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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