{{Short description|Indigenous people of the northern Patagonian pampas west of the Paraná River}} {{redirect|Het people|the sexual orientation|Heterosexuality|text=Not to be confused with the Hittites<!-- Het- the name in many languages -->}} {{multiple issues| {{one source|date=January 2025}} {{expand Spanish|Hets|date=January 2025}} {{primary sources|date=January 2025}} {{sources exist|date=January 2025}} }} '''Het''' is the term used by Thomas Falkner, an English Jesuit, at the end of the 18th century for various nomadic groups from the {{ill|Región pampeana|es|lt=Argentine Pampas}} and Patagonia, including the so-called {{ill|Indígenas pampas|es|lt=Indigenous Pampas}} and northern Tehuelches, but excluding the Mapuche (speakers of Mapudungun).

Falkner subdivided the Het into the '''Chechehet''', the '''Diuihet''' or '''Didiuhet''', and the '''Taluhet'''. The easternmost Didiuhet, near modern Buenos Aires and influenced by the Guarani, were called the Querandí. It is not clear if these peoples were related linguistically or only culturally.

The Het were neighbored on the north by the Chaná, on the northwest and west by the Mapuche, and on the south by the Puelche.

==Peoples== Faulkner in the middle-to-late 1700s had listed few ethnic groups in the northeastern pampas region that were not Araucanian:{{sfn|Campbell|2024|p=333}} *The '''Taluhet''' occupied the modern provinces of San Luis in the east, Córdoba, and Santa Fe in the west. *The '''Diuihet''' (Divihet, Didiuhet, Diliuhet) inhabited the coastal region between the La Plata and Paraná rivers in Buenos Aires Province, southern Santa Fe, and inland through La Pampa and as far as Mendoza. The easternmost Diuihet were the Querandí.<ref>Th. Falkner: ''A description of Patagonia and the adjoining parts of South America'', 1774</ref> *The '''Chechehet''' lived as far south as the mouths of the Colorado and Río Negro rivers in southern Buenos Aires Province. *The '''Tehuelhet''' are now known as the Tehuelche people.

== Language == {{Infobox language family | name = Het | region = Argentina | familycolor = american | glotto = none | acceptance = disputed | fam1 = Macro-Panoan ? | fam2 = Mosetén–Chonan ? | child1 = Chechehet {{extinct}} | child2 = Querandí {{extinct}} | child4 = ?Taluhet {{extinct}} (unattested) | mapcaption2 = Approximate distribution of languages in the southern tip of South America at the time of the Conquest. | map2 = Patagonian lang.png | map = Chon-Gununa-Het languages.png | mapcaption = {{legend|9933FF|Het}} | altname = (=Gününa Küne) | fam3 = Chon ? | fam4 = Gününa Küne–Het ? }} In 1922, Robert Lehmann-Nitsche noted the common "het" in the demonyms and proposed the "Het" language family with multiple members, including Chechehet, Querandí, and Taluhet, although later reduced the family himself to just Chechehet. This idea was later picked up by Loukotka and Mason, but strongly opposed by Antonio Tovar and {{ill|José Pedro Viegas-Barros|es}}. Modern researchers consider the Chechehet language to be another name for Gününa Küne.{{sfn|Campbell|2024|pp=333-334}} In accordance with this theory, Glottolog combines linguistic materials for Chechehet with Puelche.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Glottolog 5.1 - Puelche |url=https://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/puel1244 |access-date=2025-02-26 |website=glottolog.org}}</ref>

Viegas-Barros, based on the work of Rodolfo Casamiquela, states that the Het languages are in fact "ghost languages" that never existed, the language name arising from problems of interpretation.<ref name="JPVB">{{cite journal |last1= Viegas-Barros|first1= José Pedro|year= 1992|trans-title= The Tehuelche linguistic family|journal = Revista Patagónica|volume= |number= 54|pages= 39–46|issn= |url= https://www.bfa.fcnym.unlp.edu.ar/catalogo/doc_num.php?explnum_id=2653|title= La familia lingüística tehuelche|language=es}}</ref>

The supposed linguistic similarities between languages of different tribes, grouped by Falkner together as "Hets", are highly disputable.{{citation needed|date=January 2025}}

According to Lyle Campbell, the languages are equivalent to Gününa Küne. Campbell (2024) declares Loukotka's findings as stemming from a confusion with a long history".{{sfn|Campbell|2024|p=333}}

===Vocabularies=== Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for Chechehet and Querandí;<ref name="Loukotka">{{cite book |last=Loukotka |first=Čestmír |authorlink=Čestmír Loukotka |title=Classification of South American Indian languages |url=https://archive.org/details/classificationof0007louk |url-access=registration |publisher=UCLA Latin American Center |year=1968 |location=Los Angeles}}</ref> Taluhet is unattested.

:{| class="wikitable" ! gloss !! Chechehet !! Querandí<br>(Didiuhet) |- | two | chivil || |- | moon | || zobá |- | earth | chu || |- | bow | || afia |- | great | hati || |}

==References== {{reflist}}

== Sources == * {{cite book |last=Campbell |first=L. |title=The Indigenous Languages of the Americas: History and Classification |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2024 |isbn=978-0-19-767346-1 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oWAHEQAAQBAJ&pg=PA333 |access-date=2025-03-01 | chapter= Phantom, False, and Spurious Languages of South America }}

{{authority control}}{{Ancestry and ethnicity in Argentina}}

Category:Languages of Argentina Category:Chonan languages Category:Indigenous peoples of the Southern Cone Category:Indigenous peoples in Argentina Category:Languages extinct in the 19th century Category:Unclassified languages of South America