What the Indian head wobble really says | Hacker News Reader

What the Indian head wobble really says

bbc.com

43 pointsMiriamWeiner46 comments

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I can’t believe this was posted to the BBC website and didn’t have a single GIF or video.

This was amusing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj56IPJOqWE

This was helpful too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RaBxH_MKQI

Besides the heterogeneous nature of being an "Indian", the wobble is just agreement.

The person who's wobbling their head is agreeing to what is being said. It's not a yes/no.

It's mostly a "Go ahead and say what you want, I'll do what I want to do after you're done".

I didn't grow up in India, so I can see it for what it is, but I am Indian, so the subtleties are visible to me.

And aptly, people who don't need to take any shit/be kind in that instance/appear submissive don't "wobble" their heads. Those people mostly reserve it for their elders (parents/elder relatives mostly).

Take all of this with a huge grain of salt.

> The person who's wobbling their head is agreeing to what is being said. It's not a yes/no.

> It's mostly a "Go ahead and say what you want, I'll do what I want to do after you're done".

So "sure"/"ack" ("it resolves")? That's roughly how I'd interpreted it from interacting with colleagues, an acknowledgement.

Yes, it's an agreement, or like "sure yeah".

As some from Yorkshire I like 'aye' it's an anachronistic affirmative yes, old people still use 'nay' as well.

Language is a wonderful thing.

Yeah, it's definitely not an agreement. Acknowledgement is the most apt description.

> "Go ahead and say what you want, I'll do what I want to do after you're done".

Doesn't sound like "agreement" to me!

Perhaps similar to the verbal “uh-huh” or “sure” that Americans - at least in the Midwest - would use to affirm attention to what a speaker is saying but without actually stating agreement.

Specifically, "sure, I know you think that but you're wrong and I'm too polite to say it to your face right now."

That was my intended meaning, yes.

that sound is more of a eeehh or meeh depending on context. those two sounds verbally state "i disagree but dont feel like arguing"

“Eeeh” or “meh” would indeed signal mild disagreement, but it’s stronger.

I’d say there is a slight inflection to the “uh-huh”/“sure” (almost a low-tone questinging iflextion?) to indicate less-than-full-throated-agreement, but that’s difficult to convey in writing.

which are you saying is "more negative" eeeh or uh-huh? The way I hear it, eeeh is much more rude or insulting, but also has more levity. Uh-huh is a mild eye roll sarcasm meant as an insult, more to the side of someones back. Eeeehhh, is "pretty sure you are wrong" to their face.

In my experience it can also be an ACK signal. Not a yes or no just a periodic acknowledgement that they are following what you are saying as you say it.

There are forms of this in many cultures.

Just FYI - India is not a homogenous society. It has 22 official languages, 29 states + 7 union territories, 9 officially recognized religions.

So, no, there is no "Indian head wobble". What the fine article describes is a distinct cultural thing amongst a very specific subset of India's population that western society has encountered so far.

Ditto for “Indian accent”. There are hundreds of Indian accents.

If you don't have an ear for specific accents they start to sound very similar/the same.

There are hundreds of British (or Chinese, Japanese etc) accents. But unless you are familiar with them, and often the language they speak most (as you tend to change your accent for speaking a different language) they all sound unbelievably similar.

"British accent" "Irish accent" "American accent" "Chinese accent"

The writer is an Indian and lives in Bangalore.

And I agree that he is overgeneralizing. There are a lot of people that i come across who don't do this wobble. But in IT hubs (Hyd, Bng etc) it does seems to a general behavior.

That's not to say there isn't an 'indian head wobble'. It doesn't mean everyone or even most indians wobble their heads, or that there aren't people outside india who do so too, but that there are people in india who wobble their head, and it has come to be identified with india.

It's surprising how even the most educated western, either Europeans or Americans are unaware of this fact. So many times people would go, "he/she doesn't look very Indian".

It's common enough that you can call it Indian head wobble.

Not all Americans are fat, you can still talk about the American obesity problem even if a few of the states are fitter than the European average.

People talk about American accent, but a Texan, a Californian and a New Yorker (just to pick 3 of many examples) will sound very distinct.

People talk about beer tasting German, but it's very distinct between Bavaria and Cologne.

Not talking about the Indian head wobble is just unnecessary hair splitting. It's an interesting phenomenon which is spread widely enough in India and throughout the Indian diaspora that you can call it that.

I'm from a neighbour state Kerala and we don't have this head wobble.

My colleague (a Kerala native) begs to differ :)

> Not talking about the Indian head wobble is just unnecessary hair splitting. It's an interesting phenomenon which is spread widely enough in India and throughout the Indian diaspora that you can call it that.

I don't know if you're Indian or very familiar with India, but this really is not true.

I'm from Punjab and the first time I travelled to Karnataka the head wobble was something of a culture shock to me. The way people constantly shook their heads to signal being attentive towards another person who is speaking, the way I saw an auto driver do a slow 180-degree shake to signal "yes I'm familiar with the address" while I thought he was trying to say "I've never heard of that place in my life", we have nothing similar in Punjab or its neighbouring states.

Maybe it's common in the Indian diaspora, because there is a lot of cross-Indian-state intermixing outside India, but that is not the case within India itself.

I have seen it in Pakistani Punjab, from an employee of the PTDC office in Lahore

If you have to be that specific, perhaps the employee picked it up elsewhere? ;)

Unless you've also seen the South Indian headshake, you might not know exactly what I meant by the culture shock. No Punjabi would do a long, slow sweep of their head to say "yes".

Sounds like your "Correct Overgeneralization" :)

India is more diverse than you or I can imagine, so it really makes no sense to compare it with the likes of the US or Germany. Heck, I would argue that the vast majority of countries are perfectly homogenous relative to India.

Geninuely curious, where in India this is pretty common?

South India.

Greek here, never been to India, never hanged out with Indians. The head nod is very easy to interpret. It means 'I am willing to talk to you and even agree with you if you play nice, but at the same time I am looking at you, inspecting you and trying to understand where this is going'.

Given the fact that you lack any Indian cultural references, and given that your interpretation seems to differ from those suggested in the article, what makes you think that your interpretation is anything other than something in your own head?

My interpretation doesn't actual differ a lot from that in the article. I have watched enough videos, you can easily understand what is going on by interpreting the full body language of the participants, part of which the head nod is.

My understanding is that it is an affirmation of understanding and only of understanding, á la Roger in radiophone.

It is not same as Wilco, Correct, or Negative, it is just and only just Roger.

Do people writing about India in the west even know that there is an entire part of the country where people look more "East Asian" than "Indian"? Are writers generally aware of the North-Eastern parts of India at all?

As the article and the comments say, it is a gesture rich in context. While there is some common meaning, that meaning can differ based on the situation, the people, the relationships. And if you spend enough time with your team, you'll get to know them and you will understand them, with this gesture or any other. Trying to write up a black and white interpretation of such things is no more effective than it would be if the article was reversed, trying to tell people in India what it means when Americans move their eyebrows.

Just get to know the people you work with -- it will all fall into place.

I have never seen this in eastern and north-eastern India. I think its mostly done by people from west and south India.

This is the second time I've seen this article or something similar recently. I don't think this is exclusive to Indian culture. A non-committal reaction, where you don't want to nod or shake your head "no" is common in other parts of the world. I do it and I'm neither Indian nor have I worked in India.

The 'Indian head wobble' is a very distinct thing, separate from, at least, anything I've ever seen in any western culture.

Not sure why this post is being downvoted but I agree with this. It’s not entirely unique to India but its frequency/speed of wobble is distinct from others. Perhaps it has to do with their languages. Most of the languages have up and down tone that goes along with the wobble.

The node code is very confusing when working with cross cultural teams

Very bad article... Not a single GIF or video to demonstrate the movement? You prefer decribing the motion instead of showing it? Are you the BBC or some sort of amateur blog?

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