Usted, Vos, and the Quiet Rebellion of Costa Rica

When moving to Costa Rica, one of the first words a newcomer is likely to learn is usted (you). It is the “you” that sets Costa Rica apart. In a single word, it carries the weight of the values that hold up Costa Rican culture: community, respect, equality, dignity. Polite, measured, always present in daily life. Usted (you) is more than grammar. It is history, tradition, a quiet rebellion.

Usted (you) began as vuestra merced (your grace, your mercy). A formal recognition of status. By the late 1500s and 1600s, Spaniards used it to show who was important. If someone was somebody, they were vuestra merced (your grace). If not, they were just vos (you, informal) or tú (you, informal) (Rojas Blanco, 2003).

Costa Rica, however, was different. Campesinos (peasants), ox carts, botas embarradas (muddy boots). No grandes haciendas, no castles, no viceroys. Tú (you, informal)? Fancy. Foreign. Not practical for the people who tilled the soil, carried water, and raised children in mud and rain. It never felt Tico.

Rural communities adopted usted (you) not as submission, but as leveling. If one señor was usted (you), then everyone was. Si usted lo es, yo también lo soy (If you are usted, then so am I). And if everyone was, so was the dog, the cow, the cat, even the baby. Oral histories recall calling pets usted (you). A quiet comic defiance (Rojas Blanco, 2003).

Meanwhile, vos (you, informal) quietly persisted in the Central Valley. The language of soldiers, mercenaries, settlers—people building San José brick by brick. Vos (you, informal) was direct, familiar, practical. Usted (you) leveled social hierarchies with subtlety. Vos (you, informal) carried intimacy, blunt honesty. Tú (you, informal) never took hold. Foreign, fancy, unnecessary, sometimes even demeaning to the practical campesino (peasant) world.

Today, tú (you, informal) has crept back along Costa Rica’s Pacific coast, carried by globalization, tourists, music, media. Manuel Antonio, Tamarindo—places alive with sound, color, visitors. Tú is polite mimicry. It is not fully Tico. Usted(you) remains the backbone of conversation, the word that upholds community, respect, equality, dignity.

When greeting a child, a bartender, or even a stray dog with “¿Cómo está usted?” (How are you, sir?), it is history, tradition, rebellion, all in a single phrase. Quiet, stubborn, dressed in the softest, most respectful clothes. And somewhere, in the corners of the Central Valley, vos (you, informal) hums beneath conversation, a reminder of the soldiers, mercenaries, and everyday people who built this country with their hands, their voices, their lives.

References

• Rojas Blanco, L. (2003). A propósito del voseo: Su historia, su morfología y su situación en Costa Rica. Revista Educación, 27(2), 143–163.

• Schmidt-Rinehart, B. C. (2022). Ustedeo, voseo, or tuteo in Costa Rica: Un arroz con mango. Foreign Language Annals, 55(1), 69–85.

• Vargas Dengo, C. A. (1974). El uso de los pronombres vos y usted en Costa Rica. Revista de Ciencias Sociales, 8, 7–30.