How did uhn-uh come to mean “no” and uh-huh come to mean “yes” in English?

Question

Pretty much the title. Also curious if other languages have similar non-word sounds for negation/affirmation.

In: Other

Answer 1

we do that too in latinamerican spanish, i’m from Chile and here ajá means yes and um-um means no (sorry for the ambiguity but I don’t know how to write such peculiar sounds). But in the same way that other people have commented, the ajá is a higher pitch and the um-um is waaay lower.