The universal word

From The Atlantic: “The expression ‘huh?’ is practically universal, according to a recent study by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in the Netherlands. Most languages sound dramatically different from each other because words aren’t tied to what they stand for … and each language is basically limited to a finite number of possible sound combinations. ‘The likelihood that there are universal words is extremely small,’ the authors write. ‘But … we present a striking exception to this otherwise robust rule.’”