In linguistics, fillers are sounds or words that are spoken to fill up gaps in utterances. Different languages have different characteristic filler sounds; in English, the most common filler sounds are "uh" "er" and "um".
Filler words in different languages
- In Italian, e is one of the most common fillers
- In Mandarin Chinese speakers often say zhege ("this"), or "neige" ("that").
- In Japanese, common fillers include ehto, ano and nto.
- In Spanish, fillers are called muletillas; the most common are este ("this") and o sea ("I mean"). [1]
- In French, euh is most common; other words used as fillers include quoi ("what"), bah (or ben), tu vois ("you see"), and eh bien (roughly "well", as in "well, I'm not sure")
- In Russian, 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 Danish, 'Øh' is one of the most common fillers.
- In Urdu, 'yani' (meaning..), 'falan falan' (this and that; blah blah), 'umm' and 'aaa' are common fillers.
- In Welsh, de or ynde is used as a filler (loosely the equivalent of "you know?" or "innit"). Ym... and Y... are used similarly to the English "Erm...".
A common pitfall among language learners is using fillers from their native tongue. For example, "Quiero una umm.... quesadilla". While less of a shibboleth, knowing the placeholder names (sometimes called kadigans) of a language (e.g. the equivalent of "thingie") 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 thingie that you use to open up a can").
See also
External links
- Why do people say "um" and "er" when hesitating in their speech?, New Scientist, May 6 1995
