Posted on 11/20/2024 12:42:49 PM PST by Red Badger
One word appears to be universal across languages. That's pretty weird, huh?
Go to any country where you don't speak the language, and you will obviously have some trouble communicating. You may have a little help, with languages sharing common roots and similar words, but without background knowledge it's probably time to start pointing, grunting, and apologizing in your own language as best as you can get across.
But there's one word that appears to have a "universal" meaning across many different languages. Say it, and you will likely be understood despite language barriers, prompting linguists to investigate further.
Word sounds, whatever language you are talking in, are generally assumed to not be connected to the meaning that word conveys. There are many different possible sounds available in languages, and across languages without common roots there is little crossover where words with the same meaning have similar sounds to them. The word dog, for example, used in one study, is "Hund" in German, "chien" in French, and "inu" in Japanese.
But one word appears to buck this trend, with the linguists finding it may be universal. That word is "huh". Huh?
"A word like Huh? – used as a repair initiator when, for example, one has not clearly heard what someone just said – is found in roughly the same form and function in spoken languages across the globe," one team of linguists from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics explained in the Ig Nobel Prize-winning study, published in PLOS ONE in 2013, adding "the similarities in form and function of this interjection across languages are much greater than expected by chance."
The team looked at the word across 31 languages, finding that it had universal aspects to how it is spoken and understood. However, they went on to focus on 10 languages from five continents, taking a closer look at how the word is used, pairing up conversation partners in order to study its use.
"In all languages investigated, it is a monosyllable with at most a glottal onset consonant, an unrounded low front central vowel, and questioning intonation," the team explains. While the word sounds slightly different in all languages, it shares these characteristics.
The team discussed a few ideas why this word may be universal, including that it is an innate grunt produced by all humans, and that it resulted from convergent evolution of languages, sort of like how the crab shape evolves a lot in nature.
The team reasoned that if it were simply a sound humans made when confused (like how we cry out in pain) it would not be acquired and perfected during normal linguistic learning in childhood, but would appear before other words are picked up. Instead they favored the convergent evolution hypothesis, explaining that inability to hear other people talk or understand their meaning is a universal phenomenon in conversation, and that the word may have evolved as a short prompt to make a conversational partner repeat themselves or explain themselves better.
"Given these pressures of turn-taking and formulation in conversation, a signal that indicates trouble should be minimal and easy to deploy. At the same time, given the communicative importance of indicating trouble (which if not solved might derail the conversation), such a signal should also clearly indicate a knowledge deficit and push for a response," the team concludes. "These requirements are met rather precisely in the combination of minimal effort and questioning prosody that characterises the [repair] interjection across languages."
I’ve heard that, too. But I understand it to be a myth.
You have to say it multiple times overseas. Ok, ok, ok!
Guess it can be Googled. We learned about it in the ‘60s back when there was still learning in school.
Probably true. But it went global in the 1800s, long before American hegemony.
I think languages were just missing the concept.
Wiki has a pretty OK article on the disputed origin.
No.
Apparently not in North Korea. When the prisoners taken on the USS Pueblo were displayed on TV, they gave the middle finger salute and told the Norks that it meant "good luck"--and the Norks believed them.
Note the words for "dog" and "cat." The word for "dog" is different in many languages--Hund (German), Cano (Italian), Perro (Spanish), Sobaka (Russian).
On the other hand, the words for "cat" are simmilar across many languages--Katze (German) Gatto (Italian) Gato (Spanish), Koshka (Russian), Chat (French). This is probably because dogs were domesticated by humans much erlier than cats.
I would have guessed “dude”.
I learned that “hallelujah” is the same word in all languages. I liked that.
The "Old Kinderhook" story seems to have started after the word had become commonly known.
An alternate theory (also false) was that OK was from Andrew Jackson's attempt to spell "all correct" (as "oll korrect").
Ok
That’s what I thought: ma, mamma. Seems related to an infant wanting to breastfeed to me.
However, in Canadian, it’s “eh?”
I’m dying laughing reading this. I am guardian to my 62 y.o. ex-sister-in-law who is special needs (very child like and severe OCD). Her most hated word is “huh”. I forget and say it in front of her without thinking until I see the scowl on her face. I think it is such a weird thing for her to hate...but then I deal with a lot of oddities with her...lol
Huh or Ho? Asking for a friend.
Huh is probably part of the proto-language that all languages descend from.
I think hello and stop and what are also pretty much universally understood.
The Navajo word for mother is ma.
Shi’ma= My mother.
Yeah I had the thought ma is universal in every language.
Exactly what I was thinking.
The Most Universally Understood Word in the World.......
....among women.....
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.