Filler

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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, 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" and "basically" are more prevalent among youths.

Filler words in different languages

• In Afrikaans, ah, em, and eh are common fillers.
• In Arabic, يعني yaʿni ('I mean') and وﷲ wallahi ('by God') are common fillers. ^[1][2][3]
• In American Sign Language, 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, mane ("it means")
• In Czech 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, øh is one of the most common fillers.
• In Esperanto, do ('therefore') is the most common filler.
• In Filipino, ah, eh, ay, am are the most common fillers.
• In Finnish, niinku ('like'), tota and simply öö are the most common fillers.
• In French, 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 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, additional filler words include genre (kind), comme (like) and style (style; kind)
• In German, a more extensive series of filler words exists called modal particles, which actually do give the sentence some meaning. More traditional filler words are äh /ɛː/, hm, so /zoː/, tja, and eigentlich ('actually').
• In Hebrew, eh is the most common filler. Em is also quite common.
• In Hindi, matlab ("it means")
• In Hungarian, common filler words include hát (well...) and asszongya (a variant of azt mondja ("it says here...").
• In Icelandic, a common filler is hérna ('here'). Þúst, a contraction of þú veist ('you know') is popular among younger speakers.
• In Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia), anu is one of the most common fillers.
• In Italian, e /e/ is one of the most common fillers.
• In Irish, abair /ˈabˠəɾʲ/ ('say'), bhuel /wɛlʲ/ ('well'), and era /ˈɛɾˠə/ are common fillers, along with emm as in Hiberno-English.
• In Japanese, common fillers include eetto, ano, sono and ee.
• In Korean, eung, eo, ge, and eum are commonly used as fillers.
• in Lithuanian, ten (there) and čia (here) are common fillers.
• In Mandarin Chinese speakers often say 这个 zhège/zhèige ('this'), or 那个 nège/nèige ('that').
• In Norwegian, 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' is also a common filler.
• In Persian bebin (you see) is the most common filler and يعني yaʿni (I mean), as in Arabic and Urdu, is also used.
• In Portuguese tipo (like) is the most common filler.
• In Romanian, 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, 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 znači (means) is one of common fillers.
• In Slovak, 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, fillers are called muletillas; some of the most common in American Spanish are e /e/, este ('this') and o sea (roughly means 'I mean').^[4]
• In Swedish, fillers are called utfyllningsord; some of the most common are öhm, ja ('yes'), ba ('just'), alltså ('therefore', 'thus'), va ('what'), liksom and typ (both similar to the English like).
• In Ukrainian ой /ɔj/ is a common filler.
• In Urdu, yani ('meaning..'), falan falan ('this and that'; 'blah blah'), umm and aaa are also common fillers.
• In Turkish, yani ('meaning..'), şey ('thing') and falan ('as such', 'so on') are common fillers.
• In Welsh, 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, knowing the placeholder names (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

See also

• Discourse marker
• Interjection
• Like: As a discourse particle
• Speech disfluencies
• Valspeak

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. 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. http://jos.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/19/1/35.