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

I feel like it might be the intonation that carries most of the meaning here, I feel like one could vary the ‘sounds’ while keeping intonation and still be understood quite reliably. Affirmative seems to rise toward the end, while negative tends to lower. Beyond that then the rest (the specific combinations of non verbal grunts) is maybe just sort of picked up from each other culturally.