Ayuh, as in "Ayuh, that's right!"

Watch me talk about "ayuh" on my YouTube Channel...

or read the gist of it below!

Stand around anywhere Mainers tend to congregate, say at Dunkin Donuts, a public suppah, or a hardware store, and your liable to hear more than a few "ayuhs." The word "ayuh" means "yes" and is used for agreement,  and there's likely to be a lot of agreement at these places, especially if the conversation turns to the quality of the baked beans, or the biscuits.

For some unknown reason, "ayuh" is probably the most mispronounced Mainer word in the tourist lexicon, maybe because  it's made up of two syllables  instead of one: "a" and "yuh." The first syllbles is said just like the name of the letter 'a,' and the second syllable rhymes with "huh." Put it all together, and you get "ayuh."

Now, if you're really lucky at one of these public suppers, you'll hear a rare linguistic phenomenon: implosive speech. When old time Mainers say "ayuh," they sometimes say it while breathing in, not while breathing out, and this way of speaking is heard in very few languages. When we do, we also often drop the "a" syllable, and just say "yuh" a few times in a row, "Yuh, Yuh, Yuh." Listen for it.

It's pretty darned rare.

And now ya know.