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Comment by tokyodude | Hacker News Reader

I must be skimming too much. They say "huh" is universal but point out Japan (and apparently Korean) use "eh". "eh" != "huh", not even close nor is its usage. Maybe these are are different but you can use "eh" to acknowledge you heard. With a question inflection to point out you didn't hear.

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Huh is not used in spanish at all. Maybe in the more english-influenced caribbean regions but in the southern cone we don't say "huh" at all, rather "eh?".

In Korean to "initiate repair" when you haven't heard quite well, typically you'll say, "네" (i.e. "yes?").

Seems to be automatic. When people are mildly stunned, they'll often go "어" (eoh).

I find it to be automatic for a lot of people. I know several people that go "mh?" (in english) or "hein?" (in french) when they perfectly understood what you said. It's just a reflex, maybe to give themselves a bit more time to think. It's a bit annoying, I often just wait a second and they start answering

As a teenager I did that too, I always replied (the equivalent in my langague of) "what?" to whatever was said. Just a reflex. Then my aunt pointed it out to me, and I was able to stop doing that. Good thing.

Ah that reminds me of when I was in school, and there was a girl who started every answer with "Okay!...".

The teacher would ask, "What's the capital of X?", and she'd respond confidently (and correctly), "Okay! The capital of X is Y."

Not sure if it was conscious on her part or not. I'm sure it came from the spotlight, since she was otherwise "normal" (not that there necessarily is such a thing).

By close, they mean (from the article):

> Everywhere this word appears to be a simple syllable with a low-front central vowel, glottal onset consonant if any, and questioning intonation.

My wife's parents have a similar thing in English as an aside. `Huh` indicates that they've heard something novel, `huh?` indicates that they didn't hear you.

Is that in the paper? Because I can't find that in the article and neither Japanese nor Korean is part of the 10 listed languages.

In Malayalam its "eh" as well.

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