In linguistics, fillers are sounds or words that are spoken to fill up gaps in utterances. These are not to be confused with placeholder names Placeholder names are words that can refer to objects or people whose names are either temporarily forgotten, irrelevant or unknown in the context in which it is being discussed. "Whatchamacallit" and "Whatshisname" or "Whatshername" (for men and women, respectively) are defining examples, such as thingamajig, which refer to objects or people whose names are temporarily forgotten, irrelevant or unknown. Different languages have different characteristic filler sounds; in English, the most common filler sounds are uh /ə/, er /ɚ/ and um /əm/. "Like", "y'know", "actually", and "basically" are more prevalent among youths.
Contents |
Filler words in different languages
- In Afrikaans Elsewhere in Africa, notably Botswana, Zambia, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Swaziland, ah, em, and eh are common fillers.
- In Arabic Arabic (العربية al-ʿarabīyah, ( Arabic pronunciation ) or عربي ʿarabi) is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. Arabic has more speakers than any other language in the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million, يعني yaʿni ('I mean') and وﷲ wallahi ('by God') are common fillers. [1][2][3]
- In American Sign Language American Sign Language is the dominant sign language of the Deaf Americans (which include the Deaf communities in the United States, in the English-speaking parts of Canada, and in some regions of Mexico[citation needed]). Although the United Kingdom and the United States share English as a spoken and written language, British Sign Language (BSL), UM can be signed with open-8 held at chin, palm in, eyebrows down (similar to FAVORITE); or bilateral symmetric bent-V, palm out, repeated axial rotation of wrist (similar to QUOTE).
- In Bengali Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script. With nearly 230 million total speakers, Bengali is one of the, mane ("it means")
- In Czech Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian until the late 19th century in English. Czech is similar to and mutually intelligible with Slovak and, to a lesser extent, to Polish and Sorbian tak ('so'), prostě ('simply'), jako ('like') are used as fillers. Čili (or) and že (that (conj.)) might also be. A person who uses 'jako' sounds a bit simple-minded to others.
- In Danish Danish (dansk, pronounced [d̥ænˀsɡ̊] ) is one of the North Germanic languages (also called Scandinavian languages), a sub-group of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. It is spoken by around 6 million people, mainly in Denmark; the language is also used by the 50,000 Danes in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany, øh is one of the most common fillers.
- In Dutch Dutch ( Nederlands ) is a West Germanic language spoken by over 22 million people as a native language and over 5 million people as a second language. Most native speakers live in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, with smaller groups of speakers in parts of France, Germany and several former Dutch colonies. It is closely related to other, eh and ehm are one of the most common fillers.
- In Esperanto Esperanto is the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto, the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, the Unua Libro, in 1887. The word esperanto means "one who hopes" in the language itself. The language's original name was ", do ('therefore') is the most common filler.
- In Filipino Filipino is the national language of the Philippines and, along with English, is an official language designated in the 1987 Philippine Constitution. Filipino is an Austronesian language that is based on existing native languages in the Philippines; the most significant influence is the Tagalog language. A large number of Spanish and English, ah, eh, ay, am, ano (literally "what") are the most common fillers.
- In Finnish Finnish ( suomi , or suomen kieli) is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland (92% as of 2006[update]) and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a Finnish dialect, are spoken. The Kven, niinku ('like'), tota and simply öö are the most common fillers.
- In French French is a Romance language spoken as a first language by about 136 million people worldwide. Around 190 million people speak French as a second language, and an additional 200 million speak it as an acquired foreign language. French speaking communities are present in 57 countries and territories. Most native speakers of the language live in, euh /ø/ is most common; other words used as fillers include quoi ('what'), bah, ben ('well'), tu vois ('you see'), and eh bien (roughly 'well', as in 'well, I'm not sure'). Outside of France France (pronounced /ˈfrænts/ frantss or /ˈfrɑːnts/ frahnts; French pronunciation (help·info): [fʁɑ̃s]), officially the French Republic (French: République française, pronounced: [ʁepyblik fʁɑ̃sɛz]), is a state in Western Europe with several of its overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, other expressions such as tu sais ('you know'), t’sais’veux dire? ('you know what I mean?') or allez une fois ('go one time'). In Québec Quebec is the second most populous province, after Ontario. Most inhabitants live in urban areas near the Saint Lawrence River between Montreal and Quebec City, the capital. English-speaking communities and English-language institutions are concentrated in the west of the island of Montreal but are also significantly present in the Outaouais, the, additional filler words include genre (kind), comme (like) and style (style; kind)
- In German German (Deutsch, [ˈdɔʏtʃ] ) is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. It is one of the world's major languages and the most widely spoken first language in the European Union. Globally, German is spoken by approximately 120 million native speakers and also by about 80 million non-native speakers, a more extensive series of filler words exists called modal particles In the German language, a modal particle is an uninflected word used mainly in spontaneous spoken language in colloquial registers. These words have a dual function: reflecting the mood or attitude of the speaker or narrator, and highlighting the sentence focus, which actually do give the sentence some meaning. More traditional filler words are äh /ɛː/, hm, so /zoː/, tja, and eigentlich ('actually').
- In Hebrew Extinct as a regularly spoken language by the 4th century CE, but survived as a liturgical and literary language; revived in the 1880s, eh is the most common filler. Em is also quite common.
- In Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: हिन्दी or हिंदी, IAST: Hindī, IPA: [ˈɦɪndiː] ) is the name given to various Indo-Aryan languages, dialects, and language registers spoken in northern and central India, Pakistan, Fiji, Mauritius, and Surinam, matlab ("it means") "Mah"
- In Hungarian Hungarian (magyar nyelv listen ) is a Uralic language, more specifically a Finno-Ugric language distantly related to Finnish, Estonian and a number of other minority languages spoken in the Baltic states and northern European Russia eastward into central Siberia. Finno-Ugric languages are not related to the Indo-european languages that dominate, common filler words include hát (well...) and asszongya (a variant of azt mondja ("it says here...").
- In Icelandic Icelandic ( íslenska ) is a North Germanic language, the main language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese, a common filler is hérna ('here'). Þúst, a contraction of þú veist ('you know') is popular among younger speakers.
- In Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia) Indonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries, anu is one of the most common fillers.
- In Italian Italian ( italiano , or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken as a native language by about 62 million people in Italy, San Marino and parts of Switzerland, Croatia, Slovenia and France. It is spoken as a first language by many Italian citizens and immigrants abroad, for a total of approximately 70 million native speakers. In addition, it, e /e/ is one of the most common fillers.
- In Irish Irish is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language only by a small minority of the Irish population but is also used as a second language by a larger and expanding minority[citation needed]. It also plays an important, abair /ˈabˠəɾʲ/ ('say'), bhuel /wɛlʲ/ ('well'), and era /ˈɛɾˠə/ are common fillers, along with emm as in Hiberno-English.
- In Japanese Japanese (日本語?, [nihoŋɡo] ) is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic (or Japanese-Ryukyuan) language family. There are a number of proposed relationships with other languages, but none of them has gained unanimous acceptance. Japanese is an agglutinative, common fillers include eetto, ano, sono and ee.
- In Korean Korean is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, the system being currently called Hangul. Prior, eung, eo, ge, and eum are commonly used as fillers.
- in Lithuanian Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they are not mutually intelligible. It is written in an, ten (there) and čia (here) are common fillers.
- In Mandarin Chinese The latter grouping is defined and used mainly by linguists, and is not commonly used outside of academic circles as a self-description. Instead, when asked to describe the spoken form they are using, Chinese speaking a form of non-Standard Mandarin will describe the variant that they are speaking, for example Southwestern Mandarin or Northeastern speakers often say 这个 zhège/zhèige ('this'), or 那个 nàge/nèige ('that').
- In Norwegian Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants (see Danish language), common fillers are øh, altså, på en måte ('in a way'), ikke sant (literally 'not true?' / 'no kidding', 'exactly'), vel ('well') and liksom ('like'). In Bergen, sant (true) is often used instead of ikke sant. In the Trøndelag region, skjø' (see?, understand?) is also a common filler.
- In Persian Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is widely spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and to some extent in Iraq, Bahrain, and Oman. New Persian, which usually is called also by the names of Farsi, Parsi, Dari or Parsi-ye-Dari (Dari Persian), can be classified linguistically bebin (you see) and masalan (for instance) are commonly used filler words. يعني yaʿni (I mean), as in Arabic and Urdu, is also used.
- In Portuguese Portuguese ( português or língua portuguesa) is a Romance language that originated from a fusion of the dialect spoken in what is now Galicia and northern Portugal with closely related dialects spoken in territories to the south which had not yet been reconquered by the Christians to the Arabs by the time Portugal was born as a Christian kingdom tipo (like) is the most common filler.
- In Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română [ˈlimba roˈmɨnə] ("the Romanian language") or româneşte (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova. It has official status in Romania,, deci /detʃʲ/ ('therefore') is common, especially in school. ă /ə/ is also very common (and can be lengthened according to the pause in speech, rendered in writing as ăăă), whereas păi /pəj/ is widely used by almost anyone.
- In Russian Russian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of three living members of the East Slavic languages. Written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th, fillers are called слова-паразиты (vermin words); the most common are Э-э ('eh'), это ('this'), того ('that'), ну ('well'), значит ('it means'), как его ('what's it [called]'), типа ('like').
- In Serbian Serbian is a South Slavic language, spoken mainly in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, and in the Serbian diaspora. Serbian is the official language in Serbia, one of the official languages in Bosnia and Herzegovina and a minority language in Croatia, Hungary, Montenegro, Republic of Macedonia, Romania and Slovakia. Standard znači (means) is one of common fillers.
- In Slovak The Slovak language ( slovenský jazyk , slovenčina, not to be confused with slovenski jezik, slovenščina, or Slovenian), is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Slavic languages (together with Czech, Polish, Silesian, Kashubian, and Sorbian), oné ('that'), tento ('this'), proste ('simply') or akože are used as fillers. Hungarian izé (or izí in its Slovak pronunciation) can also be heard, especially in those parts of the country with large Hungarian population. Ta is a filler typical of Eastern Slovak and one of the most parodied features thereof.
- In Spanish Countries where Spanish has official status. States of the U.S. where Spanish has no official status but is spoken by 25% or more of the population. States of the U.S. where Spanish has no official status but is spoken by 10-20% of the population. States of the U.S. where Spanish has no official status but is spoken by 5-9.9% of the population, fillers are called muletillas; some of the most common in American Spanish American Spanish refers to the Spanish spoken in the Americas as opposed to European Spanish (Spanish spoken in the Iberian Peninsula) and African Spanish (spoken in Africa) are e /e/, este ('this') and o sea (roughly means 'I mean').[4]
- In Swedish Swedish ( svenska ) is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the Åland islands. It is to a considerable extent mutually intelligible with Norwegian and to a lesser extent with Danish (see especially "Classification"). Along, fillers are called utfyllningsord; some of the most common are öhm, ja ('yes'), ba (comes from 'bara' which means 'just'), alltså ('therefore', 'thus'), va (comes from 'vad' which means 'what'), liksom and typ (both similar to the English like).
- In Ukrainian Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses the Cyrillic alphabet ой /ɔj/ is a common filler.
- In Urdu Urdu (Urdu: اردو, IPA: [ˈʊrduː] ) is a standardised register of Hindustani. It is the national language and one of the two official languages of Pakistan (the other being English), and one of 22 scheduled languages of India, as an official language of five Indian states. Its vocabulary developed under Persian, Turkic, and Pashto[citation, yani ('meaning..'), falan falan ('this and that'; 'blah blah'), umm and aaa are also common fillers.
- In Tamil Tamil (தமிழ் tamiḻ; [t̪ɐmɨɻ] ) is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Puducherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore. It is one of the twenty-two scheduled, paatheenga-na ('if you see..'), apparam ('then..') are a few to name.
- In Turkish Turkish (Türkçe IPA [ˈt̪yɾktʃe] ) is spoken as a first language by over 77 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Cyprus, with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo, Albania and other parts of Eastern, yani ('meaning..'), şey ('thing') and falan ('as such', 'so on') are common fillers.
- In Welsh Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, in England by some along the Welsh border, in the Welsh immigrant colony in the Chubut Valley in Argentine Patagonia, and the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, de or ynde is used as a filler (loosely the equivalent of "you know?" or "isn't it"). Ym... and Y... are used similarly to the English "um...".
A common pitfall among language learners is using fillers from their native tongue. For example, "Quiero una umm.... quesadilla". While less of a shibboleth A shibboleth is any distinguishing practice that is indicative of one's social or regional origin. It usually refers to features of language, and particularly to a word whose pronunciation identifies its speaker as being a member or not a member of a particular group, knowing the placeholder names Placeholder names are words that can refer to objects or people whose names are either temporarily forgotten, irrelevant or unknown in the context in which it is being discussed. "Whatchamacallit" and "Whatshisname" or "Whatshername" (for men and women, respectively) are defining examples (sometimes called kadigans) of a language (e.g. the equivalent of "thingy") can also be useful to attain fluency, such as the French truc: "Je cherche le truc qu'on utilise pour ouvrir une boîte" ("I'm looking for the thingy that you use to open up a can").
References
- ^ http://www.unilang.org/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=27708&p=552394
- ^ http://egyptianarabiccourse.blogspot.com/2008/03/lesson-one.html
- ^ http://books.google.ca/books?id=ynmIk1i6CT0C&pg=PA3&lpg=PA3
- ^ [1]
See also
- Discourse marker
- Interjection In grammar, an interjection or exclamation is a lexical category used as a way to refer to some mentioned or understood noun without a grammatical connection with the rest of the sentence, by simply expressing an isolated emotion on the part of the speaker . Filled pauses such as uh, er, um, huzzah are also considered interjections. Interjections
- Like In the English language, the word like has a very flexible range of uses, ranging from conventional to non-standard. It can be used as a noun, verb, adverb, adjective, preposition, particle, conjunction, hedge, interjection, and quotative: As a discourse particle
- Speech disfluencies Speech disfluencies are any of various breaks, irregularities, or utterances that are often not consistent with any specific grammatical construction and occur within the flow of otherwise fluent speech. These include, for example, words and sentences that are cut off mid-utterance, phrases that are restarted or repeated, repeated syllables,
- Valspeak Valspeak is a common name for an American sociolect, originally of Los Angeles, Californians, in particular Valley girls. This stereotype originated in the 1970s, but was at its peak in the 1980s and lost popularity in the late 1990s and 2000s. Though for a brief period a national fad, many phrases and elements of Valspeak, along with surfer slang
External links
- Why do people say "um" and "er" when hesitating in their speech?, New Scientist, May 6, 1995
- Lotozo, Eils (September 4 2002). "The way teens talk, like, serves a purpose". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is a daily morning broadsheet printed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. It is the primary newspaper in Milwaukee, the largest newspaper in Wisconsin and is distributed widely throughout the state. It is the namesake of its owner, Journal Communications, which is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange. http://www2.jsonline.com/enter/gen/sep02/71334.asp. Citing Siegel, Muffy E. A. (2002). "Like: The Discourse Particle and Semantics". Journal of Semantics 19 (1): 35–71. doi A digital object identifier is a character string used to uniquely identify an electronic document or other object. Metadata about the object is stored in association with the DOI name and this metadata may include a location, such as a URL, where the object can be found. The DOI for a document is permanent, whereas its location and other metadata:10.1093/jos/19.1.35. http://jos.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/19/1/35.
Categories: Linguistics
|
