A 2013 survey found that the interjection “huh?” is a practically universal word, serving to signal confusion in dozens of languages around the world.
Communication barriers are common when traveling to a country where the local language is not spoken. Although some languages share common roots that may offer a slight advantage, travelers often resort to gestures, sounds, and attempts in their mother tongue. However, researchers have identified a word that appears to transcend language barriers: “Also?”
One carried out by linguists from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, published in PLOS ONE in 2013, suggests that the interjection “huh?” — or “huh?” in English-, can be universal. The team analyzed its form and function in 31 languages, ultimately focusing on 10 languages from five continents.
Their findings showed a remarkable consistency in the way the “huh?” is spoken and understood globally, what they won an Ig Nobel Prize for his work, explains .
Unlike most words, whose sounds are unrelated to their meanings, “huh?” It defies linguistic conventions, being a monosyllable with a glottal beginning, a low central unrounded vowel and an interrogative intonation, characteristics that are surprisingly consistent between the languages analyzed.
The researchers proposed two hypotheses to explain this phenomenon. One suggests that “huh?” is an innate sound that humans produce instinctively when confusedsimilar to a cry of pain. However, this theory was rejected, since “huh?” it is not an innate vocalization, but a learned response acquired during childhood, just like other words.
Instead, the team favored the idea of a convergent evolution in language. Just as species independently develop similar characteristics to adapt to their environments, languages may have developed the “huh?” as a universal tool for tackling a shared conversational challenge: misunderstandings.
In conversations, the inability to hear or understand someone is a universal occurrence. The “huh?” serves as a minimum effort sign to ask for clarification without interrupting the flow of dialogue. Its simplicity and clarity make it ideal for solving communication problems.
The study concludes that the universality of “huh?” highlights the way human language evolves under similar pressures. So the next time you feel lost for words in a foreign country, the “huh?” could be the solution.
