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No, not really. The commentary on the Language Log blog about this 2013 article http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=8369 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/n

No, not really. The commentary on the Language Log blog about this 2013 article http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=8369 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=8369 shows that even the authors of the article admit that there is not the same phonetic form of this word in all major languages, much less all languages in the whole world.

mytochar 12y ago
While that may be true, it is easy to see how they might have come from there, and it's easy to see how in multiple places around the world that "word" could come to mean the same thing all on its own. "Huh?" is simply the onomatopoeia of a quick, burst of air across the neutral state of mouth, tongue and lips, maybe with the opening of one's mouth following it. If someone didn't hear something, or if someone wanted to acknowledge their presence and attentiveness, what simpler way than making a quick sound, without even trying to define it in any direction. That sound happens to be what we call 'huh?' or 'hm?' or 'eh?'
- belorn 12y ago
  I think the part about quick and simple sound is the significant aspect to take away from this. In Swedish the word is "Va", which sounds very different from huh, but share the characteristic of being simple and short.
- shittyanalogy 12y ago
  Neutral mouth state in your language. That distinction is kind of the point. It also begins with an aspiration which some languages do not have.
  - mytochar 12y ago
    The mouth state I was referring to was closed. Are there people elsewhere that normally hold their closed mouth in a :O position?
snogglethorpe 12y ago
Yeah, from what I remember the last time this paper showed up on HN, they didn't really claim "huh" was a universal word, just there was some vaguely similar equivalent in many languages. That seems like a much weaker (and more believable) claim, but it probably doesn't make for good headlines...

mytochar 12y ago

While that may be true, it is easy to see how they might have come from there, and it's easy to see how in multiple places around the world that "word" could come to mean the same thing all on its own. "Huh?" is simply the onomatopoeia of a quick, burst of air across the neutral state of mouth, tongue and lips, maybe with the opening of one's mouth following it. If someone didn't hear something, or if someone wanted to acknowledge their presence and attentiveness, what simpler way than making a quick sound, without even trying to define it in any direction. That sound happens to be what we call 'huh?' or 'hm?' or 'eh?'

belorn 12y ago
I think the part about quick and simple sound is the significant aspect to take away from this. In Swedish the word is "Va", which sounds very different from huh, but share the characteristic of being simple and short.
shittyanalogy 12y ago
Neutral mouth state in your language. That distinction is kind of the point. It also begins with an aspiration which some languages do not have.
- mytochar 12y ago
  The mouth state I was referring to was closed. Are there people elsewhere that normally hold their closed mouth in a :O position?

snogglethorpe 12y ago

Yeah, from what I remember the last time this paper showed up on HN, they didn't really claim "huh" was a universal word, just there was some vaguely similar equivalent in many languages. That seems like a much weaker (and more believable) claim, but it probably doesn't make for good headlines...