Why Do Some People End Their Sentences In ‘Yeah’?

From Quora: “Most British people don’t say Yeah at the end of a sentence. It would be most prevalent in certain dialects in South Eastern England. It is used as a affirmation of the sentence it ends, or the series of sentences that precedes it use, making a statement, to confirm that the listener understands what has been said. It is often used a a question requiring a response from the listener. “That was a great match, yeah.” Is actually a question and yeah would replace “do you agree?” or “wasn’t it?”

Other dialects use other forms in a similar way. The Lothian/Edinburgh/East of Scotland, for example, uses the eh sound in a similar sense that yeah is used. “That was a great match, eh”. The word “Ken” meaning “do you understand?” often replaces or is used interchangeably with “eh” in that dialect. Other dialects around the British isles use different words for the same linguistic purposes. Yeah is not all that common.”

About Luke Ford

I've written five books (see Amazon.com). My work has been covered in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and on 60 Minutes. I teach Alexander Technique in Beverly Hills (Alexander90210.com).
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