Thursday, December 05, 2013

yep, ouep, naep

It seems that other languages have their own ways to say "yep." In French, oui becomes ouep (the French version of "yeah" is ouais). In Korean, nae becomes naep (넵). I wonder whether the same holds for German (does ja become jap?*) and Russian (does da become dap?). The "p" sound is a bilabial stop; I imagine that it has pancultural appeal because slamming the lips shut to make the unaspirated "p" sound imparts a certain finality to one's utterance.



*A quick online search turns up the possibility that Germans do, in fact, say jep.


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