> 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.
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".
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.