Che vuoi?

Che vuoi? (Italian pronunciation: [ke vˈvwɔi]; transl. "what do you want?"), alternatively described as ma che vuoi?, ma che dici?/ma che stai dicendo? ("what are you talking about?"), or simply che? ("what?"), is one of the best known hand gestures of Italy.^[1][2][3] In English, it is sometimes referred to as "pinched fingers" or "finger purse" (Italian: mano a borsa).^[4] It is meant to express disbelief at what the other person is saying or doing, and/or to ridicule their opinions.

Michael Peña doing the gesture alongside Diego Luna at Lucca Comics & Games in 2018.

Gesture overview

This gesture is produced where the tips of all the fingers of one hand are brought together to form an "upward pointing cone", with the hand then being moved up and down either from the wrist or forearm.^[5] The hand can be motionless while performing this hand gesture, or can also be shaken up and down, if the person wants to express impatience.^[5] While it is particularly common in the South, it is a gesture that is widely used in Italy. The frequency and speed of vertical motion indicates the level of frustration of the speaker.^[6]

Legacy

Use in other countries

The gesture is also widely used in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and other Latin American countries with large Italian diasporas, with similar connotations.^[7][8] In Malawi, the gesture refers to human testicles (machende) in the Bantu language Chichewa.^{[citation needed]}

As an emoji

The emoji for the gesture (🤌) was proposed in 2019 as submission L2/19-159,^[3] approved as part of Unicode 13.0 in 2020,^[9] and added later that year as U+1F90C. While the emoji was intended to represent the "che vuoi?" gesture, commenters online christened it "the fisting emoji", as the duckbill-shaped gesture is also the requisite hand position for fisting.^[10][11][12]