Some linguists, scientists who study everything about language, especially, the psychology of language have declared that “Huh?” is a universal word. What they mean is that every language has the interjection “Huh?” in universal form and universal function. That is, by form they mean a one-syllable meaningful unit of speech with, in most cases, a rising intonation sound like in a question. By function they mean it has the same purpose of use, that is, it is used when someone has not caught what someone just said.
Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics published in the journal PLOS ONE their study about “Huh?” They compared 10 different spoken languages from 5 continents in detail. They collected almost 200 audio recordings of real, everyday, informal language use for analysis or careful examination. They also located examples of the interjection in an additional 21 languages.
Their discovery that the interjection looked similar across languages led to the detail study which has proven to be true. “Huh?” may seem to be an unlikely research topic, however, social human communication depends very much upon the use of it. Their key findingscame from the following languages: Dutch, Icelandic, Italian, Lao, Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, Russian, Cha’palaa (a minority language of Ecuador), Siwu (a minority language of Ghana), and Murrin-Patha (an Australian Aboriginal language). However, they also studied French, German, Norwegian, Japanese, and Korean among others.
“Huh?” is not trivial. It is an essential tool in human communication. Without it, or similar words, we would be unable to signal when we have problems with hearing or understanding what was said. “Huh?” is universal. The sampled languages from around the world had a word with a near-identical sound and function. “Huh?” is a word. It is not like human sounds you are born with like coughing and sneezing, screams and crying, smiles and laughter, grunts and pain cries. It is a learned speech sound. It is a full-fledged function word. The authors of the study propose that it is found in all languages because of convergent evolution; meaning all languages converged on its use because of need. That is, all languages independently developed it because it was the most simple, smallest possible, easy and quick-to-produce questioning syllable. It is needed in “turns at talk” because trouble in hearing and understanding is a regular feature of conversation. It tells quickly that one speaker missed something and pushes for a repeat from the other speaker so that the conversation will not come to a stop.
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It is important to note that the researchers did not look at other uses of “Huh?” that exist because they wanted to avoid paths of meaning change, and, only compare like with like. Also, they did not look at the known “Huh?-like” content question words and expressions that function in similar ways, such as What’s that?, Sorry?, What was that again?, Excuse me?, Say what?, Pardon me?, What?, I beg your pardon?, What did you say? And so on.
Thus, the interjection “Huh?” gives information and is here to stay in our conversations regardless of alertness or emotional state. Just ask any inattentive teenager! Huh?