Level I BASIC had three error messages: HOW?, WHAT?, and SORRY. User’s Manual for Level I described the error messages this way:
In general, a HOW? message means, “I understand your instructions, but they’re asking me to do something that’s impossible.”
The WHAT? error message, on the other hand, means, “I don’t understand your instructions — either the grammar is wrong or you’re using words that aren’t in my vocabulary.”
The third and final error message is SORRY. It means “Sorry — you have run out of memory locations and must either cut down the program size or purchase additional memory.”
Ah my very first computer to program was the Model I. The fun days of writing programs in BASIC and later assembly language, using a tape cassette machine to load and save programs/data, and using a 300 bps modem to connect to a BBS.
Actually I kind of miss those days as you really felt like you were discovering things and it was possible to learn so much about the computer and know what almost everything was doing. Not that I want to go back to it, but it was quite enjoyable at the time.
> Huh? exhibits linguistic conventions that speakers need to learn in order to use the form properly. A learner of Spanish has to know that repair is initiated with the mid front unrounded vowel ‘‘e8’’, a learner of Cha’palaa has to know that the form is more like ‘‘aQ’’ with falling intonation, and a learner of Dutch has to know that a glottal fricative at onset is common: ‘‘h38’’. Its acquisition follows a normal trajectory, at least in American English-speaking children [37]. Second language learners’ reports confirm that the precise form of this interjection has to be learnt, and that intuitions are not necessarily a reliable guide in this process [38].
> Perhaps there is a continuum from non-linguistic vocalisations like sneezing and crying to prototypical conventional lexical items like bless you and pain [39]. Our evidence suggests that huh? is more on the word side of that continuum. Based on the fact that huh? is integrated in multiple linguistic subsystems and conventionalised in language-specific ways we conclude that huh? a lexical word.
I'm not so sure about this... I speak 3 languages and it does exist in only two of them. The closest you can get to "huh" is probably "eh" in the last one, though that is still fairly close. Mind you, those are all European languages so they probably have influenced one-another significantly over the centuries (even the Slavic language of the bunch). I guess "huh" might have been transferred over to other parts of the world during the time of the colonial empires, making it more common. But all languages? I Doubt it. I happened to be chatting with an old friend who is originally from Lebanon and she said that's not the case in Arabic for instance(with a grain of salt since she also says she's anything but fluent in Arabic).
I speak two, and in one of those, the meaning is completely different. In my native language, the nasal "huh" is actually and acknowledgement as in "yes, I will do it" or "ok, go ahead". Our version of the quizzical "huh" is actually a nasal "aa" sound (as in cat) with an upward inflection.
As a teen in the 80s I went to corner stores which in my city were run by Lebanese people (immigrants of the 1973 civil war). I collected the coins from video games.
As a fan of languages I found the Arabic language fascinating. One thing I noticed was the "eh" sound used for a huh or what.
The older couple would argue frequently so I dare say some of the words may have been swear words.
>> They recorded bits of informal conversation from 31 dialects across 5 continents and suggested that the word ‘huh’ (and its variants) is possibly a universal repair initiator that exists in all languages, performs the same function and sounds roughly the same across languages.
Can we compile a list of more than 31 languages where this interjection sounds nothing like "huh"?
I'll start with Greek:
- Αποφασίσαμε να μετακομίσουμε στην Αλάσκα (We decided to move to Alaska)
- Ε; (/Ɂe/)
Here's an ipa chart where you can click the symbols to get the sounds:
I’m wondering if this isn’t satirical. English is my third language & this word in particular confounded me & still does to some
Degree. In my head I’m always trying to translate between languages & cultures & the word “huh” to me seems uniquely western.
Another giveaway is the awarding of the Ig Nobel Prize & then citation of that fact as evidence of the study’s credibility & importance at the end (masterful comedic move if it was intentional)
It’s pretty clear that there are some grunts/vocalizations that are shared amongst all humans (and possibly primates) these would yes/agreement, no/disagreement, and question mark/surprise those aren’t language dependent.
I’m not sure if it’s actually convergent evolution like the research paper implies my bet would that these predate humans by quite a bit, and some languages have a stronger onomatopoeic relationship between the base grunts and their question word.
Even in English ‘What’ has the basic huh in it, wha/ha it wouldn’t surprise me if the T was added to make it more distinct or allow for more tonal information be passed along such as surprise, displeasure, disappointment and even anger.
My non-linguistically educated opinion is that huh and and other grunts like a-ha (not the band) are probably much older than humans and they are universal just as female copulatory sounds are in humans and other primates (there is more to girls moaning in bed than just pleasure).
french chien, german hund, italian cano, and portuguese cao are all dog. They all have vastly different pronunciations, but they all trace their origins to a single proto-indo-european word. And in english, we use that same word to mean hunt, because that's what dogs do for us.
so the question is not whether words are pronounced the same, but whether they can be traced back through a lineage. where the sound does offer clues when taken as part of a larger tapestry. Another comment here says that the french huh is written (and presumably pronounced) hein. Well isn't that interesting? huh-hunt and hein-chien? (french uses irregular phonetic spelling because it used to be pronounced differently than today) Can we find a pattern of similar changes that would lead us to believe that the historical ancestor word of huh-hien was in use by an early tribe of people before their descendents separated deviated, physically and linguistically?
so, that's in essence a good piece of what linguists study; as in all areas of expertise, non-experts have difficulty contributing as their anecdotal experience has frequently already been catalogued and is part of the hypothesis.
Kind of reminds me of the satirical article that I've been contemplating writing for a few years about trying to recreate the language of Eden by finding words that are the same in all languages. It would assert that the thread Adam and Eve used to sew their fig leaves must have been polyester since the word is universal.
Living in an international non English speaking city, I have noticed more and more people not only using English words when there are perfectly fine, sometimes even shorter local synonyms, but also English sounds embedded into the local language (e.g. "huh?" or "nom nom").
In Israel I'm more likely to say "מה" (Mah? literally "what") than "הא" "Huh".
I catch myself when in the U.S. saying "Mah?" to English speakers.
But "huh" exists, as does "ok" (though people are just as likely to say "בסדר" (b'seder).
It's interesting reading about the history of "ok" -- a very modern word with a traceable origin -- that now exists in all languages. Read Metcalf's book:
I have grown up with Shanghainese as my second language, and never in my life have I, my parents, or my brother ever uttered anything remotely like "huh." Seems like a silly bit of clickbait.
I checked Wiktionary's category of Wu interjections [1] and 呵 (Wiktionary romanization hu (T1),
Sinological IPA /hv̩ʷ⁵³/) "5. Exclamation particle for expressing surprise." [2] seems like it would fit their loose pattern. (Although it might be that this particular meaning isn't actually used in Shanghainese.)
Same in Hebrew and Arabic and quite a few other languages, there is no onomatopoeic word for huh but the vocalization of huh/ah exists.
Some part of me wonders when huh and haha were even added to some languages it wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of basic primate/human vocalizations in written forms are fairly new and only appeared as more complex fictional literature and heck even comic books/illustrated literature became a thing.
The title is misleading. It's not about the specific word "Huh" but about the fact that every language has a word that takes its function - namely to trigger a speaker to repeat their previous sentence.
Very misleading headline. The exact word "huh?" does not exist in every language, it's more that every language has a word that functions like the English language word "huh".
This is like saying every language has a word for yes. It's pretty obvious.
There are very few words that exist across all languages. In Mandarin, for example, there are no words that map well to "yes" and "no" in English. Words like colors rarely have precise equivalents between language families. Languages are far more diverse than most Anglophones know, so this is actually a very interesting hypothesis.
Excuse me? "¿qué?" (ke) literally means "what?". That is like saying "what?" is the English equivalent of "huh?".
The Spanish equivalent would be "¿Eh?", which is also interpreted as not having heard well, triggering the repetition.
Had to read the paper to find this addressed:
> Huh? exhibits linguistic conventions that speakers need to learn in order to use the form properly. A learner of Spanish has to know that repair is initiated with the mid front unrounded vowel “e↗”,
Best way to study this is to write the English "huh" into Google translate and observe how this "expression of scorn, anger, disbelief, surprise, or amusement" is vocalized in different languages. Comparing various written forms is just stoopid. You can clearly see it is the same wide-mouthed grin which produces same wide back-vowel [ɛ] or "ä". "H" is just the associated btreath-sound.
Do people interpret 'huh' as a literal phonetic? I've always interpreted it to mean a number of different sounds people make—unlike, say, "oh" which is a literal sound associated with english.
Naturally people literally do make the "huh" sound in some sort of feedback loop, but I can't be the only one who interprets it like this....
I'd expect many more words to exist in all languages. It would seem that there is a core set of words that are absolutely fundamental to any sort of spoken communication (yes/no, for example), and would be very surprised if this word "huh" is the only one so far found to exist in all languages.
[+] [-] DonHopkins|5 years ago|reply
http://www.trs-80.org/level-1-basic/
Error Messages
Level I BASIC had three error messages: HOW?, WHAT?, and SORRY. User’s Manual for Level I described the error messages this way:
In general, a HOW? message means, “I understand your instructions, but they’re asking me to do something that’s impossible.”
The WHAT? error message, on the other hand, means, “I don’t understand your instructions — either the grammar is wrong or you’re using words that aren’t in my vocabulary.”
The third and final error message is SORRY. It means “Sorry — you have run out of memory locations and must either cut down the program size or purchase additional memory.”
[+] [-] layoutIfNeeded|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] graton|5 years ago|reply
Actually I kind of miss those days as you really felt like you were discovering things and it was possible to learn so much about the computer and know what almost everything was doing. Not that I want to go back to it, but it was quite enjoyable at the time.
[+] [-] m463|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] agumonkey|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] codeflo|5 years ago|reply
> Huh? exhibits linguistic conventions that speakers need to learn in order to use the form properly. A learner of Spanish has to know that repair is initiated with the mid front unrounded vowel ‘‘e8’’, a learner of Cha’palaa has to know that the form is more like ‘‘aQ’’ with falling intonation, and a learner of Dutch has to know that a glottal fricative at onset is common: ‘‘h38’’. Its acquisition follows a normal trajectory, at least in American English-speaking children [37]. Second language learners’ reports confirm that the precise form of this interjection has to be learnt, and that intuitions are not necessarily a reliable guide in this process [38].
> Perhaps there is a continuum from non-linguistic vocalisations like sneezing and crying to prototypical conventional lexical items like bless you and pain [39]. Our evidence suggests that huh? is more on the word side of that continuum. Based on the fact that huh? is integrated in multiple linguistic subsystems and conventionalised in language-specific ways we conclude that huh? a lexical word.
[+] [-] gridlockd|5 years ago|reply
It's an utterance like "oooh" and "hmm" and "haha" which are pretty much universal as well.
[+] [-] axegon_|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tetromino_|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hliyan|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dghughes|5 years ago|reply
As a fan of languages I found the Arabic language fascinating. One thing I noticed was the "eh" sound used for a huh or what.
The older couple would argue frequently so I dare say some of the words may have been swear words.
[+] [-] YeGoblynQueenne|5 years ago|reply
Can we compile a list of more than 31 languages where this interjection sounds nothing like "huh"?
I'll start with Greek:
Here's an ipa chart where you can click the symbols to get the sounds:https://www.internationalphoneticalphabet.org/ipa-sounds/ipa...
[+] [-] mistersquid|5 years ago|reply
In American English, there is "Eh?" "Huh?" and "Eh?" are similar in function but sound different.
[+] [-] danielpassy|5 years ago|reply
- ə
[+] [-] qpleple|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] UperSpaceGuru|5 years ago|reply
Another giveaway is the awarding of the Ig Nobel Prize & then citation of that fact as evidence of the study’s credibility & importance at the end (masterful comedic move if it was intentional)
[+] [-] dogma1138|5 years ago|reply
I’m not sure if it’s actually convergent evolution like the research paper implies my bet would that these predate humans by quite a bit, and some languages have a stronger onomatopoeic relationship between the base grunts and their question word.
Even in English ‘What’ has the basic huh in it, wha/ha it wouldn’t surprise me if the T was added to make it more distinct or allow for more tonal information be passed along such as surprise, displeasure, disappointment and even anger.
My non-linguistically educated opinion is that huh and and other grunts like a-ha (not the band) are probably much older than humans and they are universal just as female copulatory sounds are in humans and other primates (there is more to girls moaning in bed than just pleasure).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_copulatory_vocalizati...
[+] [-] jeltz|5 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URgdIAz4QNg
[+] [-] TomMarius|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kjaftaedi|5 years ago|reply
The more commonly the thing comes up in conversation, the shorter the word tends to be.
Given how vast the pronunciations are (even in the examples they chose), I think they are creating an illusory correlation.
[+] [-] fsckboy|5 years ago|reply
so the question is not whether words are pronounced the same, but whether they can be traced back through a lineage. where the sound does offer clues when taken as part of a larger tapestry. Another comment here says that the french huh is written (and presumably pronounced) hein. Well isn't that interesting? huh-hunt and hein-chien? (french uses irregular phonetic spelling because it used to be pronounced differently than today) Can we find a pattern of similar changes that would lead us to believe that the historical ancestor word of huh-hien was in use by an early tribe of people before their descendents separated deviated, physically and linguistically?
so, that's in essence a good piece of what linguists study; as in all areas of expertise, non-experts have difficulty contributing as their anecdotal experience has frequently already been catalogued and is part of the hypothesis.
[+] [-] dhosek|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] allendoerfer|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fortran77|5 years ago|reply
I catch myself when in the U.S. saying "Mah?" to English speakers.
But "huh" exists, as does "ok" (though people are just as likely to say "בסדר" (b'seder).
It's interesting reading about the history of "ok" -- a very modern word with a traceable origin -- that now exists in all languages. Read Metcalf's book:
https://www.amazon.com/OK-Improbable-Story-Americas-Greatest...
[+] [-] zasz|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yorwba|5 years ago|reply
[1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Wu_interjections
[2] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%91%B5
[+] [-] 7373737373|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rsecora|5 years ago|reply
... But know it exists. I suppose more than one reader has pronounced aloud, in his native language, so it exits.
[+] [-] forty|5 years ago|reply
https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hein_(interjection)
[+] [-] dogma1138|5 years ago|reply
Some part of me wonders when huh and haha were even added to some languages it wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of basic primate/human vocalizations in written forms are fairly new and only appeared as more complex fictional literature and heck even comic books/illustrated literature became a thing.
[+] [-] halfdan|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lazyant|5 years ago|reply
"Eh" in Spanish exists but is more to call for attention, kind of like "ahoy" http://udep.edu.pe/castellanoactual/e-eh-y-he-2/
[+] [-] eternauta3k|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johnchristopher|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chadlavi|5 years ago|reply
This is like saying every language has a word for yes. It's pretty obvious.
[+] [-] ColinWright|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zanderwohl|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JoeAltmaier|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ASalazarMX|5 years ago|reply
Excuse me? "¿qué?" (ke) literally means "what?". That is like saying "what?" is the English equivalent of "huh?".
The Spanish equivalent would be "¿Eh?", which is also interpreted as not having heard well, triggering the repetition.
Had to read the paper to find this addressed:
> Huh? exhibits linguistic conventions that speakers need to learn in order to use the form properly. A learner of Spanish has to know that repair is initiated with the mid front unrounded vowel “e↗”,
[+] [-] timonoko|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] monadic2|5 years ago|reply
Naturally people literally do make the "huh" sound in some sort of feedback loop, but I can't be the only one who interprets it like this....
[+] [-] BurningFrog|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skrebbel|5 years ago|reply
I can't find it back right now (on mobile) but it's warmly recommended and not too long.
[+] [-] INTPenis|5 years ago|reply
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRsL9kCuZaA
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] prmph|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] StavrosK|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hashmush|5 years ago|reply
(it's not really that simple, but it illustrates the point)
[+] [-] oehtXRwMkIs|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thret|5 years ago|reply