Originally Posted By: Zed
The trick is to put it where you would use the US huh, "New hummer, huh?"


In the part of the US I am from, "huh" is mostly used as a marker of confusion or not understanding: "Huh?", or, in an interestingly ironic twist, to indicate understanding, maybe mixed with a little "if you say so" skepticism, generally after an explanation: "Huh."

Around here, most people would actually use the /ay/ sound on your example: "New Hummer, aay?", but it is not the same phoneme as the Canadian. It is a bit harder and longer. I would venture to say that it probably dripped south from Canada, being as close as we are. It is sometimes accompanied by an elbow nudge (or movement).

I always thought of the Canadian /ay/ as used in looking for confirmation or rolling a question to another person, as in "I don't, eh?", meaning "I don't know, do you?". My mother was Canadian (making me 1/2, ha ha), but she didn't use "eh" much at all. She probably dropped before I was born, having moved here when she got married, but she was also a teacher, and perhaps scrubbed it from her speech for that reason. :0)