Pretty much everyone on Earth says 'Huh?'

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published 18 September 2015

"Haha" and "mama" are considered to be universal words — that is, words that have basically the same sound and meaning across many dissimilar languages. There aren't very many of these words around, but almost by accident, a team of Dutch researchers found another that will have you scratching your head.

Huh?

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It's maybe not so surprising that the word should be so widespread, because it acts as a pretty perfect and speedy solution to a common problem — that is, the need to convey quickly that you didn't quite catch what was said, but without totally derailing the conversational flow. The researchers muse that the seemingly universal use of the word may be the linguistic equivalent to the concept of convergent evolution: "When different species live in similar conditions, they can independently evolve similar traits," they write. "In a similar way, the similarity of huh? across a set of widely divergent languages may be due to the fact that the constraints from its environment are the same everywhere." [New York]

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.