English
a) "Hello"
b) "huh?" (meaning I didn't hear you)
a) "I just said Hello"
Japanese
a) "I went to buy a car but I bought a camel"
b) "HA?" (WTF?)
a) "Yea, seriously. It drinks lots of water"
> A word like Huh?–used as a repair initiator when, for example, one has not clearly heard what someone just said– is found in roughly the same form and function in spoken languages across the globe. We investigate it in naturally occurring conversations in ten languages and present evidence and
Japanese don't use it for when "one has not clearly heard what someone just said"
> Huh? is a universal word not because it is innate but because it is shaped by selective pressures in an interactional environment that all languages share: that of other-initiated repair.
No, that is not how it's used in Japanese. They do not use "Ha" for "other-initiated repair"
The article argues convincingly that “e” is “huh”-like, defining that as having an unrounded mid-front vowel with a glottal onset (or no onset).
Interestingly, in addition to “e” and “ha”, Japanese also has “hai” with a rising intonation, which is a more polite “e?” - all of these are “huh”-like.
"Hey, what time is it?"
"Huh?"
"I said, what time is it?"
Since they used word "likely", then the whole article does not mean, that huh applies to every language. They also used "more precisely a short questioning interjection with the function of other-initiation of repair" - and that is more closer to truth, as such questioning interjection might be present in all languages. But it hardly represents topic of huh.
Only because of logic used in conclusion, I can dare to say with absolute truth that: "Earth is flat, or more precisely - it is not round as ball". You can just marvel when scientists became lawyers and when science died because of that type of language.
PS With exception to English, other 2 languages that I use as native user do not have any equivalent of huh? at all. Unless it is what?, as a shortened form of question - what did you said?, but it is hardly a candidate to huh? unless we are really stretching the argument to include everything else. With that argumentation we can stretch even mouse onto a elephant.
On the other hand „huh?“ is meant in the paper rather for signaling that I didn’t understood the form, AFAIU. For that I would rather use „Was?“ or „Hm?“ in a slightly higher voice, like the German instance at point 25. in Figure 1 suggest.
As a sidenote, I wonder if the examples in the paper are acceptable in semi-formal conversations, say when talking to colleagues at work. In German I would rather stick with „Wie bitte?“ to avoid judgements like in the answers under https://german.stackexchange.com/questions/4876/verbreitung-...