It is one of the most irritating words in the English language and it seems there is no escaping it.The word ‘huh’ is in worldwide use, a study found.

Researchers discovered that languages spoken in countries from Ghana and Laos to Iceland and Italy all include ‘huh’, or something that sounds very like it.

They said that while the project may sound frivolous, the word is an ‘indispensable’ part of speech.

Without it and similar words, it would be impossible to show that we haven’t heard or understood what had been said and this would lead to constant misunderstandings.

But while other words used in the same context, such as ‘sorry’ or ‘what’, vary widely across languages, ‘huh?’ remains unchanged.

The Dutch researchers recorded around 20 informal conversations in each of ten languages from around the world.

These included Siwu, which is spoken in Ghana, Cha’palaa from Ecuador, and Murriny Patha - an Australian Aboriginal language, as well as Italian, Spanish, Dutch and Mandarin Chinese.

The tapes were analysed for words that sounded like ‘huh?’ and were used to request that whatever had just been said was repeated.

All contained a version of ‘huh’. The word was also found in another 21 languages form around the globe that were studied in less detail.

While there were subtle differences in each country, all had a near-identical sound.

This is surprising because normally unrelated languages will use very different words to describe the same thing.

For instance, the Japanese for ‘dog’ is ‘inu’, while the French is ‘chien’.

It is thought that languages around the world have developed their own version of ‘huh?’ because the sound is quick and simple to form, as well as being easily understood.

Or, in words of the EU-funded researchers, it is a ‘simple, minimal, quick-to-produce questioning syllable’.

Writing in the journal PLoS ONE, they said that while the sound may seem almost primitive in its simplicity, it still has to be learnt.

In fact, it takes children until the age of five to master its use.

The researchers, from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen said: ‘”Huh?” is not trivial.

‘It might seem frivolous or even trivial to carry out scientific research into a world like ‘huh?’ but in fact this little word is an indispensable tool in human communication.’

They also have an answer for those who claim that ‘huh?’ isn’t a word.

They say that it qualifies because of the subtle changes made to its sound to make it fit with each language.

It also is something we learn to say, rather than a grunt or cry that we are born knowing how to make.

據(jù)英國《每日郵報》11月8日報道，荷蘭研究人員研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，英語中最氣人的詞“huh”(哼!哈!啊!——表示疑問、驚訝或異議等)已經(jīng)成為世界各種語言“不可缺少的”組成部分。

報道稱，荷蘭馬克斯普蘭克語言心理研究院的研究人員錄制了來自世界各地的10種語言，每種語言分別錄制了20段口語對話，其中包括意大利語、西班牙語、荷蘭語、澳大利亞的土著語言和中國的普通話，還有些語言來自加納和厄瓜多爾等國家。

研究人員分析錄音后發(fā)現(xiàn)，無論是加納和老撾，還是冰島和意大利，其語言中都包含“huh”，或發(fā)音類似的詞。而且，如果沒有這類詞，我們就無法表達沒有聽見或理解別人話語之意，而這會經(jīng)常產(chǎn)生誤解。

雖然各種語言在表達“sorry”(對不起)或“what”(什么)等意時使用的詞匯有極大差別，但“huh”卻是通用的。研究人員還在未詳細研究的另外21種語言形式中發(fā)現(xiàn)了這個詞。

這著實令人驚訝，因為一般情況下，不同的語言會用極不相同的詞匯描述相同的事物。例如，dog(狗)在日語中的發(fā)音為“inu”，而法語則說“chien”。

研究人員認為，世界各地的語言都有自己的“huh”，是因為發(fā)音快捷、簡單，也容易理解。不過，它不是我們生下來就會發(fā)出的咕噥聲或哭泣聲，它需要學習。事實上，孩子們要到5歲才能掌握它的用法。

研究人員表示，這個詞是人類交流不可缺少的工具，因為其發(fā)聲的微妙變化使它適用于每種語言。