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 "er" (British spelling, "uh" in American spelling) and "um". American and British English spelling differences are one aspect of American and British English differences. ...

Filler words in different languages

• In Italian, e is one of the most common fillers
• In Mandarin Chinese speakers often say zhege zhege zhege ("this this this")
• In Japanese, e or to or some combination e...to are often used; also the filler word nani ("what") is common
• 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" (how is it called).
• In Danish, 'Øh' is one of the most common fillers.

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") This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Placeholder names are words that refer to objects or people whose names are either irrelevant or unknown in the context which it is being discussed. ... A placeholder name occupies a syntactic space between nouns and pronouns. ...

See also

• Interjection
• Discourse marker
• Speech disfluencies

An interjection is a part of speech that usually has no grammatical connection to the rest of the sentence and simply expresses emotion on the part of the speaker, although most interjections have clear definitions. ... In discourse analysis, a discourse marker is a word or phrase that marks a boundary in a discourse, typically as part of a dialogue. ... Speech disfluencies are parts of speech which are not generally recognized as purposeful or containing formal meaning, usually expressed as pauses such as uh or er, but also extending to repairs (He was wearing bla—uh, blue pants), and articulation problems such as stuttering. ...

External links

• Why do people say "um" and "er" when hesitating in their speech?, New Scientist, May 6 1995