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> We sampled 31 languages from diverse language families around the world in this study, and we found that all of them have a word with a near-identical sound a

> We sampled 31 languages from diverse language families around the world in this study, and we found that all of them have a word with a near-identical sound and function as English Huh? Is there a table for this? I'm wondering, because I can't readily identify such word in my native language (although I have few candidates that may or may not fit the criteria...) At least, something like "huh" would sound absolutely alien if used in Russian. Phonetically closest I could remember would be "фух" [fuh], which has completely different meaning (sound for relief and/or tiredness, interchangeable with "уф" [uf]). And maybe "хе"/"хех" [he/heh], but that's omantopoeia for a snicker. Neither is normally pronounced with a questioning tone. Can't remember anything else sounding any close to "huh". Just have a feeling that something like "eh?" or, possibly, "hm?" would be more universal. But I didn't any research, that's completely subjective perception.

sm0ckr 11y ago
The Russian example in the paper is something like "a?". Part of their hypothesis that makes "huh" a word is that it is calibrated to the phonetic system of its language.
- zastavka 11y ago
  > calibrated to the phonetic system of its language The funny thing about that, though, is that English "huh" has a phonetic feature that's almost nonexistent in the language otherwise: a nasal vowel not followed by a nasal consonant.
  - coldtea 11y ago
    >a nasal vowel not followed by a nasal consonant Maybe depends on where in the English speaking world? I'm thinking of Scotland, Ireland, Australia, etc.
Strom 11y ago
They seem to be using "что" for the russian question word, which serves the correct function in my experience. [1] However I'm not sure what the "a" interjection is supposed to be and I don't think I have heard it used in practice, although I'm not a native russian speaker. [1] http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/figure/image?size=large&id=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0078273.t001 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/figure/image?size=l...
d0mine 11y ago
"huh?" http://i.imgur.com/JQxm4YG.gif http://i.imgur.com/JQxm4YG.gif is «что?», «ась?» or (nasal vowel) «a?» in Russian "huh?" may be pronounced as «ха-а?» ([hãː] sound)

sm0ckr 11y ago

The Russian example in the paper is something like "a?". Part of their hypothesis that makes "huh" a word is that it is calibrated to the phonetic system of its language.

zastavka 11y ago
> calibrated to the phonetic system of its language The funny thing about that, though, is that English "huh" has a phonetic feature that's almost nonexistent in the language otherwise: a nasal vowel not followed by a nasal consonant.
- coldtea 11y ago
  >a nasal vowel not followed by a nasal consonant Maybe depends on where in the English speaking world? I'm thinking of Scotland, Ireland, Australia, etc.

Strom 11y ago

They seem to be using "что" for the russian question word, which serves the correct function in my experience. [1] However I'm not sure what the "a" interjection is supposed to be and I don't think I have heard it used in practice, although I'm not a native russian speaker. [1] http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/figure/image?size=large&id=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0078273.t001 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/figure/image?size=l...

d0mine 11y ago

"huh?" http://i.imgur.com/JQxm4YG.gif http://i.imgur.com/JQxm4YG.gif is «что?», «ась?» or (nasal vowel) «a?» in Russian "huh?" may be pronounced as «ха-а?» ([hãː] sound)