, che has a distant European cousin that goes as xe and is widely used in Valencia as an expression of exasperation, surprise, or protest. The link between Valencia and xe is so strong that the Valencia CF is popularly referred to as the “Xe Team”! Xe also exists in the streets of Terres de l’Ebre in Catalonia.

Coming back to our good old che, it is also used in the Philipines, a former Spanish colony, with a slightly different connotation. Here, che is used when interrupting or dismissing a speaker, almost similar to “shut up” in English.

And for our friends in the Balkans, che is not different from re, which is a similar interjection in your part of the world with identical usage.