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Is huh a universal word? (2013)

huh.ideophone.org

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Re: Is huh a universal word? (2013)

#91

Post by SAI_Peregrinus »

User23 wrote: post #45
deanCommie wrote: post #43

I moved from Russia to Canada as a kid and remember reading English-language books and being really confused by the word "ouch". I thought it would be really weird to say "ouch" when you accidentally stumble or hurt yourself - it felt completely unnatural. It was fascinating that different cultures have such different exclamations for pain! Well it turns out that it's not the case. Humans all make roughly the same so…

What do ducks say in Russia? In America it's quack and in Germany it's kwak.

And if you ask a bird watcher, it's "Wait, what type of duck?"

Re: Is huh a universal word? (2013)

#92

Post by ascar »

ascar wrote: post #89
blattimwind wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not really. It is used in many, many words, with no obvious intrinsic meaning of the prefix itself (and sometimes it's pretty much just redundant), although some clusters of meaning can be made out (often ver- signifies something negative or grave, for example). verstehen, vergehen (active), vergehen (passive), verdammen, verabreden, verfahren, verlaufen, verfestigen, verändern, verallgemeinern, veranschaulichen,…

I can't explain it well, but I somewhat have the feeling that "ver" also mostly indicates an irrevocable change. All of the words you listed can be used as a status for current conditions. The best example is probably "versterben". It's hard to grasp, but I think "ver" has some subliminal meaning. The "ver" words feel different than their synonyms.

Out of curiosity I looked it up and Duden actually has a page on it [1].

It can be broken down to 8 different cases according to Duden and there is actually some logic behind it (though not the best and most consistent :D).

[1] https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/ver_

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