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Word entry · Arabic
Yaani.
/yaa-ni/· interj. · Arabicexpression
"The Arabic 'I mean…' — a conversational filler."

Literally 'it means'. In practice it functions exactly like the English 'like', 'you know', or 'I mean' — a pause, a hedge, a thinking-out-loud sound dropped into the middle of a sentence.

Once you start hearing it, you hear it constantly. It crosses languages too: people speaking English in Dubai will still drop a 'yaani' in without noticing.